Thank you to everyone who has responded and has given us feedback and
advice!
Joe, thank you for your response, I agree with about 98% of what you
posted. However, this email chain has gotten too long and confusing to
follow. Thus, I’m going to “close” this email chain and start with a new,
clean proposal, treating this email chain as background material.
Since the proposal does not deal with any of the exceptions ASF cites, I
will post it to the dev@ email list, so all community members can view and
voice their opinions.[1]
Once again, thank you for your honest feedback. I truly appreciate you
taking the time to respond in such a respectful and comprehensive way.
And thank you to all community members who took the time to read and/or
respond to the proposal,
Aaron Williams
[1] https://www.apache.org/foundation/governance/pmcs.html#communication
On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 12:27 PM Joe F wrote:
>
> The conversation here seems incoherent because of a few factors. One is
> by the use of "community'' and "project" interchangeably, as required to
> support this proposal - community in one context to support holding
> meetups/conferences and at the same time asking the PMC to manage this
> effort under the project. Adding to that confusion is that part of this
> conversation is happening on the private list.
>
> There are things assumed in this proposal that are implied, and not
> explicit. The issue is not about the PMC and the creation of a
> sub-committee/working group/Umbrella group, ( however you name it ) but
> with what it implies.
>
> Consider* "(with representatives from multiple vendors as well as
> unaffiliated participants)". * That seems like corporations/vendors
> getting rights/endorsements/blessings, via some governance/PMC/ blessed
> roles, bypassing Apache meritocracy for individuals- in this case, by
> means of "sub-committees/working/umbrella groups ".
>
> - It is very clear that ASF does not allow corporations to participate
> directly in Apache project management.
> - It is also clear that there is nothing limiting any vendor - other than
> compliance to ASF policy - to market, sell software, organize conferences,
> meetups etc
>
> So what is new here in this proposal ? Other than "vendor representation"
> as a means to bypass the meritocratic constraint on the project, and
> introduce vendor rights and privileges into the project?
>
> *>> "what we meant to say in the Marketing/Communications working group
> proposal is that we wanted a diversity of members, rather than all
> volunteers to be from the same company or dominated by one company."*
>
> The vast majority of Pulsar PMC and committers are not affiliated with any
> vendor, and are just Pulsar users.
> Vendor representation, by itself, is not a basis for anything in ASF
> projects. Vendors are not directly represented in the project . It's
> individuals. This seems like asserting vendor neutrality trumps merit, and
> merit should be sacrificed for vendor neutrality. I see that as hard to
> buy. Marketing smells of commercial activity, dragging the PMC into vendor
> business activities
>
>
> *>>Having an Umbrella Group also prevents or at least makes it tougher for
> the “wild west” of meetup organizations to happen. For Apache Hadoop, both
> Cloudera and Hortonworks sponsored competing meetups early on, which led to
> tons of problems for that community around vendor neutrality.*
> This seems a roundabout way of demanding that PMC should
> mediate/endorse/coordinate among vendors, under the perceived cloud of
> "else bad things will happen".
> [As an aside, neither Cloudera nor Hortonworks had any rights by virtue
> of just being a vendor, There were merited individuals in both camps]. .
>
>
> *>>but it would be highly unfortunate for the PMC to say "we don't want to
> be responsible for this AND no one from the community is allowed to do this
> either",*
> Enforcing compliance to ASF policy cannot be equated to prohibition of
> anyone. There is nothing prohibiting vendors/users/groups to host their
> own groups/meetups/events . ASF already has an event/branding policy that
> lays out how this can be done, and it's neutral and allows anyone to host
> events.
>
> Vendors/Users are also free to associate in whatever manner they choose,
> and host events, subject to the same ASF policy. They don't need the PMC
> to manage this under the Project flag to do so. Anyone can follow ASF
> policy and have as many events as needed. The more of these events, the
> better it is.
>
> This proposal implicitly demands that being a vendor, by itself, should
> confer some privileges/rights or blessings by the project PMC (call it
> membership in working group/subcommittee/Umbrella group .. ) and that the
> PMC should get into the business of running/marketing vendor activities.
> That seems to stand on its head the Apache policy of vendor neutrality.
> It's essentially insisting that the PMC actively mark
