On Sat, 22 Nov 2003, Matt Sergeant wrote:
> > I've been following the discussion, but it still seems to be at the
> > "so what are we gonna do?" stage
Correct.
> > and its not clear what our choices are.
There is no pre defined list of choices of which you need to pick the
right one - just a list of requirements to which a solution is to be
found. In short (consult the archive for a more complete overview)
-> Onee of the aims of the ASF is to provide adequate legal shielding
of its developers.
-> For this reasin it is required that within the ASF:
-> There is active oversight and peer review
of the various projecs, and that this does
not depend on single point of failures.
-> Things such are releases leave a visible
+1 voting track by multiple committers
as to evidence peer review and oversight.
-> The XML tlp has possible become too large to be managable by
the current relatively small group of PMC members (just
0.5-1.5 person/project) to accomplish the above in its
current form.
Ideas floating around are things such as increasing the size of the PMC,
or using more systematic reporting/managing steps, splitting it in 2-4
smaller chunks, etc.
> > Is everything in the XML PMC going to become top-level projects
No - that moves the issue simply to the board - who would not be able to
provide the effective oversight required.
> > (TLPs), will it split into smaller groups, if smaller groups, along
> > what lines, etc. Given the mostly Java-centricity of the XML PMC, i've
> I kind of feel that AxKit is pretty autonomous. We started out as a
> standalone project, and we really just use the ASF as a marketing tool.
If it is just the latter - you may indeed need to (re)consider your
position; as the ASF generally more than just a brand; it provides legal
protection, it provides a home to a code base beyond the lives of a single
committer, etc. If this is something to which this community does not
subscribe then we may need to do some debugging.
> What I mostly feel about the whole discussion is I don't understand
> what the problem is.
Please consult the archive. This is important.
http://www.mail-archive.com/general@xml.apache.org/maillist.html
> Is someone after change for the sake of it? Is
No, this is something we abhor in the ASF and avoid at all cost. Should
you feel however that this still is the case after reading the archive do
contacnt me or the [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> something truly broken? I'm not really sure.
Yes there is; we have seen a number of minor issues in the XML land, such
as releases arguably not beeing peer reviewed or lack of recording of the
votes leading up to a release. None of these are major, and each will be
fixed as we come across them. But they should have been caught earlier,
and hence we are looking at how we can improve oversight. And the reason
we want oversight is so that the ASF can continue to provide a safe home
to the code we work on, and shield its developers of legal issues.
Dw
