On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 7:12 PM, Rich Bowen <rbo...@rcbowen.com> wrote: > > On 04/27/2015 02:45 PM, Upayavira wrote: >> >> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015, at 06:50 PM, David Nalley wrote: >>> >>> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 2:46 PM, Sam Ruby <ru...@intertwingly.net> wrote: >>>> >>>> Initial sketch placed on the wiki: >>>> >>>> https://wiki.apache.org/incubator/WhimsyProposal >>>> >>>> Anyone who is so inclined is welcome to edit the proposal directly. >>>> >>>> No urgency or timeframe in mind (other than preferably starting sometime >>>> in >>>> 2015ish). My current thinking is to follow in Steve's footprints and go >>>> directly to TLP, but I'm starting a discussion here (in Incubator) to >>>> see if >>>> there are any other thoughts on the matter. >>>> >>>> - Sam Ruby >>> >>> So one question (and perhaps a selfish concern). >>> >>> Infrastructure has a significant interest in whimsy (the service and >>> codebase). I suspect that the ASF is also likely (at least for now) >>> the primary user. Infrastructure has spent some time and resources, >>> and even has a contractor that is paid on working on Whimsy and the >>> associated areas. >>> >>> My question (and selfish concern) is: We have generally accepted that >>> the ASF doesn't pay for development on projects. What does that mean >>> for the contractors? Are they effectively forbidden from doing >>> development work on Whimsy? In particular, I have a ruby developer >>> working as a contractor who I'd like to working on things like Whimsy, >>> secretary workbench, etc. >> >> What a wonderful question!! >> >> My take: a contractor cannot be paid to work on Whimsy, that's fair and >> understandable. He is paid to work on ASF infrastructure. However, as a >> part of fulfilling those duties, if he needs to work on Whimsy, or to >> code up a patch on httpd, or whatever, so be it. As far as the *project* >> is concerned, he is a volunteer the same as everyone else. He's being >> paid to work on infrastructure, not on Whimsy. > > This feels like sophistry, and a dangerous first step. If we have a *full > time* employee who is working primarily on a particular project, then it's > not odd to claim that they are being paid to develop Apache code. That being > the case, then the ASF is doing that thing that we have asserted, for all > time, that we will never do.
I'll assert that infrastructure team routinely writes code. Random example: http://s.apache.org/wPQ I'm uncomfortable that much of that is "special snowflake" code; and some of it has a sole author capable of maintenance. I don't have personal knowledge of examples, but I do believe that from time to time the Infrastructure team has contributed patches "upstream" to the products they depend on (for example, FreeBSD?). >> One thing that I saw during my stint as VP Fundraising is that projects >> and the Foundation really are distinct things. The Foundation can >> contract someone to work on a project that it needs in order to support >> the work of the Foundation. If that happens to be contributing to an ASF >> project, so be it. However, they are not gaining any special privilege, >> they are as it were "paid by an external entity" just like all other >> contributors to any other ASF project. > > In this case, though, it will be the ASF paying for a developer to work on > an ASF project. > > I hope that we're not just taking a convenient position that will bite us > later. I trust that Ross, you, and David will find the right balance. > -- > Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen > http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon - Sam Ruby --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
