Guys, This whole experience has become a bit disheartening. Craig McClanahan who is like an idol of mine said this:
" We will continue to do what we've done in the past -- reject projects that only want the "name recognition" value of being under Apache, and don't have a development community compatible with Apache's style. That's much more important than whether it's server-side versus client-side, or in one repository versus another. " Seemingly directed at POI. I DO have to admit, I like the idea of name recognition, anyone who says they don't is a liar and I have a mortgage to pay, a family and live in what is currently the economic black hole of my country (if Marc hasn't gotten a job yet, being twice as smart as I am, then I'm screwed), but my most selfish motivations are more in the area of I never want to use IIS again if possible or even look at Windows NT outside of my VMWARE (hopefully one day bochs or plex86) POI-testing window. Marc said this best to me in gaim: "the number one way we get paid for our open source work is by the recognition we get. what's wrong with wanting more? but ... that's not all we're in this for ... the opportunity to do good work that is of benefit to the Community ... the opportunity to publicly tweak Bill Gates' nose ... we have noble aims here " What is sad is Tomcat is part of why I started this project. If I can do my part to make it so there is no reason NOT to use Tomcat or other Apache projects that I've used so much (or could use if they had POI), thats what I'm going to do. If I can't do it from the inside I'll do it from the outside, I guess I'll feel a bit hurt, but I can deal with that. I don't speak for Marc, but I know he feels the same way. I was fine until people started attacking our motives (without any basis). And even then I was even still mostly okay until Craig did (who I'd still probably ask for his autograph or something if I met him) and I never even saw him in the discussion. I started this project while on contract at a local chemical company thinking damn I hate helping Actuate make another 10 grand. (I had no problem paying Tidestone $300 for the same product once even out of my own pocket). I thought, I'd far rather use Tomcat then WebSphere (no offense Sam) and I'd far rather use Cocoon then Actuate. I started this project originally with the idea of donating the whole thing to Cocoon, but I kept finding that there were more layers and the puzzle became just as interesting and as important as the "business case" (because I'm 100% geek thats even my gaim id: javageek02) and to encapsulate it properly Marc and I developed pieces that didn't directly fit in to the Cocoon puzzle but had great uses elsewhere. Plus there was always a "lets make the project expandable so others can use the pieces to thier aims" (a guy from a western European national/international airline used POIFS on some file format I'd never heard of). When Stefano said "lets take the APIs to Jakarta" I stumbled first then I was like "he's right" it goes right along with what we had in mind when designing the APIs the only parts that make sense in Cocoon are the Serializers and Generators. Regardless of what happens POI will be a success. When the guy from Actuate wrote me a "good luck and eat your heart out" message it hit me "this is for real". If POI does make it I'm not sure I should monitor this (general@jakarta) list too closely. Its very negative. The project lists are far more positive and Apache was always ground up and not top down (doesn't the name even mean a-patch-y server?). Lately this list seems to be the place for anyone with a gripe to yell "The sky is falling", you can say "Hey here's ideas on how to shore it up a bit" but I think many folks on the list aren't listening to each other let alone to someone from the outer circle. Its funny I kind of agree with some (but not all) of the points that Jon guy makes but he seems to want to make them in such a way that they are divisive instead of providing the leadership Stefano praises him for. Leadership is taking the boat and sailing it and inviting others to come along not sitting in the back complaining about the heading or proclaiming "its just going to sink and the hell with you all maybe I'll quit". I hope he sees this and becomes the guy Stefano says he is. Stefano, I'm not sure we really made any progress with the request for comment. Less folks asked questions so much as made statements w/o even looking at the project (which I don't think is what we meant by request for comment) and I get the feeling half of those who did didn't even LOOK at the answers (even the ones that didn't bounce because TW NC's Road Runner SMTP server sucks - and you can quote me on that). I mean lets go ahead with the proposal (final draft in the making), but I can't imagine it going well. Especially with the peculiar talk that our little project could destroy the apache community singlehandedly. Whatever happens I hope to continue working with you. -Andy cc: Craig R. McClanahan - because I don't mean to speak behind his back. -- www.superlinksoftware.com www.sourceforge.net/projects/poi - port of Excel format to java http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4487555.html - fix java generics! The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote. -Ambassador Kosh -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
