Personally, I think Jason jumped the gun here. Geronimo is only a couple of weeks old and the community is still settling down. Becoming a committer at Apache requires a commitment (sorry, bad pun) to the community over and above the code; from what I have heard, it typically takes six months or so before a vote (e.g. Paul Hammant's mail [3]). This is different to other communities where gaining commit may be easier but it carries little influence.
So at this time I would probably vote -1 on any proposal for a new committer purely to let the community settle down. The exception to this would be for someone with a proven track record either at ASF or on one of the affiliated projects such as OpenEJB.
Having said that, the JavaMail implementation could be considered a isolated effort under the 'specs' sub-module, so if the proposal was to allow Alex commit in that area it might be different. However, I am not sure that the process for this type of sub-sub-project in the incubator is well defined and we're breaking enough new ground as it is.
-- Jeremy
[3] http://nagoya.apache.org/eyebrowse/ReadMsg?listName=&msgId=1004954
Hmm, personally I see Alex as one of the most active and /committed/ people on this list at the moment. (Think about that word for a moment). I've read a ridiculous number of emails from people offering their help, most of whom, so far at least, have not been heard from again. I've also read almost as many from people complaining about the lack of direction and communication about what this project is. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that Alex has contributed something which has been, at the very least, worth responding to, to many many conversations on this list.
I don't necessarily agree with everything Alex has said, but does that matter? Not in my opinion. He's taken the time and effort to try to pull this project forward and challenge opinions regardless of the nay-sayers. I agree that this project is very young, but personally I think that kind of active (I'll emphasise the word again here...) /commitment/ is exactly what this project needs at this stage.
As far as the 6 month thing is concerned, are you suggesting that nobody, regardless of the amount of effort they put in, is able to become a committer until this project is at least 6 months old? Apart from (as you appear to be suggesting) those who are already 'part of the inner circle' on certain 'already blessed' projects. If so, that's very discouraging.
Regards,
Mark
