I wanted to clarify my reply to Johs for this mailing list, as regards the role of this mailing list. For this post, I have my Apache CouchDB PMC hat on.
At the moment, few if any active developers for CouchDB are also on this list. (I think Jan, Robert K. and myself are the only ones.) That means that the current discussion about CouchApps is somewhat of an echo chamber. We could, as a group, come up with the most amazing plan of what *we* think would be the best things to implement next, but without working *WITH* the development organization to help prioritize them in light of ongoing work, the effort is wasted. I will not let marketing@ become an echo chamber ungrounded in the realities of open source software development. Further, I don't want to see us building some sort of adversarial relationship between CouchDB marketers and CouchDB developers. Despite allegations to the contrary, there is *no* secret cabal trying to kill CouchApps. Jan's original proposal was *NEVER* about removing the functionality for shows, lists, or direct HTTP access to attached .html, .css, .js or other resources. It was about the fact that, within the world of people using CouchDB for serious tasks, those functions are secondary, even tertiary to CouchDB's data store, replication, and REST/JSON interface. We should be working to tighten that message up into a single sentence that isn't full of jargon, something that attracts people to the database. Again, no dev is going to kill off CouchApps as a feature. Finally: the official description of this mailing list is: "Marketing List Subscribe · Post · Unsubscribe A place to co-ordinate on CouchDB marketing activities" Please keep that in mind. It is not a place to coordinate future functionality or to drive the development group in a specific direction. I agree that any development organization that ignores their user base, both potential and current, is in peril. It is within the mission of this group to help find out what users of CouchDB need, as well as to get the message out as to what CouchDB is capable of doing. But the primary function is to help get the word out about what we do, not what we might do. Thanks for your time. Joan
