This is not a big issue but if you don't see the kinds of collisions IDE specific files in SVN cause in collaborative environments, then experience will eventually show you over time. I won't enumerate over how many people told me the same or how many painful experiences taught us this lesson. All in all, it's no big deal and these things will sort themselves out. If you feel you need to keep the files then go ahead.
More importantly though, these kinds of threads are distracting. This is a simple suggestion by those who have learned these conventions after years of working in this community. You don't have to apply a mentor's advice if you don't want to and eventually incubation rules will be applied to sort out what really matters to the ASF. Although I have not been able to give you guys the kind of time I've wanted to, I was hoping to be here to help during these growing pains. I guess this last thread was a signal for me to kick in. To do this right, you guys need to trust and be open to the suggestions made. Mentors are not gods nor are they tyrants. They've just had more experience in this community and can provide some guidance. That does not make them better or more savvy. There's no golden mentor badge of honor :-). This project needs to incubate no matter what so why not get the most out of it. If everything we have to deal with together is met with difficulty then ask yourself why you're here! Let's together refuse to tolerate discord and gain as much as we can. All I can recommend at this point is for those new to the ASF to be a bit more open and trusting. To the mentors I recommend we have a little more patience and let these guys educate themselves from their own experiences. It's important for us to make suggestions and equally if not more important we must understand and accept that some advice will be disregarded. When advice is solicited we can give it gratis. On the flip side, if everything is a struggle and all advice is dismissed then what's there to mentor. In the end you just have to ask yourself why you bother to be here! (Note: same advice as above paragraph) I've had great personal and group experiences here at the ASF where I have mentored and been mentored. These have usually been ones where there has been mutual respect and the bonds formed have lasted for a lifetime. I remember one of my mentors, Noel, who is now the IPMC chair. He would give advice and stand back for us to make our own choices. Eventually we always wound up following his wise advice and gained a lot of respect for him through his patience. However we also did pay for having to learn lessons on our own with more time in the incubator :-(. It's all about tradeoffs without absolutes. I apologize in advance if this email touches nerves. Just being sincere without any objective but to reduce the unnecessary discord. Regards, Alex
