Hadoop's bylaws do draw finer distinctions than the Apache voting guidelines document, but we follow the same general principles that are described there.
As I understand it, the rationale for using consensus for code is that everyone needs to agree on everything in the codebase or we've disenfranchised some. We share a single code repository and we need to all agree on what goes into it. A release does not require majority since if someone doesn't agree on the timing of a release they can choose to make another at a different time, but every change that goes into each release requires consensus. We also require consensus for committers and PMC member votes so that we have a group that's coherent and is able to reach consensus on code changes. Re-writing bash scripts in Python is neither a release nor other procedural issue. It involves changes to the software we maintain and seems to fall clearly into the "code change" category. If you disagree then perhaps you'd like to propose a change to the bylaws so that scripts have different rules than other kinds of software, but I don't yet see the rationale for such a change. Doug On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 5:22 PM, Matt Foley <ma...@apache.org> wrote: > No, but it speaks to whether the Hadoop bylaws can extend the Apache voting > procedures and draw finer distinctions. For example, the Apache voting > procedures only identify 3 types of votable issue, while the Hadoop bylaws > identify 9 types of votable issues. > > If we were forced to fit "development tools" into one of the three > categories cited by the Apache voting procedures, it would be fitting a > square peg in a round hole. Since we can instead look at the 9 categories > provided by the Hadoop bylaws, we can acknowledge that "development tools" > was an overlooked category. But in my opinion it certainly doesn't fit > into the "code change" category. Tooling is a meta-issue regarding HOW we > do what needs to be done. In this case, whether we allow a > platform-independent solution, or force contributors to maintain parallel > scripts in multiple platform-specific languages for no reason. > > --Matt > > > On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Doug Cutting <cutt...@apache.org> wrote: > >> On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 2:08 PM, Matt Foley <mfo...@hortonworks.com> wrote: >> > The apache voting process contradicts the Hadoop bylaws: >> > http://www.apache.org/foundation/voting.html says that only PMC members >> can >> > make binding votes on code modification issues, but >> > http://hadoop.apache.org/bylaws.html says that Committers can make >> binding >> > votes on them. Does that mean the Hadoop bylaws have to change? >> >> This may be a little atypical but I don't see any harm. The Hadoop >> PMC is willing to respect the veto of any committer as binding. I'd >> worry more if we tried to reduce vetoes to a subset of the PMC than >> extend it to a superset. >> >> Do you think this is problematic? >> >> Doug >>
