I generally agree with what you said, but my hope has always been that someday all or most software development teams use Agile values and principles because it’s a really good way to deliver good software with high business value, and it doesn’t have a name at all -it’s just how you develop software.

Some practices used by agile teams are becoming pretty mainstream. Lots of teams that don’t call themselves agile or Agile use CI, for example. Maybe the values and principles behind the Manifesto will spread as well?

From your focus on one narrow bit, I’m not sure you saw the broader point I’m making. Let me know if that’s not the case.

Addressing your comment: Citizens disagree all the time. That’s why we have politics. But almost any political system will give the same answer when most people agree. In this particular case, when Ron says you can’t do Agile without refactoring, you’ll have a hard time finding long-time residents who disagree.

Back to the broad point: I still think you don’t quite get what they’re saying, or why they’re saying it. Over the last few years, “doing agile” has become a popular trend. Sadly, a lot of people are doing something that those of us who have been on this for a while wouldn’t call capital-A Agile. It’s important to us to make the distinction because a) we wouldn’t want them to fail based on a misunderstanding, and b) we don’t want to take the blame when various pseudo-Agile efforts fail.

If you’re happy with your process, you should certainly stick with it. It doesn’t matter whether Ron Jeffries likes it or not. If you don’t mind the confusion, you can even call it “agile” if you like. But you shouldn’t call it “Agile” unless you mean that thing that the Agile Manifesto people were referring to and that the Agile community is still working out today.

This has bothering me for a quite a while, now: people confusing the name “Agile” with the dictionary definition……

This is where your analogy breaks. What if the people *within* Grand Rapids disagree on the details? Who can claim senior citizenship over the other citizens?

The 17 signatories of the Agile Manifesto themselves would never be able to agree on the details of agile. That’s why they only talked about principles, not practices. XP is a Jeffries/Beck thing. The others have little to do with that. Cockburn, for example, doesn’t fully agree with Beck.

So what gives some agilists the right to say that the practices I have are not agile enough?

See: The Decline and Fall of Agilists
http://www.noop.nl/2009/02/the-decline-and-fall-of-agilists.html

Cheers
MB