Comment by mschaef

> Chas knows very well how Clojure is authored. I suppose some people believe their contributions or community status give them higher authority and a right to publicly pressure Rich Hickey.

Thought experiment: assume for a moment Rich is now running Clojure into the ground, and this is a bad thing. Who are the people that _do_ have standing to try speak up and make things better? If not Chas, who?

> The entire idea that a different process would produce better results is an insult in the first place.

No, it's not. Projects grow in complexity as they are used. It is only natural that they require improving governance models as this happens.

Another thought experiment: Name another successful open source project that's stayed on the same sort of governance model throughout the first ten years of its existence. These all usually work the same way: there's an initial individually driven chunk of core development and then the process broadens out to a more community driven effort. (With individually driven spikes along the way that are contributed into the whole.)

It really reminds me of a phrase I heard fairly recently: "Go fast alone, go far together." At some point, a transition probably has to be made.

> The progress and effect we got with Clojure with no enterprise funding/influence is a true miracle.

True enough.

And now we're looking for the next true miracle: sustained development and use over the next twenty, thirty, or more years.