Yes, dev is the place to do it.

Ross

Ross Gardler (@rgardler)
Senior Technology Evangelist
Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.
A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation





On 20 July 2013 23:04, Sanjiva Weerawarana <[email protected]> wrote:

> I'm happy to drive the proposal .. can we do it on dev@? I'm not on the
> PPMC.
>
> If so, Ant, lets catch up a bit one of these so we can start a Wiki
> proposal. Maybe target August board meeting at this point?
>
> Sanjiva.
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 10:40 AM, Ross Gardler <[email protected]
> > wrote:
>
>>  There needs to be a concrete proposal from this PPMC and its mentors,
>> so no we are not on track.
>>
>> However, Ant did mail me offlist a few days ago to let me know he's been
>> swamped but does plan to get to this soon.
>>
>> Of course the discussion doesn't need to be led by Ant.
>>
>> Ross
>>
>> Sent from my Windows Phone
>>  ------------------------------
>> From: Sanjiva Weerawarana <[email protected]>
>> Sent: 7/20/2013 9:30 PM
>> To: dev <[email protected]>
>> Subject: Re: [DISCUSS] probationary TLP experiment
>>
>> Looks like there was no follow-up to this. Ross are you still on track to
>> put this forward?
>>
>> Sanjiva.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 7:59 PM, Ross Gardler <[email protected]
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> During the proposal phase for the Stratos podling I floated the idea of
>>> the IPMC using the podling to experiment with a more streamlined incubation
>>> process.
>>>
>>> It is not my intention to drive this experiment. Ant Elder expressed a
>>> desire to explore the idea during recent discussions among the IPMC. Whilst
>>> we were drawing up the Stratos proposal I asked Ant if he would be willing
>>> to lead the experiment. He agreed.
>>>
>>> In this mail I will summarize the relevant parts of the discussion
>>> thread on the [email protected] list. The intention is to
>>> give Ant a starting point for the discussions here. It's up to the Stratos
>>> community to ensure the experiement does not limit the project in any way
>>> and up to Ant to drive the experiment for the IPMC. Naturally, the IPMC
>>> mentors will be a very important part of defining the model and feeding
>>> back on the experiment to the IPMC. I'll be lad to help evaluate as an IPMC
>>> member too.
>>>
>>> Chris' original skeleton proposal is at [1]. This outlines who is
>>> responsible for what in the new model. I'll remind the team that the board
>>> has not discussed the proposals here and a number of board members have
>>> expressed concern about it, while a couple are actively pushing for it.
>>>
>>> The following specific questions were raised during discussions. These
>>> will need to be addressed in any proposal.
>>>
>>> # Who's responsible for monitoring the probation, the IPMC or the board?
>>>
>>> This is perhaps the biggest potential area for pushback is moving
>>> oversight for the project to the board. Going to board certainly bypasses
>>> the problem of the IPMC often getting in the way of efficient process but
>>> it also removes the valuable input that some members of the IPMC often
>>> provide. Furthermore, should there be a problem it means it is the board
>>> that must fix the problem. Podling mentoring is not, traditionally, a role
>>> the board has ever taken on (fixing broken communities is not the same as
>>> mentoring fledgling communities).
>>>
>>> Note that one Director explicitly stated that he will vote -1 on any
>>> proposal that has a "podling" reporting directly to the board. This doesn't
>>> mean it won't be approved by the board, but it does mean it will be
>>> rigorously discussed.
>>>
>>> # What bits must absolutely be done before probation begins?
>>>
>>> We dodged this question in the discussion thread  by saying we'd go to
>>> podling status first. I guess defining this is part of defining the scope
>>> of the experiment.
>>>
>>> # What minimum criteria does a probationary TLP have to meet to stay in
>>> good graces?
>>>
>>> Here I suggested the criteria would be the same as a TLP. The problem is
>>> understanding whether we have that documented anywhere. The IPMC has
>>> addiitonal requirements (e.g. keep the meta-data up-to-date) whilst the
>>> board has, for the last 12 months or so, been pushing to have TLPs provide
