Ok,
We have reached an impass on progressing Rasdaman incubation.
* Peter has made it clear that he intends to personally remain in
control of Rasdaman.
* We have an incubation criteria which suggests (without specifically
mandating) shared control through a Project Management Committee. [1]
* We have 3 incubation committee members who have voted against
graduation based on this criteria.
So, how do we resolve this issue?
I suggest the following decision making process:
A. Rasdaman community be invited to seriously consider aligning with
OSGeo governance goals. (Done, but would love to see Rasdaman community
reconsider to save us going through the following steps).
B. In order to confirm the sentiment of the incubation committee, ask
remaining incubation committee members to vote on whether Rasdaman
should be accepted into graduation under Rasdaman's proposed government
framework. Committee members, please do respond and vote.
C. If incubation committee members express reservations about Rasdaman's
governance not aligning with OSGeo, we set up a pole for OSGeo Charter
members based on the question:
"Should OSGeo Incubation criteria be changed to accept projects which
put ultimate governance control with a single person?"
Prior to the pole being presented, the OSGeo community will be invited
to populate a wiki discussing pros and cons of such the decision.
D. Based on outcome of pole, the OSGeo Incubation process is updated, or
not, by the incubation committee.
E. If the incubation process is updated, the incubation committee is
re-polled to assess whether Rasdaman passes incubation against new criteria.
F. Incubation committee present decision to OSGeo Board for discussion
and hopefully to confirm decision.
Any comments before we put this into practice? OSGeo Board?
[1] http://www.osgeo.org/incubator/process/project_graduation_checklist.html
/The project has a suitable open governance policy ensuring decisions
are made, documented and adhered to in a public manner. //
//This typically means a Project Management Committee has been
established with a process for adding new members. A robust Project
Management Committee will typically draw upon developers, users and key
stakeholders from multiple organisations as there will be a greater
variety of technical visions and the project is more resilient to a
sponsor leaving./
On 5/05/2016 8:24 pm, Peter Baumann wrote:
Hi Cameron,
I tried very much to make the situation transparent. Maybe the notion
of Principal Investigator helps here (cf Wikipedia - although biased
towards medical science):
/A //*principal investigator*//(//*PI*//) is the holder of an
independent grant administered by a university and the lead researcher
for the grant project, usually in the sciences, such as a laboratory
study or a //clinical trial
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_trial>//. The phrase is also
often used as a synonym for "head of the laboratory" or "research
group leader." While the expression is common in the sciences, it is
used widely for the person or persons who make final decisions and
supervise funding and expenditures on a given research project./
I am the PI of rasdaman, and that will not change, also not indirectly
through wordsmithing as proposed.
OSGeo is entering new domains with rasdaman, which is: scientific
research projects. Like some other communities, these have existed
long before OSGeo, and have their own ethics, procedures, and rules.
It is unlikely that science will change and give up freedom of
research based on its principles well accepted by the whole community.
If OSGeo intends to change these in general then maybe starting with
rasdaman as an isolated item in a vast universe is not the optimal point.
OSGeo may find out that its very special (although obviously not
unambiguously codified) views constrain it to particular ecosystems.
But I am not imposing nor judging. Just trying to explain.
HTH,
Peter
On 05/04/2016 09:18 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
Hi Peter,
Could you please answer Even and Johan's question.
I'm happy to use another term for the governance model.
"Does one person have ultimate control over the project? Or does
ultimate control lie with a committee, possibly with a tie breaker
vote designated to one person or one role (eg chair)?"
Warm regards, Cameron
On 5/05/2016 3:29 am, Even Rouault wrote:
Le mercredi 04 mai 2016 18:34:27, Peter Baumann a écrit :
HI Cameron,
first, as this word has been used too often now, the current model has
nothing at all to do with dictatorship. What is the suggested
opposite,
BTW - "dictatorship of majorities"? ;-)
Actually reading http://www.rasdaman.org/wiki/Governance it seems
the sentence
that cause trouble is "Should such consent exceptionally not be
reached then
Peter Baumann has a casting vote." Does that mean that in case
there's a tie
in voting (which cannot happen with a 3 member PSC as currently),
Peter breaks
the tie ? If so, that seems acceptable to me (should probably be
rephrased in
a more neutral way to say to designate the chair of the PSC rather
than a
named individual).
I actually see that Johan Van de Wauw asked the same question but
this hasn't
been answered clearly.
Perhaps http://www.rasdaman.org/wiki/Governance could gain in
clarity by
defining precise voting rules (which majority, delays, etc...) As an
example of
simple rules (not necessarily to follow them, but to show the plain
language
used): https://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/wiki/rfc1_pmc /
http://mapserver.org/development/rfc/ms-rfc-1.html /
http://docs.geoserver.org/latest/en/developer/policies/psc.html ).
If it would at least be called a "technocracy", that I could accept:
rasdaman has always been driven by purely scientific elaboration _and_
consensus orientation and respect. Genius rules, regardless where
it comes
from - this is at the heart of our scientific progress.
