I spoke on the phone with Peter about this proposal. I think that the folks involved with this piece of code have already started to do some of the legwork to form that community. I would expect a suitably diverse list of committers to be a part of the project submission.
Ted On Sun, 2001-10-28 at 07:19, Stefano Mazzocchi wrote: > [copied the XML PMC since I'm not sure all of them are subscribed here] > > Peter, > > first of all, thanks for writing us. See my comments intermixed. > > Peter Kacandes wrote: > > > > Background: > > > > ebXML (electronic business XML) is an initiative sponsored by OASIS and > > UN/CEFACT to create "a modular suite of specifications that enables enterprises > > of any size and in any geographical location to conduct business over the > > Internet." > > Yes. Personally, I am aware of ebXML and I think it has great potentials > since everybody that "get" XML knows that it will be useless without > somebody to define and arbiter a solid foundation of schemas, > namespaces, metadate schemas and their relations. > > > One of the specifications in the ebXML suite deals with XML registries and > > repositories: "The OASIS ebXML Registry TC develops specifications to achieve > > interoperable registries and repositories, with an interface that enables > > submission, query and retrieval on the contents of the registry and repository." > > > > Details can be found at: > > http://www.ebxml.org/ > > http://www.ebxml.org/specs/index.htm#technical_specifications > > http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/regrep/ > > > > As part of our work on the ebXML initiative, Sun Microsystems Inc. has developed > > a JavaTM based implementation of the registry and repository specification that > > we have shown on various occasions such as trade show demos. > > Ok. > > > We have received numerous inquiries from many different parts of the developer > > community expressing interest in being able to work on this implementation to > > produce a fully specification compliant implementation. > > Good. > > > Sun has determined and given approval for making this implementation available > > to an open source community. Consequently, we would like to submit this proposal > > to the members of the Apache XML project for consideration of accepting this > > donation as a sub-project. > > > > Thank you very much for your attention to and consideration for this proposal. > > The Apache Software Foundation goals are to help keeping the web open > and making sure that new technologies keep the web as open as it is > today (or even more). > > Personally, I can see only benefits in having something to do with more > business oriented areas of the web and web services. The SOAP/Axis > subproject go exactly in that direction even if some of us don't like > the technology (me being one of them). > > This said, it is important for you to understand that we at Apache don't > value software but value the community of users and developers behind > it. > > For this reason, it doesn't make much sense to us to accept a software > donation if this doesn't help the establishment of a community around it > to further enhance the software and, doing so, influence the design of > the standards that it is based on. > > I hope you understand this is a vital point for us: a software without a > community is dead even if you have the source available. Opening up the > source code doesn't make a project successuful, it takes much more and > we don't have the energy to help making successful every closed-source > project, it must come here already healthy enough to stand on its feet. > > For this reason, we tend not to accept a project submission if there are > less than two active developers that are committed to work on the code > on a regular basis and to help bootstrap the community by answering > questions to users, write docs, commit user-submitted patches. > > Then, we value diversity and volunteer effort: if the dev team is > entirely composed by people working by the same company and paid to do > the job, we consider this dev community not enough "healthy", from an > open source point of view, because it will be easy to get to political > friction due to the misconception that those developers might act for > their employer rather than for themselves. > > > We look foward to your questions, comments, or concerns. > > ebXML is not the only organization that aims to create business > standards. I might add that this is a politically intense area where > friction can be easily develop and hardly dissipate. > > This warns me to be overly cautious when judging a project submission on > this area. > > While I understand that Sun's intention might be honest and open the > software to encouradge participation (something that I would only > plaud), others might think that Sun is willing to take advantage of > Apache's visibility to further push their ideas on this market. > > Our duty on general@ lists (both xml's and jakarta's) is not to judge > the technical details behind the proposed software (not at all!), but to > judge the "health" of the community around the software. > > For more information, please read > > http://jakarta.apache.org/site/newproject.html > > which was written for the Jakarta Project but holds the same spirit we > would like to use here. > > IMHO, accepting the submission would create more problems than it would > solve from a community point of view, but I'd like to hear other > comments before stating a pending negative vote. > > My suggestion, for now, would be to try to bootstrap a community > in-house at Sun (or at ebXML or at OASIS or at sourceforge.net, you pick > the one you like the most) and try to generate diversity in the > development community. > > When (if?) this happens, I'll be more than welcome to reconsider the > submission under a different light against giving value to the status of > the community rather than to the technical decisions of the project. > > Please understand that my intention with this reasoning is not to judge > the technical details of your proposal, but the energy that > bootstrapping that community will require and, IMHO, this requires from > us more energy that it might give back in the short term. > > But, of course, this is just my personal opinion. > > -- > Stefano Mazzocchi One must still have chaos in oneself to be > able to give birth to a dancing star. > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Friedrich Nietzsche > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > --------------------------------------------------------------------- In case of troubles, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
