There are many ways of organizing development groups and each approach
has different tradeoffs; I have not been close to the KDE or Linux
communities, but I've seen the Apache model and we have never claimed
that GlassFish works that way.
> Sun has more power in the community than
> others, so there is a skew in the democratic system.
That is correct; GlassFish is explicitly lead by Sun [1]. We try to be
transparent and responsive and to provide value to all members in the
community, from individual contributors to partners to users, and also
to Sun itself [2]. The nice thing about middleware right now is that
people have multiple choices, so if they prefer other communities they
can go there.
[1]
http://glassfish.dev.java.net/public/GovernancePolicy.html
[2]
http://wiki.glassfish.java.net/Wiki.jsp?page=GlassFishPrinciples
I don't claim our arrangement is perfect. I know it can be improved in
a number of ways and we are open to modifications. Why don't we focus
on concrete problems that you have with the current system? You mention...
> ... must ask a
> possibly external decider to merge a proposed patch
> <SNIP> Exactly that hard is the work
> currently for external contributors.
Anybody with commit rights can contribute code directly, under
coordination of the project engineering lead. This is equally true for
Sun and non-Sun folks and the arrangement is pretty common practice in
software projects.
Sure, the engineering lead is a Sun employee but any disagreements on
why something can or cannot be done will be discussed in public. In my
experience this transparency produces sound decisions and I've been a
very strong proponent of transparency in GlassFish, the JCP and elsewhere.
I'm happy to discuss which parts of this arrangement are not working for
you, if that is the problem you are encountering.
- eduard/o
BTW, regarding your last paragraph, even if one believes that democracy
is the right government for states, it does not follow that it is the
best one for open source projects. Democracy in states has evolved over
the last couple of millenia and there have been many examples exploring
what works and what does not work. Over this time we (humans) have
explored issues like representation, balance of power, constitutions,
bills of rights, etc.
Open Source projects, on the other hand, a _very_ recent invention and
still evolving. At this point I'd even argue that it is likely that we
will end with different types of Open Source project governances that
are optimizing for different goals, but it is hard to predict given how
short lived all these projects have been.
Markus Karg wrote:
>> re: local autonomy -- sure, we have been working on that for many
>> years.
>> Sun has had strong investments in India at least since mid 90s. We
>> have
>> local managers, local directors, etc, etc.
>
> Thank you for playing the ball into my domain: Yes, SUN has local
> engineers, but the community has not. My proposal was to have the
> community elect those local deciders. That means, Sun then must ask a
> possibly external decider to merge a proposed patch. Not vice versa. See
> how hard the work then would be for Sun? Exactly that hard is the work
> currently for external contributors.
>
>> I think we understand how all this works in theory, but in the
>> practice,
>> and in a large organization, there are limits. And the larger and
> more
>> complex, and faster moving, the artifact, the harder it is to make
>> these
>> things work.
>
> Sure, but you mix up the internal structures of Sun with the public
> structures of the community. Sun has more power in the community than
> others, so there is a skew in the democratic system. Also you seem to
> ignore that there are publicly managed projects like Linux and KDE which
> work very well without having a single vendor making decisions behind
> closed doors. And I would not say Linux and KDE is plain theory. From
> you view you could also say, there is no need for public elections as Mr
> Bush already has had embassadors all over the world solving regional
> conflicts without public discussion. But sure we all are glad that the
> president gets elected and that the people can vote for or against
> particular actions. Don't we?
>
> Regards
> Markus
>
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