Many of the people posting here today are familiar with the background of the governance issue. That is to say, what has been going on off the boards. I am not one of those people, so this is the first I've seen of this discussion.
As the representative of an OpenACS company, as a committed member of the community, as a vendor to Sloan and having at least one client that is interested in using dotLRN, I certainly have a lot of interest in how this issue is settled. Since today is the first time that I've been exposed to all of this, I am trying to withhold judgement until all of the parties have an opportunity to express themselves. And I also am trying to think of the best solution for the project, rather than the opportunities that could present themselves if either proposal is selected. I would like to stress that last point.
In the past, I have been relatively outspoken, on and off the boards, that the dotLRN project and all of the OpenACS project, needs to have more transparency in the way that decisions are made. I think that both of these proposals present ways that this can be achieved.
IMHO, it's very hard to tell the people who have put the money up for the project that they can't decide on its direction, right or wrong. I understand Ben's intentions, though, that it's important for a free software project to be relatively free of influences other than what is best from a software perspetive.
I have been assured by people I respect that Sloan's intentions in having a neutral body oversee the dotLRN code are true. That's generally more than enough for me, but I do still worry about who Sloan might want on the consortium. Al, could you speak to that?
On another note, Stephen, I think you're being unfair to Michael, who has put a lot of energy into this community and this project in terms of vision and input. While he's not a hacker, he deserves as much respect as any tcl developer out there.
You are generally a contrarian when posting on the bboards, but you usually back up your claims with solid technical ideas. And I'm not one to talk about making strong statements here. But IMO Michael has contributed a great deal for a long time, probably more than you have, and he's done it more politely and reasonably.
I think I understand your frustrations with regards to the way development is sometimes done in the community, but I think here they are very misplaced. And I don't think Michael's integrity deserves to be questioned. You're more than welcome to question mine, but Michael, and Al for that matter, has always been forthright and honest, on the boards and in private.
They certainly don't need my defense, but I think they deserve more respect than that. Especially since there's been a lot of non-OpenACS discussion going on in private that could have, and maybe should have, remained that way.
talli
