I do think it’s reasonable to use whatever word a particular project/community feels communicates more clearly. I’m happy to change wording where it clarifies. What I don’t want to do is have people have to guess what different words mean in different context, and for that, consistency in naming across the ASF is a valuable thing. PMC Member is an Apache-specific term, although many projects at other Foundations have TSC (Technical Steering Committee) or PLC (Project Leadership Council) and various other names that are subtly different but essentially the same thing.
> On Jul 22, 2026, at 9:58 AM, tison <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Rich, > > Thanks for sharing more documents. > > It's interesting to find we writes: > >> all the way up to being a maintainer of the project > > IIRC when bringing the idea of "maintainer" in this list it received > different ideas [1]. > > [1] https://lists.apache.org/thread/xsjojmksqtnsdjcg0yf4vz0xy82llhmw I mostly read this thread as a desire not to just change a word and then have people have to figure out what the new one means, just as they had to figure out what the old one meant. Maintainer means broadly the same thing when used in open source, but the actual level of authority varies from one project/community to another. I would say that committers and PMC members are both “maintainers” on ASF projects. The distinction between the two roles is, in our modern Github-centric workflow, really only one of who gets to vote on releases, and who gets to vote on new maintainers. The actual term “Commit” means a lot less now than it did 20 years ago, since most projects have a Review-Then-Commit workflow, rather than CTR, and so nobody is just casually committing changes to code. (Although most projects that I work on have a very casual CTR view of documentation/website changes.) > > For this thread that brings the feeling bias on "promotion", I feel that we > may softly accept the expressions while different people may understand and > feel it differently. Indeed. And if changing words helps communication, then, sure, do it. Committer and PMC Member have definitions, but other words to clarify is always welcome, I would think. They’re just not likely to get adopted universally. > > Back to what The Apache Way writes: > >> Community of Peers: individuals participate at the ASF, not > organizations. The ASF’s flat structure dictates that roles are equal > irrespective of title, votes hold equal weight, and contributions are made > on a volunteer basis (even if paid to work on Apache code). The Apache > community is expected to treat each other with respect in adherence to our > Code of Conduct. Domain expertise is appreciated; Benevolent Dictators For > Life are disallowed. More on individual participation. > > Now I read it emphasizes the volunteers of the ASF do not have additional > power based on their affiliations. But within the ASF, there are specific > roles who have commit bits or can cast binding votes that are privileges. > > To what Dirk wrote: > >> This may be a cultural/language thing - but for me, the word promotion, > is something akin to a higher step of a ladder, higher up in a hierarchy - > where your output, word, work, etc is of more value than that of others - > and where you get to command and delegate. Or when a call is to be made - > the one with the promition makes it - is -expected- to amke it. > > I agree with this. And the word "promotion" gives me the impression of a > hierarchy in a company, while I see different roles in the ASF communities > as a gravity model rather than a ladder. That is, you dedicate more > (attracted by the project), rather than being above others. > > But this can be a cultural gap so we may not ask for a hard consensus on > wording. Agreed. Use the wording that makes the most sense to your audience. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
