Just to make it clear. PEAR is a technical group. As such we are interested in the best code. While ego are involved its irrelevant to PEAR who maintains what as long as the code is good and well maintained. So if Luca gets the ball rolling, yet someone else provides the better code, then there is no reason to accept Luca's code. What you are suggesting sounds like a land grant due to creating inertia in a new direction.
However I think we are still well on our way to a collaborative effort. Josh is of course well known in the PEAR community for his other packages and his efforts on AJAX in the PHP world. However this does not define his ideas to be better by definition. Also like I stated before his ideas may just be different and in the end we may want both in PEAR.
So again I hope that Luca doesnt feel too intimated by this time and Josh will use his experience in the PEAR world to soften this seemingly harsh entry into the PEAR world. I am quite confident this will work out and its obvious from the feedback that the PEAR world is sensitive enough to the problem that support is there when needed.
I've always been of the mind that a lot of energy is wasted in doing the same thing in a gazillion ways. PEAR has everything to win if everybody cooperates. Like Lukas I hope Luca will not be twarthed by that thread. Joshua challenged the proposal and the fact he is known in the community should not come into play, challenge can be a good thing.
Arnaud.