[Zope-dev] Open letters, hijacking and the like

[Danny William Adair]

Hi!

Wow, this is the first time I have more zope-dev mails in my inbox than from 
the "main" list (and I'm very happy that all this stays on one list).

What I have seen from ZC up til now seems like they disclose practically 
everything but their client base, ok and maybe plans for a commercial Zope 
product (I count two now that have been dropped, this does not include Zope 
itself). Efforts have been made to separate the "geeks" from the 
"tie-fighters" (.org/.com), but I can't see any negative side-effects for the 
development of Zope itself. Maybe "not yet", but, and this goes out to Mr 
O'Brien: It needs two to tango. Fair enough. ZC knows that, and especially 
Paul Everitt has pointed out more than once the dedication that ZC has 
towards "the community".

I want to thank Zope Corporation for everything that's been done up til now. 
This is the kind of track I will stay on. I see this working.

Whatever parts of Zope don't work as expected, I don't know in how far I 
could ever put blame about that on ZC. These guys are more open to new ideas, 
efforts from the community and mutual benefits than anyone else I have met 
(in my short life, ok granted). Akm's worries and complaints are legitimate 
(and he has already corrected his language), and I see people reacting 
_immediately_. What more can you expect? In my opinion it was just a 
contretemps that priorities in the User API were set differently than 
expected from someone who dedicates a hell of a lot of time to that field of 
development. My personal opinion is that ZC should give akm a CVS account and 
let him put some elaborate changes to the user api for 2.5, apparently he 
knows exactly what he's doing.

"Dude": Do it better and _then_ complain. ZC's not yo mama, feeding you 
software with a spoon. It looks like you're spilling it all, anyway.

Take a look at the ZPL, take a look at the Public CVS, the Wikis, the 
fishbowls, the open-sourced literature, and then think again. "Closure of 
code / internals" is not an arguable point when it comes to Zope, that's just 
being paranoid.

You are welcome to take from the community, you are welcome to contribute to 
the community, you are welcome to make money with Zope. It's all there. 
Closure of code is not what will separate the wheat from the chaff, 
business-wise.

Couldn't-resisting-ly yours,
Danny