Greg Stein wrote:
Hi all,
Since the minutes from a board meeting are not usually available until a month or so after the meeting, I like to provide informal summaries of the meeting. This can help to keep people informed about the actions the Board has taken which may have an effect on the development community here at the ASF. If you're a committer, then you'll want to read this :-)
It was quite a busy meeting:
* The Board established two new PMCs:
- The Apache Gump Project will now oversee the development and maintenance of the Apache Jakarta Gump project. Stefan Bodewig is the new Chair of this PMC.
- The Apache Portals Project will be pulling together a number of different ASF technologies that are used to create portals. Santiago Gala is the new project Chair.
* Sam Ruby requested to step down from the Apache Jakarta Chair position. The Board appointed Geir Magnusson Jr to the newly-vacant Chair.
Thanks Sam for your time in the Chair. I also look forward to the things that Geir can bring to the Apache Jakarta Project!
* The Board fixed a mistake we made a few years ago. In an attempt to create a tight bond of a "sister project" with the PHP community, we created a PHP PMC. That hasn't ever been quite right, though, as the PHP community is self-sufficient and the ASF doesn't actually own any rights to the code. So, the Board closed down the PMC, and we'll move PHP to its proper place on our site: as a favored sister project. This won't actually _change_ anything, other than from an ASF legal perspective. We still love those guys :-)
* We confirmed the March 1 deadline for two separate events:
- All committers must have a CLA on file by March 1. On that date, the infrastructure team will lock out all accounts without a CLA on file. If that is going to be a problem for some reason, then please discuss it with your project's PMC.
- All releases made after March 1 must use the new Apache License 2.0.
Please note that this applies to *all* releases, even maintenance
releases where the original went out under the 1.1 license.
Please see http://www.apache.org/dev/apply-license.html for more
information on applying the license.
* In conjunction with the the discussion about relicensing and some
copyright issues, the Board is establishing an official policy in this
area:
- each and every file must have exactly *one* Copyright line, specifying
The Apache Software Foundation. additional individual or corporate
copyrights are not allowed.
(of course, binary files or certain restrictively formatted files
cannot include the copyright and license, but the copyright/license
header should be in everything possible)
- for contributions of entire files/packages, it is permissible to include a section saying something along the lines of "originally written by ...". this text should occur *after* the copyright and license header.
- author tags are officially discouraged. these create difficulties in establishing the proper ownership and the protection of our committers. there are other social issues dealing with collaborative development, but the Board is concerned about the legal ramifications around the use of author tags
- it is quite acceptable and encouraged to recognize developers' efforts in a CHANGES file, or some other descriptive file which is associated with the overall PMC or release rather than individual files.
* The Board reiterated that distribution of software from our servers must be licensed with the Apache License or a *less* restrictive license (such as plain BSD or the MIT licenses).
* The XML Project submitted a plan to the Board regarding a desire to move to a federation of PMCs, rather than a "big umbrella" PMC. The Board is very supportive of this move, and is looking forward to seeing this happen.
I believe that is about it (whew!). Please continue any discussion on [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions, comments, or other concerns, then you can send them directly to me ([EMAIL PROTECTED]), or to any other ASF officer.
Very nice!
It's amazing to see how the foundation, despite it's growth, is still flexible enough to make serious decisions in changing old habits and past mistakes.
This is all very refreshing.
Great work guys, I'm proud.
-- Stefano.
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