Stefano Mazzocchi <stefano <at> apache.org> writes: > Sometimes some climbers manage to get to the other side to find that > some people are very welcoming and appreciative of cultural differences > while others not so much.
What killed Harmony as the project it was planned to be wasn't people, in my opinion. Everyone put a lot of effort into it. It was stuck in time for months, betwen a non-existent GPLv3, and a non-existant ASF third party license policy, without either the ASF having the ability to accept code under anything other then the apache license, and the FSF having the ability to relicense Classpath to apache license exclusively, without screwing developers of GPLd VMs out of a class library. Everyone was running in circles. Both the ASF and FSF have learned from that failure. ASF figured out that having a third party license policy would work greatly in their favour, the FSF figured out that they'd better listen to ASF's ideas and make sure GPLv3 and all that stuff is actually fine. Structurally, I'd say that the ASF was not the right place at the right time to pull such a project off, since we got stuck so hard on apparently insurmountable issues of policy. Same would have most likely happened with the FSF, though, so with the hindsight, I think a third party, neutral ground without policies already cast in stone would have worked out much better. I guess Sun figured that out, too, and I hope they are successful. After the Harmony experience, I don't think that ASF or FSF are the perfect place for a project that goes wildly beyond their respective constituencies (i.e. the people who really, really like the one true apache way or the one true FSF way). On the other hand, the split has worked in each project's favor, to some degree. It has also left a lot of people who put their heart in it rather bitter about the failure to make it all work as planned. Maybe one day we'll all meet together and exchange those war stories over beverages in bar. It's been a great pleasure to help get all of this rolling with you, Geir, Leo, Davanum, and the other guys, and watch Geir and the team make Harmony rock. till then, dalibor topic
