NOTE: My comments below are not directed towards anyone in
particular... mostly this just expresses my frustration with some of
the more harmful politics that Apache Geronimo has picked up over the
past few months...
Although RTC has slowed down development a bit (or even more), it
will pay off very
soon.
I think "slowed down development a bit (or even more)" is an
understatement. I believe that RTC has the development team running
through molasses. And in some cases has caused some patches and
issues to get stuck in the tar. Not really the types of things you
want from a vibrant, active and positive community.
We need to be very patient until more committers become PMC
members and their votes are binding.
This will not remedy the fact that RTC rules dictate that patches
must be applied and tested before a +1 can be given, which normally
would have happened once when the *trusted* developer has applied the
patch. But now we need a gang of people to apply the patch, which
usually means dropping any other work they were doing to get a clean
tree and then apply the patch, pray that the build succeeds in a
reasonable amount of time, running through a test case or two and
then blowing it all away to get back to the work that they were
actually doing before.
I fail to see how this will increase anything but frustration of
developers to have to jump through those hoops to get changes
made.... maybe it will increase communication about how frustrating
RTC is though ;-)
Painful, but in the end it might boost development significantly.
How will this boost anything?
AFAIUI, the whole point of RTC is to ensure communication through
dev/user mailing lists rather than in closed circles.
I don't understand how, dropping what I am working on, applying
patches, running tests and then coaxing the few PMC members with
votes will ensure more communication. In may respects I think it
actually hinders communication, as people will just shy away from
applying changes or from proposing to make new changes. RTC, IMO is
the road to complacency.
It would seem to me that the process for RTC would be to send an
RTC about the Maven 1 -> 2
conversion with some preliminary ideas.
I'm confused now... how can one send a RTC w/o having a patch or
patches for others to review?
* * *
RTC is crippling Apache Geronimo's ability to become a vibrant player
in the app-server space. RTC has made us a Red Tape Community, where
it takes weeks to get trivial changes implemented.
The problem is made worse by the fact that most of the PMC members
who we are supposed to coax into following RTC and voting in the
changes are simply not available. Not all of them mind you, but out
of 10 PMC members I can only think of a few who have had time or
desire to participate in the RTC and actually give their binding
votes. IMO the only way that RTC could possibly with is if the PMC
members drop anything else they are working on and devote their time
to applying patches, building and testing... BUT, I don't see that
happening. The people who are actually doing the work are for the
most part not PMC members. The people who are actually applying
these patches are not PMC members. Lucky enough though, I think that
there are at least 3 PMC members who are being active, so there is a
shot for us to get work done... its just going to be really slow
moving. At this rate, maybe we will have EJB3 support out by the
time that EJB4 is dominant... or get out build working on m2 by the
time m3 is out...
:-\
--jason
