I reread the flow of this email exchange and I feel obliged to point out a few things:
@Scott: 1) "I won't be attending simply because it is organized by Pierre [...]" > I think that is a mistake. If any member of the community feels strongly > enough to rattle the cages, the pmc should hear him out or alternatively > ask him to publish the results on the ml so that the community can share > the outcome. I can see how this is an understandable reaction, but I still > think it may not be advisable to go harshly against those who are > apparently interested in the project. 2) "When I joined this project there was very little infighting and contributing was a rewarding experience that earned you respect and praise from your peers." > I am interested to hear how, from your experience, this changed. You can > rest assured that I have deep respect for your contributions (or for > anybody who is participating in this community for this matter). Perhaps > you are sharing my belief that commitment is not rewarding at this moment? 3) "For those of you who have an opinion but aren't actually doing anything tangible (commit reviews, patch reviews, ticket research, contributing designs and documentation)" > I think you are pointing directly towards the types of contribution the > PMC values. As pointed out before, I think this is only half the truth. By > reducing the involvement on code alone, I fear that you are taking away > the team spirit. Any team effort on larger project requires good > architects, good project managers, good requirement managers and quality > managers right next to developers. By focusing only on code, you are > pretty much taking the value out of the other contributions. @ Jacopo 1) "I would like to mention that Pierre is the only one person in the history of the project that sent his remarks against the OFBiz PMC to the Board of the Apache Software Foundation, asking them to step-in and act versus the OFBiz PMC: he actually did it twice (2 years ago and again yesterday)." > I can see that this is difficult not to take personally, but isn't that > why the board of the ASF exists? If he feels misunderstood or neglected by > the PMC, perhaps we should ask why and try to reason with him > accordingly?! 2)"I completely disagree that the problem is that the PMC/committers group is not noticing contributors; the problem is instead that the current admission bar that we have set, is probably too high for this community." > With a single sentence you pretty much vented your own frustration while > simultaneously taking away other contributions. As Jacques also pointed > out there is a long list of contributors who haven't received any merit > despite their years of effort: Ruth, BJ, Rupert, etc. are all examples of > this behavior and it is this that I think is breaking the community > spirit. Some of them have left the community for these reasons by now, > btw. 3) "As regards your specific position, since this seems to be your main concern/complain, please see below: " ... "Here is the whole list of commits in which you have some credit (over a few years):" > Here again you focus on a single piece of contribution: code. That is > probably only your own view on things, but I must say that I find it > rather astounding. I would also like to point out that in no way I > inferred that "this seems to be my main concern/complain". I can only > speak for myself when I complain about problems in the community and so I > did. Not only did you fail to see the point I was raising, you also turned > it into a personal insult. I think this explains a lot on what is > currently going on in the community. 4) “This is a completely different topic that doesn't affect in any way our decisions about new committers.” > Actually it couldn’t be further from the truth. I currently have the > impression that the PMC is run like a boys club, where those connected to > the HWM are getting more likely to become a part of. I would like to point > out that the list of people I mentioned who haven’t been active in this > community in years, or perhaps only slightly for a short while, is also a > list dominated by former or current HWM employees. Again, I am not trying to offend those who have actually gained their merit through actual commitment, but with the list of people I mentioned there is at least some doubt. I also have nothing against HWM and I understand OFBiz’ history, but precisely because of it the PMC has to make sure it isn’t seen as overrun by a single company. @David 1) "This is an inspiring reminder of how things actually work in the ASF. Apache OFBiz is not managed top-down, it is managed bottom-up based on actual effort and merit. " If this were the case, then the discussion would go differently. It is definately a top-down management approach. I have no problem with it, but we should accept that this is the way it is: you gain merit through action and hence climb up the ladder. -- View this message in context: http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/The-future-of-OFBiz-Open-Discussion-tp4648865p4649395.html Sent from the OFBiz - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
