[Foundation] membership, money, and meritocracy

[Dave Smith]

On Saturday, Apr 5, 2003, at 14:18 America/Denver, Shawn Wilton wrote:

> This is an awful idea.  Who's going to judge the 80 some members for 
> their contributions?  I've been a part of this community since it 
> began.  I started by running the first OpenBSD based Jabber server, 
> then began work on my own client Shagger/Shaolo and eventually took 
> over work on Jabberbeans.  Nothing personal but if someone says that I 
> need to redeem myself because I've chosen to lurk no the lists then 
> you can kiss my cherry red ***.

Again, lurking != right to decide on protocol/logos/etc. The only 
people who should have input into what Jabber is today, are those 
people who are building it for tomorrow. Note, not all those people are 
developers -- but ALL of them are active, vocal contributors.

As for who would judge the "fitness" of people for membership, I say 
that there are lots of well qualified people -- Peter St. Andre, Iain 
Shigeoka, Peter Millard, Ryan Eatmon, Matthew Miller, Marco Palombi, 
Russell Davis, just to name a few. There are people here who have been 
here since the "beginning" who have NOT lurked -- they have EARNED, by 
their blood, sweat, tears, and money (Mountain Dew isn't free you know) 
the right to decide who gets to contribute/vote on protocol, logos, and 
anything else which affects the JSF.

I'm freakin tired of JSF members whining about being left out of the 
process or being booted out. 90% of the people who don't want to see 
the JSF become a meritocracy are those who have done NOTHING to earn 
the right to participate.

Diz