Monday, March 09, 2015

Python CLA, Community and Node.js

I was trying to write on CLA multiple times, since the day that I sent "My CLA" letter in hope for some explanation to python lists. Now search for "My CLA" leads to new model of Mercedes Benz released in 2014 and I wonder, why do I waste my time arguing on the things that should not matter to me? Why do they matter at all? If I could afford a Mercedes Benz and had time to enjoy it, everything else probably didn't matter.

https://www.joyent.com/blog/broadening-node-js-contributions

The post by Bryan Cantrill is all good, but this quote in particular got my attention:
While node.js is a Joyent-led project, I also believe that communities must make their own decisions—and a CLA is a sufficiently nuanced issue that reasonable people can disagree on its ultimate merits.
I don't  remember that steps were taken to explain the necessity of  CLA or ask people what they think about it. There was no community process that I've seen and my requests to get some clarification did not went good. It took months of non-constructive critics and diplomatic skills of Ezio to at least add electronic signature to the paper form. There was no incident, nothing in public to cover that. Just somebody decided to do this and then there was a lot of peer pressure to force you to comply, because "lawyer know better". I can hardly name it a community process. OpenStack fights for it, to keep process open and inclusive, tries to analyze problems, to seek solution in open way, at least it is visible.

http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2015-February/056551.html

Python was an open source language, and a good and unique one that deserves its own license. Guido is always open and sincere behind the community of language supporters, but are languages supporters evolve the same, do they possess the same understanding into the complicated nature of human processes to take the baton? Did the core of community become a closed elitist circle of people with good relationships? Are they able to handle the insane amount of ideas and communication that coordination around core development and surrounded infrastructure is needed? Is new generation involved in solving these challenges or all they do now is dreaming about startups? Is it a community problem or economy problem already with all these CLA and other issues that are impossible to hide?

https://mail.python.org/pipermail/distutils-sig/2015-March/025807.html