[Foundation] membership, money, and meritocracy

[Ryan Eatmon]

Peter Millard wrote:
> Matt Tucker wrote:
> [Stuff munched...]
> 
>>I think Peter's made a good case that additional steps
>>should be taken. The whole discussion is aimed at making the Jabber
>>community the strongest and most active community possible -- it's not about
>>locking people out.
> 
> 
> Exactly... It seems to me that the JSF should not _BE_ the community, it should
> _LEAD_ the community.
> 
> Everyone who writes an apache module isn't a member of the Apache Software
> Foundation. I think moving the JSF towards a more leadership and driving role
> would be good for the community and help spure growth. Folks who want to just
> "innovate" don't have to be tied down with the responsibilities of being a JSF
> member.



I think the following questions need to be answered:

What is the JSF?
What is its purpose?
What are its goals?

If it is a social club where anyone and everyone who is interested (not 
active) can come together to chat, discuss, comment on, vote, etc... 
then what we are doing is fine.  But that's all that is going on right 
now.  Chatting.  Discussing.  Lots of comments.  No progress.  We sit 
around debating the issues till we are blue in the face, and then 
someone else will pop up and reopen a can of worms and off we go again.

If on the other hand it is a technical organization, that is seeking to 
maintain, extend, and shepard the larger technical Jabber community as a 
whole, then we are failing.  We have mulitple JEPs on the same topics 
instead of working towards a single one.  We have bickering, fighting, 
name calling over stupid issues like logos.

-- 
Ryan Eatmon
reatmon at jabber.org