On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 12:50 PM, Joe Bowser <bows...@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm asking because of this: > https://twitter.com/TheASF/status/472089851693891584 > > So, another criticism of the ASF is the fact that as committers we > have zero say on the process because committers aren't members, and > only members can really cause any change. I question the > effectiveness of this given that the board for the most part hasn't > changed in years. > > Furthermore, as a project of the ASF, we have no idea what's going on > with the project that holds the copyright for our code.
The same situation exists with Cordova's project-specific private list from the perspective of Cordova users who are not PMC members, no? Ideally, only subjects which truly require discretion such as personnel issues, security, trademarks and so on get discussed on private lists. In practice, things are messy and sometimes conscious effort is required to move conversations public, but the diversity of the ASF Membership guards against subterfuge at the org level just as the diversity of the Cordova PMC guards against it at the project level. On a separate note, the notion that the ASF "holds the copyright for our code" is not correct. When you contribute code to an ASF project, you maintain ownership but grant a copyright license under terms spelled out in the ALv2 and the ICLA. This is different from, say, the FSF, which requires copyright assignment in order to ensure it will have "standing" to sue for copyright violation and enforce the GPL. The ASF does not have the same priorities and has deliberately chosen not to require copyright assignment. > The fact that we hardly ever ship anymore > thanks to "The Apache Way" and the cognitive dissonance that it's > caused in its wake really hasn't helped matters. My impression as someone with a deep understanding of Apache and an admittedly superficial understanding of Cordova, is that Cordova's release process is not very efficient in the way it goes about satisfying Apache's requirements. For what it's worth there have been a few times I've thought about delurking to contribute specific suggestions, but I have been concerned that they might not be taken well. Instead, I've just tried to make myself available as a resource to Cordova contributors trying to make the best of things, and to continue with more general initiatives (policy clarification, the ApacheCon talk) which may help Cordova indirectly. Marvin Humphrey
