On Aug 16, 2010, at 6:37 PM, Greg Stein wrote:
I certainly could have handled it better. But that thread is
*indicative* of the problem. We've pointed out a several now: two with
Subversion, one with OODT.
Since you've brought it up time and again, it's worth thrashing
through. The kerfuffle about project roles was brought up by a member
of the "peanut gallery" [sic] and I thought quite reasonably.
Words matter. Definitions of terms matter. Communication is broken if
I say a word that has one meaning for you and a different meaning for
me. We end up talking about two different things and we think we're
having a discussion but we're not.
One of the first things you learn in Apache is that there are (at
least) three levels of involvement that community members can take:
contributor, committer, PMC member. See "how it works, roles, etc.
etc." on the Apache site.
Now the subversion project comes in where these are not the commonly
used terms. Instead, the terms for committer and PMC member are
partial committer and full committer. That's fine for the established
community, but the translation from committer -> partial committer and
PMC member -> full committer needs to be done within the project, not
within Apache.
When I saw this month's board report for Subversion, I was taken aback
that the board is expected to follow the terminology used by only one
project. Really? The board, which has used the same terms for 10++
years, is now going to hear reports of full committers and partial
committers? What do we do when another project comes in and uses yet
different terms for the same concept? Do we now make a translation
manual for everyone in Apache to use?
My $.02: if you want to talk about full and partial committers in the
Apache community, there's more work to do so everyone gets on board
with your terminology. Otherwise, communications will be enhanced if
you keep full and partial committers to yourselves and translate to
the commonly used Apache terms when dealing with the Apache community.
And yes, I'd like to see the Subversion board report amended to remove
references to full and partial.
Craig
Craig L Russell
Architect, Oracle
http://db.apache.org/jdo
408 276-5638 mailto:craig.russ...@oracle.com
P.S. A good JDO? O, Gasp!
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