I want to make a couple of things clear about ASF projects (I speak with my mentor hat on but not necessarily for other mentors):
Firstly, the ASF has many years of experience in running successful open source projects. We even have a few failures to teach us some lessons too. This produces a raft of "best practices". One should not assume that "best practice" is unchanging or inflexible. Secondly, the ASF has very few policies that are "set in stone". There are some policies relating to due diligence and IP management, but very few relating to community development. One of the few fixed policies for community are no benevolent dictators (either individuals or corporations). No project graduates from the incubator without diversity. As a mentor I have no interest in encouraging the AOOo community to adopt policies that do. Reflect the needs and desires of thode.earning merit here. If one wants this project to operate in a specific way then one should.demonstrate a willingness to help us build diversity by contributing constructively. Don't expect me, or anyone else, to read past reams of point scoring and posturing based on misinformation, dogma or non-ASF history. I won't do that. I won't read thousands of such words in order to find the odd nugget of useful information. I, and I assume almost everyone here, has no time for that. In recent weeks we've seen some very constructive work here. It's a shame it is being drowned by these meaningless and pointless arguments. Lets just stay constructive, focus on facts and have some fun - please. Ross
