""if the Rails community behaves too erratically for your taste, you can just walk away" is not a sentence I can afford to say to a prospective client who wants a website."
Fair Enough. But
(a)no Open Source community in the world has any guarantee on not "behaving erratically" in the future. All OS guarantees is that if the community goes in a direction different from what you think appropriate, you still have the code. So your client still only has that to fall back on in the ultimate analysis.
(b)"Clients want to hear "your site is built on a platform that is managed by a friendly, responsive team, with a long history, that is dedicated to recruiting an ever-growing, diverse community of developers and designers who can be recruited to maintain your site over the next decade".
I agree. But it is not necessarily the project founders concern that your clients hear what you want them to hear.
he could just be sharing some code with no worries about what anyone says or does.
(c) Just to be clear, I speak for me, not "the community".
I just think it is unfair of people to demand that the presenter apologize just beacuse some people chose to be "offended". To me, this line of argument is similair to those put forward aginats the Mohammed Cartoons.
I also think it is unfair of people to project their notions of what "leadership" should be on to DHH and then complain he doesn't meet those standards. This is an Open Source project. If you are dissatisfied with the leadership, step up and lead.
Fwiw, I don't think the presentation was a very cool one. I just support the presenters right to make his presentation in any manner he see fit (and the audience's right to walk away ). I am just wary of some claims of moral superiority.
""if the Rails community behaves too erratically for your taste, you can just walk away" is not a sentence I can afford to say to a prospective client who wants a website."
Fair Enough. But
(a)no Open Source community in the world has any guarantee on not "behaving erratically" in the future. All OS guarantees is that if the community goes in a direction different from what you think appropriate, you still have the code. So your client still only has that to fall back on in the ultimate analysis.
(b)"Clients want to hear "your site is built on a platform that is managed by a friendly, responsive team, with a long history, that is dedicated to recruiting an ever-growing, diverse community of developers and designers who can be recruited to maintain your site over the next decade".
I agree. But it is not necessarily the project founders concern that your clients hear what you want them to hear. he could just be sharing some code with no worries about what anyone says or does.
(c) Just to be clear, I speak for me, not "the community".
I just think it is unfair of people to demand that the presenter apologize just beacuse some people chose to be "offended". To me, this line of argument is similair to those put forward aginats the Mohammed Cartoons.
I also think it is unfair of people to project their notions of what "leadership" should be on to DHH and then complain he doesn't meet those standards. This is an Open Source project. If you are dissatisfied with the leadership, step up and lead.
Fwiw, I don't think the presentation was a very cool one. I just support the presenters right to make his presentation in any manner he see fit (and the audience's right to walk away ). I am just wary of some claims of moral superiority.