I agree with Benedict that we really shouldn't be getting into a legalese debate on this subject, however "it didn't happen" has been brought up as a hammer in this conversation multiple times, and I think it's important that we put it to rest. It's pretty clear cut that projects are free to disregard this advice. "It didn't happen" is a motto, not a rule.
Per ASF newbie FAQ referenced by someone else earlier [1]: > The section on ASF Mottos is especially useful as a reminder of the way things are in most ASF projects. This section includes such gems as: > * Put community before code. > * Let they that do the work make the decisions. > * If it didn't happen on a mailing list, it didn't happen. > * Don't feed the trolls. This is presented as a general guideline and not a hard rule, and as Benedict points out even this is preceded by a guideline suggesting that developers are free to seek alternatives. Now since this is just a reference to the Incubator code of conduct's list of mottos (again, not ASF policy), which best source I could find [2], mirrors the newbie FAQ, but provides the additional insight that the objective of the motto is transparency. The spirit of this motto is not meant to dictate a technology choice, but merely to indicate that discussions should happen in open spaces where all are able to participate. The motto was authored in a time when "the lists" was the only real option. Jira absolutely meets the design goal of that motto, if that's the direction the community chooses, and it's clear from both sources that individual communities (they that do the work) are free to find the path here that's best for them. [1] https://community.apache.org/newbiefaq.html#NewbieFAQ-IsthereaCodeofConductforApacheprojects ? [2] *https://wiki.apache.org/incubator/CodeOfConduct#ASF_Mottos <https://wiki.apache.org/incubator/CodeOfConduct#ASF_Mottos>* On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 5:57 AM James Carman <ja...@carmanconsulting.com> wrote: > On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 10:23 AM Jonathan Ellis <jbel...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > A long time ago, I was a proponent of keeping most development > discussions > > on Jira, where tickets can be self contained and the threadless nature > > helps keep discussions from getting sidetracked. > > > > But Cassandra was a lot smaller then, and as we've grown it has become > > necessary to separate out the signal (discussions of new features and > major > > changes) from the noise of routine bug reports. > > > > I propose that we take advantage of the dev list to perform that > > separation. Major new features and architectural improvements should be > > discussed first here, then when consensus on design is achieved, moved to > > Jira for implementation and review. > > > > > +1! I think it's important to point out here that nobody is proposing that > folks have to send an email like: > > "I was thinking of naming my variable 'foo' here, what do you guys think?" > > However, discussions and decisions that have an impact on Cassandra and its > direction/architecture (not an all-inclusive list here and we should use > reason to decide) should happen on the mailing list. The idea here is > inclusiveness. We want everyone in the community to have a chance to > contribute to these discussions. >
