Greetings Benson, re: "top-posting is generally less than ideal"
It's funny that you would say that, because there was a 17 message email-chain about Accumulo this past weekend that you participated in, and I noticed that you didn't tell any of those people that posting on this dist-list was a bad idea. http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-general/201109.mbox/brow ser re: "pedigree" Pedigree is hardly what anybody is looking for. I have been answering questions on the HBase dist-list for 2 years (yes, since HBase 0.20) and I can tell you personally that some of the people on the dist-list are brilliant, and others I wonder how they managed to turn their computer on (hey, did I just say that out loud?). But we try to answer all their questions just the same. I'll let the other HBase team members speak for themselves, but my request to ASF is that if somebody proposes something that nearly exactly like an existing ASF project, and it's implemented in the same language, and it even copies their code - shouldn't somebody at ASF ask the proposing team: "have you guys talked to the other project?" Especially since, in this case, one of their claims is that HBase "can't do or has no plans" for something. It's all about community, isn't it? On 9/6/11 8:27 PM, "Benson Margulies" <bimargul...@gmail.com> wrote: >Doug Meil, > >Top-posting is generally less than idea, but I want to respond to the >overall theme of your message, not to individual points and sentences. > >The attitude of various chunks of the US government to Open Source has >changed radically over the last few years. What would have been >institutionally impossible is now encouraged. It is unfair to >criticize these people for being under the radar when their management >told them to be under the radar and claim that the leopard cannot >change its spots. That situation has changed. The code base exists, it >serves a particular collection of needs, and here they are. > >Lots of incubator proposals come from groups of people with little or >no prior track record at Apache or in Open Source at all. The point of >incubation is to give them a chance to either learn how to be an >Apache TLP -- or not. We do not tell people 'go away, you haven't >enough pedigree.' Mentors have more work to do when the nucleus of a >podling is comparatively inexperienced. > >Further, I don't know of any policy of the ASF in general, or the >incubator in particular, that insists that a group of itch-scratchers >make any particular attempt to make any particular gesture towards any >particular existing community as a prerequisite of incubation. Five of >my friends and I could turn up here tomorrow with a proposal to fork >an existing TLP to scratch our particular itch, and, so far as I can >tell, the incubator PMC would evaluate the proposal on its merits, >independent of the fork. > >You are of course entitled to your opinions and concerns, but if you >think that there is some policy that supports the position that PMC >members should vote -1 on this proposal due to these issues I wish you >would cite it. > >In the past, committers of existing TLP's have been, well, >particularly vigilant in monitoring the progress of 'competing' >podlings. CXF was an example podling of this effect. You are, of >course, welcome to adopt that stance. You are also welcome to slurp up >every line of their code, once in place, if you think that HBase could >benefit from it. > >Perhaps needless to say, but as a Mentor-in-waiting, I'm all in favor >of this proposal. > >--benson margulies > >--------------------------------------------------------------------- >To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org >For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
