[Foundation] membership, money, and meritocracy

[Matt Tucker]

Shawn,

> If this is the case then I vote to absolve the JSF.  It really has no use.

Heh. Did you mean "dissolve"?

> You want advocacy but then you aim to extricate and obfuscate developers 
> of some of the core jabber clients.  W/o clients Jabber would not exist.
> JSF does not help out the community.  Unless of course you include 
> projects such as jabberstudio.  In which I digress.  Otherwise I see 
> very little help here.  Most of the documentation is the same as it was 
> prior to the JSF forming and the mailing lists that help the most really 
> aren't even part of the foundation (dev, etc.)
> 
> So then if the JSF doesn't maintain the protocol, doesn't want key 
> advocators and provides nominal support to the key community.  Where 
> exactly does that leave it?  Has it simply become a mechanism by which 
> to push the ideals of Jabber.com?  A commercial entity who's sole 
> purpose is to accumulate capital.

Frankly, I just don't understand where you're getting all of this. 
Nobody has said "let's kick members X and Y and Z out of the JSF because 
they suck". Instead, people are saying, "we need to find ways to 
strengthen the JSF and redefine what it means to be a member".

One of your core arguments is that "JSF does not help the community" and 
that things haven't improved much since the JSF began. If you truly 
believe that, isn't that a tacit argument for changing the JSF 
membership, perhaps using some of the ideas proposed by others on the 
list? Personally, I'm not so pessimistic about the role and 
effectiveness of the current JSF membership. However, change is good, 
and as Jabber/XMPP matures, the non-profit organization that promotes it 
should as well.

Regards,
Matt