It is the fundamental freedom of science that is at stake here.
I guess that OSGeo needs to decide whether it can accept a model
based on
scientific ethics ...or not.
best,
Peter
On 05/04/2016 02:01 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
Hi Peter,
Are you open to considering relinquishing rasdaman's current
"benevolent
dictator" governance model?
Many (most?) OSGeo projects that I'm aware of are managed
similarly to
your description below.
There is usually a sage or two amongst the community, typically
someone
who founded the project. The sage(s) have more experience with the
project, and their opinion holds greater weight amongst the
community.
This informal relationship continues even with a formal Project
Steering
Committee.
As you would understand, building a successful Open Source community
involves a significant amount of mutual respect, and mutual
recognition
of team members. Community members typically show respect by giving
extra weight to the opinion of founders, and founders often show
respect
and trust of their community by sharing project governance.
If you are a good open source leader, and it appears you must be,
there
is little risk you will loose your current influence on the
project. Its
also unlikely there will be an unresolvable difference between
yourself
and the community. But if there is, and the project forks, whether
you
are head of the official PSC or the new rouge PSC will have little
impact on the final result.
So please do consider adopting a shared PSC governance model.
If you do wish to go ahead with a "benevolent dictator" model, I
agree
with Andrea's that we should put the question to OSGeo Charter
members
to vote, as it would be a new direction for OSGeo.
Warm regards, Cameron
On 3/05/2016 5:46 pm, Peter Baumann wrote:
interesting discussion, with valuable thoughts!
True, micro management is not the case in rasdaman - on the
contrary, we
are most happy about helping hands, and are constantly thinking
about
opportunities for process improvements. Personally, I am so much
overloaded that I enjoy handing over tasks, and yes: with
appropriate
responsibility; in practice that means that we openly discuss
pros and
cons with myself being "primus inter pares" (first among equals). I
have not received any complaint over the years that anybody would
not
get heard appropriately. Regularly I just need to lean back
(metaphorically) and await the outcome of the discussion of the
experienced developers, and add my nodding to the group consensus.
We regularly try to involve the community in such design and
implementation discussions (and I am urging devers to do that), but
feedback invariably was minimal. Which I see as a sign of trust when
looking at the download figures at www.rasdaman.org.
It may be worth noting that we have installed mechanisms for openly
commenting and voting on patches; ever clicked on the Review URL
in the
Patch Manager?
Actually, it is more about deciding not by election, but by
qualification. Concepts and code of rasdaman are extraordinarily
complex; large and experienced companies like Oracle, Teradata, and
ESRI have tried to copy rasdaman, and failed. Therefore, it
unfortunately takes patience for a newcomer to immerse to a
degree that
allows making suggestions that are fully backed by the team. That
said,
we do not attach maturity labels to coders ;-), rather the technical
merit of each individual contribution is weighted carefully.
Another constraint, of course, are project considerations- there
is a
contract behind where ESA, the European Commission, or whoever-else
expects fulfilment.
Bottom line, the atmosphere in rasdaman is highly cooperative and
consensus-based, I just reserve jumping in as a last resort.
Someone has
questioned the term used in this discussion as not quite adequate; I
like the diplomacy aspect raised.
-Peter
On 05/03/2016 01:54 AM, Julien-Samuel Lacroix wrote:
I found this nice description of the benevolent dictator
governance:
http://oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/benevolentdictatorgovernancemodel
It's a nice read, but I want to highlight this part:
In many ways, the role of the benevolent dictator is less about
dictatorship and more about diplomacy. The key is to ensure
that, as the project expands, the right people are given influence
over it and the community rallies behind the vision of the project
lead.
Another good one from (linked from the above):
http://producingoss.com/html-chunk/social-infrastructure.html#benevolen
t-dictator-qualifications
they let things work themselves out through discussion and
experimentation whenever possible. They participate in those
discussions themselves, but as regular developers, often
deferring to
an area maintainer who has more expertise. Only when it is
clear that
no consensus can be reached, and that most of the group wants
someone
to guide the decision so that development can move on, does she
put
her foot down and say "This is the way it's going to be."
From my (really) naive point of view, the "benevolent
dictatorship" is
a
do-ocracy were the committers get the right, or influence, to lead
parts of the projects and where the "dictator" is acountable of its
decision to the community. The key ingredients are the same as
other
governance : - Be easy to contribute patches and features
- Be open on the direction of the project
- Be forkable
If someone wants to contribute a new feature, they ask the
mailing-list
and the committer responsible for this part of the software, not
the
"dictator", will approve or suggest changes. The approach is less
formal than with a PSC, but still works the same.
This is of course an ideal scenario, but can be as open as a PSC, I
think, as long as the project as a good "forkability".
Back to the incubation discussion, Rasdaman seems to have multiple
committers and 2 main organisation behind it. What I would like
to ask
is, what's the "bus number". Is there a second (or third) in
command
that could ultimately take care of the project after the dictator's
"end-of-term"? From my point of view, a PSC of 3, 2 being from the
same company, is a small PSC and will probably lack a bit of
variety
in opinions. Is there any other key contributors that the
"dictator"
refers to when trying to get inputs and defer technical decisions?
