The only concept that I found worth talking about (apologies if I missed
others covered by the incredible noise!) is Sam's suggestion that
'degree of cross-pollination' should be used as a metric to measure the
value of merging efforts.
Of all the other proposed metrics, I find this one the most appealing
because is *not* technology oriented.
The current effort merging guidelines (code donations approuval) are
strictly based on the presumed health of the community behind the
donation. The reason for this is that merging healthy communities brings
value since it expands the global IQ.
Now, Sam points out that this might not be enough, as many efforts don't
cross-pollinate, thus fail to increase the 'genetic variety' of the
community.
In society, two terms are used for this 'melting pot' (when cultural
cross-pollination exists) and 'mixing bowl' (when cultural groups are
forced live side by side, but don't share much).
Sourceforge is the ultimate 'mixing bowl' and we don't want that.
But is Jakarta (or XML) really a 'melting pot'?
Would a single container increase or decrease such cross-pollination?
Would POI increase it more on Jakarta, more on XML or more remaining it
on Sourceforge?
Would factoring out a bunch of efforts to 'tools.apache.org' increase it
or decrease it?
Would moving the velocity-based stylesheet language to XML increase or
decrease it?
One thing is for sure: both Gump and Forrest want to go in this
direction: provide solid technological infrastructure in order for
efforts to communicate, interoperate, share visions and exchange code,
ideas and solutions.
Food for thought.
--
Stefano Mazzocchi One must still have chaos in oneself to be
able to give birth to a dancing star.
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Friedrich Nietzsche
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