Too be fair, Hibernate was a whole lot leaner when Gaving was leading the project. And Hibernate was one of the first ORMs, so he was at least pioneering a field, even if the idea admittedly turned out to be less great than initially thought.
And while working on CDI and Weld, Gaving really was the one who pushed for "plug and play" in JBoss, mediating between departments and making sure stuff got usable and in some cases even quite fast. In the end, the Seam guys more or less abandoned EJB and more or less started the POJO trend.
Additionally, I thing that Gavin was one of the first to spot where Hibernate was heading and started to work on ceylon quite early (I forgot when). And if you read what he has written you can tell that he knows his stuff!
I've been bitten by Hibernate and Seam badly. Although Ceylon might be cool, I've got reservations to take a look at it seriously. Not exactly because it is Gavin's work but because I am in no rush anymore to use bleeding edge to enthusiastically wreck myself over.
And while working on CDI and Weld, Gaving really was the one who pushed for "plug and play" in JBoss, mediating between departments and making sure stuff got usable and in some cases even quite fast. In the end, the Seam guys more or less abandoned EJB and more or less started the POJO trend.
Additionally, I thing that Gavin was one of the first to spot where Hibernate was heading and started to work on ceylon quite early (I forgot when). And if you read what he has written you can tell that he knows his stuff!
You have to give the guy some cred!