I go away for a weekend to Brisbane and this happens. Whilst it may look like it's a fair right of reply from the official source of all Joomla! sugary goodness, there's actually very little meat behind it as to the issues I raised. More often that not, it looks like a mass panic. People seem to have heard "venture capital" and went into a fit about FUD and protecting their precious (Joomla!), to do a hat tip to Lord of the Rings.  And once somebody panics, reason generally goes out the window. It's an unfortunate side effect of human behaviour -  a response made in fear is always unreasonable. So I'll simplify the key points of my previous post to dot points so people know where this is going..
The key questions remain unanswered:

• Why is there a need for such tracking of users and code, in comparison to the work done via JoomlaCode/SVN
  
• What guarantees does OSM provide to not venture capitalise on the user and code details tracked by Clearance, as there are no adequate privacy provisions currently set in place.
  
• Why the JoomlaCode project for Clearance has a high number of overall users, where there is no clear differentiation between mentor and student.

In order for OSM to deliver this project under the Summer of Code provisions, each person, apart from the mentor must:

"be a student. Google defines a student as an individual enrolled in or accepted into an accredited institution including (but not necessarily limited to) colleges, universities, masters programs, PhD programs and undergraduate programs. You should be prepared, upon request, to provide Google with transcripts from your accredited institution as proof of enrollment or admission status. Computer Science does not need to be your field of study in order to participate in the program.

You may be enrolled as a full-time or part-time student. You must also be eligible to work in the country in which you'll reside throughout the duration of the program, e.g. if you are in the United States on an F-1 visa, you are welcome to apply to Google Summer of Code as long as you have U.S. work authorization. For F-1 students applying for CPT, Google will furnish you with a letter you can provide to your university to get CPT established once your application to the program has been accepted."

Taken from Google's Developer Knowledge Base: Who's Eligible to Participate as a Student?

Yet there is no documented history for this in terms of Clearance. In all other Joomla! SoC projects, you can clearly differentiate between the mentor and intern.

This then brings up another issue.

If there is no need for a product, nor a market for it, why develop it ?

This is where the Joomla! team need to rethink both their branding and marketing strategy for this product and project. Who is "Clearance" clearing access for ? The people who may own your details on OSM's Offical Joomla! community forums ? blog comments powered by Disqus