Julien
On 16-05-01 07:29 AM, Jody Garnett wrote:
This is kind of a larger topic than just the incubation
committee, but
no I do not believe we should. It is a defining characteristic
of our
foundation to not place many restrictions on our projects - but
demand
that the projects be inclusive and open to collaboration.
I do not believe that the "benevolent dictator" fits this ideal.
I also do not think we need to stress the PSC approach as the
one true
way, smaller projects that only wish to have committers vote on
decisions (rather than form a PSC) is perfectly acceptable -
provided
there is a provision for new committers to be added into the mix.
We also have an outstanding request from our president to make the
foundation more inclusive. With this in mind we are a lot less
demanding on our community projects - which provides a way for
projects that do not meet some of our ideal criteria to be part of
the foundation.
On 1 May 2016 at 00:44, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shor...@gmail.com
<mailto:cameron.shor...@gmail.com>> wrote:
OSGeo discuss, OSGeo incubation, OSGeo board,
I'm hoping the greater OSGeo community will
consider and comment
on this question:
Should OSGeo accept a "benevolent dictator" [1]
governance model
for incubating projects?
-0 from me, Cameron Shorter.
Background:
* As part of incubation, Peter Baumann, from Rasdaman has
requested a "benevolent dictatorship" governance model [2].
While "benevolent dictatorships" often lead to successful
projects, all prior OSGeo incubated projects have selected
"equal vote by PSC members". Someone with better legal
training
than me might find "benevolent dictatorships" to be
unconstitutional according to OSGeo bylaws. [3]
[1] Eric Raymond's "Homesteading the Noosphere":
http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/ar01s1
6.html [2] http://www.rasdaman.org/wiki/Governance
[3]
http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/incorporation/bylaws.htm
l
On 1/05/2016 3:56 pm, Peter Baumann wrote:
Cameron-
I understand where you are coming from, and your
characterization is definitely correct. While our
process is
and always has been absolutely open to discussion so as to
obtain the scientifically and technically best solution
this
"benevolent dictatorship" has brought rasdaman to where it
stands now - it is designed by innovation, not by
committee.
Just to get me right, our model is certainly not the
right one
for every endeavour. Here it is the most appropriate,
and hence
we will keep it.
As you observe, this model is not contradicting OS
as such, and
many projects run it. So ultimately it lies in the hand
of OSGeo
to decide whether they accept the existing plurality of
approaches (in this case manifest with rasdaman).
best,
Peter
On 04/30/2016 10:47 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
Bruce, Peter,
I've read through the incubation process documentation,
and can
only see one thing which I think breaks our OSGeo
principles.
The Governance model includes a statement:
"In all issues, the PSC strives to achieve unanimous
consent
based on a free, independent exchange of facts and
opinions.
Should such consent exceptionally not be reached then
Peter
Baumann has a casting vote."
http://www.rasdaman.org/wiki/Governance
This is describing a "benevolent dictator" model,
which has
proved to be an effective model for many open source
projects.
See Eric Raymond's "Homesteading the Noosphere":
<http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/ar01s16.
html>http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/ar01
s16.html
However, it is not in line with existing OSGeo Incubated
projects, which have documented a "vote by PSC" as the
defining
governance process. In practice, the PSC community debate
alternatives, and if needed, respectfully revert to
reasoned
advice provided by the "benevolent dictator".
Peter, are you open to changing the governance
model to a "vote
by PSC"?
I'd be comfortable with a "vote by PSC, with PSC chair
being
given 1.5 votes to break any deadlocks. I'd also be ok
with PSC
chair defaulting to Peter (as founder), until such time as
Peter resigns from the role."
Warm regards, Cameron
--
Cameron Shorter,
Software and Data Solutions Manager
LISAsoft
Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
P+61 2 9009 5000 <tel:%2B61%202%209009%205000>,
Wwww.lisasoft.com
<http://www.lisasoft.com>, F+61 2 9009 5099
<tel:%2B61%202%209009%205099>
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--
Dr. Peter Baumann
- Professor of Computer Science, Jacobs University Bremen
www.faculty.jacobs-university.de/pbaumann
mail:p.baum...@jacobs-university.de
tel: +49-421-200-3178, fax: +49-421-200-493178
- Executive Director, rasdaman GmbH Bremen (HRB 26793)
www.rasdaman.com, mail:baum...@rasdaman.com
tel: 0800-rasdaman, fax: 0800-rasdafax, mobile: +49-173-5837882
"Si forte in alienas manus oberraverit hec peregrina epistola incertis ventis
dimissa, sed Deo commendata, precamur ut ei reddatur cui soli destinata, nec preripiat
quisquam non sibi parata." (mail disclaimer, AD 1083)
--
Cameron Shorter,
Software and Data Solutions Manager
LISAsoft
Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
P +61 2 9009 5000, W www.lisasoft.com, F +61 2 9009 5099
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