On 12/09/2016 19:22, Jim Ancona wrote: > Mark, > > Is there some official Apache policy on which sites it's appropriate to > link to on an Apache mailing list? If so, could you please post a link > to it so we can all understand the rules. Or is this your personal > opinion on what you'd like to see here? > > Thanks!
The relevant policy quote from [1] is "... Apache projects are required to govern themselves independently of undue commercial influence." which is expanded on in [2]. One of the elements of [2] is that perception is important. If a project is not independent of commercial influence, or there is a perception that that is the case, then that is an issue. In the majority of cases, external links are fine. If the project docs don't cover something, more depth is required than is available in the docs, a different perspective on the same topic is better suited to the problem at hand, etc. are all fine. It is links that can give the impression that the official Apache Cassandra docs are hosted by an external entity that are a concern. Such links increase the risk that the perception is created/re-enforced that the entity that hosts the external site has some special status within the project and that falls foul of the 'no undue commercial influence' requirement. Mark [1] http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html [2] http://community.apache.org/projectIndependence.html
