On Sunday, Aug 10, 2003, at 01:13 Europe/Rome, Andrew C. Oliver wrote:
Not so fast Danny,
There are some issues you are apparently unaware of.
I find it interesting that we would allow a JSR to be based on an ASF
project to be licenses back under a non-opensource friendly license. I find
it interesting that we sit quietly while this JSR is run under NDA to the
severe detriment of the Jetspeed project (on which it is based).
Its even more interesting that the TCK may not be available for Jetspeed!
(Sun has chosen for this JSR to be under the JCP 2.1 process as opposed to
2.5).
I was intrigued how my Microphone was cut during the "Independent look at
the Java Community Process" (formerly "Why The JCP is better than Open
Source"), when I attempted to query on this issue despite the objection of
Jason Hunter. (I have witnesses)
Its even more interesting that the ASF is allowing the "pluto.jar" to be
checked in despite the questions on its license.
I would like more information regarding the operation of the JSR-168
process; however, its under NDA. Presumably if those privy were to talk to
me about it, as a member of the ASF, I'd probably be bound by said NDA.
So I do feel that some concerns from those who question the independence of
the ASF are justified even if they do prove to be off base and I think
you're remiss to dismiss them scornfully without studying the issue in
greater detail. I don't/didn't want to believe it, but there is some
supporting evidence. Granted it may be an illusion, but there is not an
overall appearance of propriety at the moment.
I have other concerns that I cannot vent publicly as well. I do not plan to
say more on this issue.
Andy,
are you saying that the JCP isn't perfect? well, guess what, everybody coming from the open source already knows.
How this is related to the "Sun controls the ASF" is yet to be explained.
I have personally partecipated in four different JSR (that's probably a record) and I can tell you that only one of them was a good experience (the Servlet API JSR, when run by James Davidson). The other three were run as a political fight, most of the time, with vendors blocking API if they couldn't implement them in their current implementations of the system.
The ASF made several mistakes in the past regarding the JCP, but it was *because* of the ASF that the changes between JCP 2.0, 2.1 and 2.5 happened. What is good is that the JCP people are (slowly, corporate time, not open source time) willing to listen.
I have rumors that 2.65 will even more friendly to open source communities, allowing JSR lead to public a public draft as early as they can. This is very good news: if the draft is public, the NDA remains but it's bound only to what happens *inside* the group, while the API is publicly available for review as early as possible. I find this a *very* useful step forward. Sure, it won't be as open as open source, but, hey, there are much more issues on the table that open source doesn't care about.
And the interesting thing is that these suggestions come from corporations who are sick of other corporations playing political tricks to slow them down.
So, the JCP isn't perfect? agreed and Apache has been suggesting ways to "improve" it.
The ASF did mistakes with the JCP and is sometimes influenced by external pressure? yes, that is true, but it's not the ASF it's the communities that work on this. If the Jetspeed community is fine with the way the portlet API is handled, well, up to them. I personally, wouldn't touch that political mess with a stick, but should my personal opinion veto their ability to influence them?
Sun is controlling the ASF board? Sun has a strong business relationship with CollabNet, which is partially owned by Brian Behlendorf and employs Greg Stein.
That's how far it goes.
Is this enough to control apache? no, because you, I and many others who are not related to CollabNet in any way, are part of the decision making process.
You have partecipated in the discussions about Geronimo and you know that several people (myself included) presented valid points about potential problems in accepting Geronimo but they were resolved in a consensus process, which is the way the ASF does business.
Implying that a consensus process in more than 100 members can be influenced by a few members (even if highly respected) with reasonable arguments, is silly.
A single commercial entity can influence the view of those people affiliated with it (as happened to you, being affiliated with JBoss Group) and might trigger resonation with other people who share the same vision, but this *alone* is not enough to pressure everybody else to follow you.
Even admitting (and this is only an hypothesis, mind you) that a few key ASF individuals were influenced by external pressure, the ASF is today too big to be influenced by a single person without reasonable arguments.
What convinced the ASF members that Geronimo was a good thing, were the reasonable arguments, not the reason why those arguments were proposed.
Are there things in apache that can be improved? you bet. there will always be and the more we become big, the harder it will be to change things (it's implicit in the social inertia of the system), but throwing FUD is not a way to help.
What we need is constructive criticism.
So, everyone that wants to give us that will be welcome.
The rest will just go by as social noise.
-- Stefano.
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