>>> some of the same meta-data (e.g. last release date, last committer
>>> addition, last PMC addition).
>>>
>>> I suggest trying to come up with using the same criteria for TLPs,
>>> podlings and pTLPs. Where podlings will have a lower set f expectations
>>> (i.e. no need to have voted in any committers yet, pTLPs have voted in a
>>> committer in the last six months but may not have done an approved release
>>> and TLPs should have a fairly regular flow of committers and releases).
>>> Note these "metrics" ought not be fixed, they should be seen as guidelines.
>>> A project with no recent releases that continues to report and answer user
>>> queries may just be mature, for example.
>>>
>>> One measure can be the pTLP PMC membership. Initially it would be only
>>> the project mentors and champion. Over time active committers from the
>>> initial committer list are voted into the PMC (recognising merit). So we
>>> then have a possible measure, if there are 3 members of the pTLP from the
>>> initial committer list then there are now sufficient binding votes for the
>>> project to operate as a TLP.
>>>
>>> While writing this I realised that we might want to propose an interim
>>> step in the incubation process. e.g. start as a podling, move to pTLP when
>>> certain criteria are met (e.g. >3 active binding votes) and then TLP. I've
>>> not thought this through, just an idea you might consider.
>>>
>>> Another commentator observed that "It would probably be good to be clear
>>> on what are the exact characteristics that make this podling pTLP worthy
>>> for the future.  For example, the number of ASF veterans in its ranks." - a
>>> good observation. The danger here is creating an "us" and "them"
>>> environment. Perhaps the podling -> pTLP -> TLP idea resolves this - not
>>> sure.
>>>
>>> # What happens if the probationary TLP is not in good graces?
>>>
>>> I don't see this as being any different from a TLP. For a TLP the board
>>> says "fix it", if it isn't fixed they clear the decks and invite the
>>> remaining PMC to fix it. If it still isn't fixed it gets axed. What needs
>>> to be defined is who provides these "fix it" ultimatums and when.
>>>
>>> Please be *very* careful here. When we set up the IPMC we said the IPMC
>>> would do this - that's the main failure point now. It is mob rule. If a
>>> pTLP reports to board then it's easy, but if reporting to the IPMC it is
>>> harder.
>>>
>>> Note, a Director said " the Board will need a *definition* of
>>> probation. This is more than just a wiki page. I believe it needs to
>>> be a page laid down in www.a.o/dev/ that defines the constraints laid
>>> down upon a "pTLP"" I believe answering the above question will provide
>>> this.
>>>
>>> # What bits must absolutely be done before probation completes?
>>>
>>> Here I don't see any reason for it to be different to podling graduation
>>> (proven ability to be open to new community members, properly vetted
>>> release).
>>>
>>> # How do we maintain the "podling" brand?
>>>
>>> People are familiar with the concept of a podling. The press understands
>>> the difference between a TLP and a podling. We must not lose this
>>> distinction. The Apache brand is valuable because of our high quality bar.
>>> If we dilute that quality by allowing projects to claim they are official
>>> before they understand what is required of an ASF project we run the risk
>>> of damaging the brand for all projects.
>>>
>>> So there you go. I hope I've done a reasonable job of summarizing a 55+
>>> mail thread.
>>>
>>> Good luck!
>>>
>>> Ross
>>>
>>> [1] http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/IncubatorDeconstructionProposal
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Sanjiva Weerawarana, Ph.D.
>> Founder, Chairman & CEO; WSO2, Inc.;  http://wso2.com/
>> email: [email protected]; phone: +94 11 763 9614; cell: +94 77 787 6880 | +1
>> 650 265 8311
>> blog: http://sanjiva.weerawarana.org/
>>
>> Lean . Enterprise . Middleware
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Sanjiva Weerawarana, Ph.D.
> Founder, Chairman & CEO; WSO2, Inc.;  http://wso2.com/
> email: [email protected]; phone: +94 11 763 9614; cell: +94 77 787 6880 | +1
> 650 265 8311
> blog: http://sanjiva.weerawarana.org/
>
> Lean . Enterprise . Middleware
>

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