Re: [O] Org Community

[Loyall, David]

FWIW, I believe that the org-mode community should do what we can to oblige 
Jambunathan's request, even if/when we're not legally required to do so.  I 
think that we should do the same for any human who wants to withdraw from an 
endeavor.  (Don't each of you feel that your code is a part of you?)

Supposing that the group agrees that the code should be removed somehow, then 
at that point we can think about the most orderly way to do it.  What happens, 
technically, if we mark it all as deprecated?

I hope this helps,
Dave Loyall

-----Original Message-----
From: address@hidden [mailto:address@hidden On Behalf Of Scott Randby
Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2013 12:02 PM
To: address@hidden
Subject: [O] Org Community

Last September, I attended a talk given by the lead developers of a prominent 
free software project. One of the developers spoke about the importance of 
maintaining a friendly community that does not drive people away. In 
particular, the developer emphasized that the community is more important than 
the code.

The org community has been wonderful since I've started using org. My questions 
on even the most basic matters have been answered with respect and clarity. 
Even though I'm a mere user of org, I've never hesitated to participate in a 
discussion on the mailing list.

However, I am concerned about the future of org. There is one individual who is 
poisoning the atmosphere by engaging in unfair and unfounded name calling that 
simply should not be included in messages to this list. Now this person wants 
to take some of their contributions out of org. The developer of the talk I 
attended called this tactic "hostage taking" and said that it is better for the 
community to let hostage takers go their own way. The project and community are 
more important than the code. The code can be written by others, or the 
community can decide to go in a different direction. Giving in to hostage 
takers leads to more hostage taking and the decline of the project.

Many of the users of org find it to be irreplaceable. We don't want to see org 
fall apart because of dissension in the community. I'm not saying that we 
shouldn't have dissent and disagreement. No, those are essential for a vigorous 
and healthy project. It is hateful and untruthful personal attacks that we 
should not accept no matter how significant the code contributions of those 
making the attacks.

Scott Randby