RE: Discussing issues

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] 
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Havoc Pennington
> Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 10:03 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [forum] Discussing issues
> 

...

> > The XFree86 vs X Consortium example shows this clearly.
> 
> You're missing an important point. You say that XFree86 
> wouldn't have existed if you hadn't forked from the X consortium.
> 
> However, the reason you had to fork, and thus exist, is that 
> the X consortium would not adapt to meet a slightly broader 
> interest than it was at the time.
> 
> So the actions of XFree86 made sense in that situation, but 
> the actions of the X consortium *didn't* make sense, they 
> were a mistake.
> 
> In this case, I understand you're saying you're in the role 
> of the X consortium.  Why are you doing what they did? Why 
> does that make sense?
> 
> That's what I don't understand, and why I don't think I 
> understand your full point of view.

The big difference between what we did w.r.t the X Consortium and what's
going on here is that we JUST DID IT, we didn't talk about how the X
Consortium was f'd and needed to go away and let us decide. We just did it.
A small set of enthusiasts needing to address a few things got together, put
it out for whoever wanted it, extended it, grew it, etc.

And we PAID to get into the program. Not just sweat-equity. Real dollars.
That was the cost to get our changes back in. And since the X Consortium
wouldn't take all of our changes (e.g. many of our Linux changes weren't
accepted - this being back in the pre-ELF shared library days), we
maintained our own branch.

Eventually, as other platforms (i.e. Linux, BSD's) grew in significance,
XFree86 grew in significance w.r.t. the "official" SI. And the official SI
started picking up our stuff on its own. And so we became the "de facto" SI.

What we explicitly DIDN'T do was have a member of the X Consortium decide it
was f'd, and plan a big public-relations campaign to create an alternative,
callling for the replacement of the leadership of the X Consortium, without
actually talking to the rest of the X Consortium about the his issues.

Which is what happened here.

If Keith had just resigned from the Core Team, gone off and done some stuff,
told some people about it, etc, the free market would have taken care of
itself. I believe this is the point David, Alan, Mark, a couple of others,
have tried to make.

This whole governance thing is a smokescreen, IMHO.

Please note, Havoc, that I do not ascribe any of this to you. In fact, I
find your positions, questions, arguments, etc, to be the most lucid and
most relevent of anything that has gone on here - the root issues - and I
hope we can move past the governance issues to really address these issues.
I personally don't have much of a leg to stand on to influence these
discussions, other than to try to move them forward...

More of my personal opinions...

...

> Havoc
> 

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