| Re: [cross-project-issues-dev] JFace Generics |
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John, you are right by the letter of the law. But I think the point is, if the contributors want the platform to be successful, they have to be sensitive to the needs of adopters. They're who make a platform successful. If they aren't then who are they
building the platform for? (And as much as we don't like to talk about it, I really hate the real answer to that question).
For Eclipse to be a successful platform going forward that has to change. Or, yeah, we could just fork it. A lot of us who build products on it already have. But no one is suggesting that's the right thing to do in the long run. Or are we?
Doug.
From: John Arthorne <John_Arthorne@xxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: Cross project issues <cross-project-issues-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Friday, 30 August, 2013 11:05 AM To: Cross project issues <cross-project-issues-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Re: [cross-project-issues-dev] JFace Generics Eike Stepper <stepper@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote on 08/30/2013 05:59:14 AM:
> >The project is it's contributors not it's API. > > That sounds a little as if Eclipse projects are only playgrounds for > "the cool kids". I think a project is successful if > what it produces (including the APIs) is successful, i.e. widely > adopted. The adopters have to be pleased, not the contributors. You're definitely wrong about this part. Committers and contributors will always have the final say. An adopter that is not contributing has *absolutely* no say in the direction of the project. This is not my opinion - this is clearly defined in the Eclipse charter, by-laws, and dev process, and is the same for most other open source projects. The historic platform contributors (e.g., IBM), placed extremely high value on stability and compatibility. If those committers are gone and a new set of committers arrives that values innovation and change over stability and compatibility, then that's the direction the project will take. If adopters don't like that direction, then they need to get involved to influence the direction, fork the project, etc. Even as a PMC member I have no right to value the needs of adopters over contributors - quite the opposite I have a clearly defined obligation to enable the project's contributors to make progress in the direction they want to take. John |