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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

That moment of thought was apparently too expensive for you; you didn't respond to the actual concern, but rather raised an argument suggesting that any argument about git must be meritless.

I don't know who you expect to convince by baying at the moon.

The ASF people are right in at least one sense: if you don't want to run projects in the ASF style, you are free to take your work elsewhere.

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I need not respond to the actual concern because the ASF has already done so. The ASF has already decided to allow git to be used. I assume that their lawyers OK'd this change. So I did not intend to continue an ongoing discussion: ASF has already concluded that discussion and approved git. Clearly, jaaron does not represent the views of all the "ASF People", and for him to raise issues as legal showstoppers when the lawyers have clearly approved is utterly disingenuous.

The purpose of my post was not to discuss the merit of the git vs subversion argument, but instead to discuss the merits of jaarons criticism of mikeals article.

One method that established groups resist change is to continue to bring back discussion to issues that have been decided. It helps slow discussion on change by making it appear that a previous issue was not, in fact, resolved. In their mind, of course, its not been resolved: the lawyers were wrong, or perhaps the lawyers didn't understand. Established groups don't just get over it and move on. Why would they?

ASF has decided to allow Git. I believe that those projects which use git will enjoy more success than if they use subversion. Mikeal makes some interesting observations about this. Jaaron spouts the traditional establishment bullshit:

1. The other side are children. We are grown ups.

2. Legal implications.

3. Nobody is forcing you to participate.

4. Condescension. "It's impressive for what it is" ... (but "what it is" is "just a sandbox")

I'm calling it for what it is.

> 4. Condescension. "It's impressive for what it is" ... (but "what it is" is "just a sandbox")

You're jumping at shadows and putting words into his mouth. What he said was:

> Git is an impressive tool and github is awesome for what it is, but it's not a non-profit foundation and it won't replace one.

Which doesn't imply the same condescenscion as your "quote".

The very next line:

    Confusing the Apache Software Foundation for your coding sandbox ...

But he does not say "just a sandbox", or otherwise imply that a "coding sandbox" is less valuable than a non-profit organization. They're different things.

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