Responses inline, with some liberties on ordering. On Sun, Jul 12, 2015 at 10:32 PM, Patrick Wendell <pwend...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey Sean B, > > Would you mind outlining for me how we go about changing this policy - > I think it's outdated and doesn't make much sense. Ideally I'd like to > propose a vote to modify the text slightly such that our current > behavior is seen as complaint. Specifically: > > - Who has the authority to change this document? > It's foundation level policy, so I'd presume the board needs to. Since it's part of our legal position, it might be owned by the legal affairs committee[1]. That would mean they could update it without a board resolution. (legal-discuss@ could tell you for sure). > - What concrete steps can I take to change the policy? > The Legal Affairs Committee is reachable either through their mailing list[2] or their issue tracker[3]. Please be sure to read the entire original document, it explains the rationale that has gone into it. You'll need to address the matters raised there. > - You keep mentioning the incubator@ list, why is this the place for > such policy to be discussed or decided on? > It can't be decided on the general@incubator list, but there are already several relevant parties discussing the matter there. You certainly don't *need* to join that conversation, but the participants there have overlap with the folks who can ultimately decide the issue. Thus, it may help avoid having to repeat things. > - What is the reasonable amount of time frame in which the policy > change is likely to be decided? > > I am neither a participant on legal affairs nor the board, so I have no idea. > We've had a few times people from the various parts of the ASF come > and say we are in violation of a policy. And sometimes other ASF > people come and then get in a fight on our mailing list, and there is > Please keep in mind that you are also "ASF people," as is the entire Spark community (users and all)[4]. Phrasing things in terms of "us and them" by drawing a distinction on "[they] get in a fight on our mailing list" is not helpful. > back and fourth, and it turns out there isn't so much a widely > followed policy as a doc somewhere that is really old and not actually > universally followed. It's difficult for us in such situations to now > how to proceed and how much autonomy we as a PMC have to make > decisions about our own project. > > Understanding and abiding by ASF legal obligations and policies is the job of each project PMC as a part of their formation by the board[5]. If anyone in your community has questions about what the project can or can not do then it's the job of the PMC find out proactively (rather than take a "ask for forgiveness" approach). Where the existing documentation is unclear or where you think it might be out of date, you can often get guidance from general@incubator (since it contains a large number of members and folks from across foundation projects) or comdev[6] (since their charter includes explaining ASF policy). If those resources prove insufficient matters can be brought up with either legal-discuss@ or board@. If you find out of date documentation that is not ASF policy, you can have it removed by notifying the appropriate group (i.e. legal-discuss, comdev, or whomever is hosting it). [1]: http://apache.org/legal/ [2]: http://www.apache.org/foundation/mailinglists.html#foundation-legal [3]: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LEGAL/ [4]: http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html#roles [5]: http://apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html#pmc [6]: https://community.apache.org/ -- Sean
