Attached please find the minutes of the fifth meeting of the Governance
Board. The minutes are also available on the web:
http://openjdk.java.net/groups/gb/2008-04-10.html
Respectfully submitted,
- Dalibor Topic
--
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Dalibor Topic
Java F/OSS Ambassador http://openjdk.java.net
Sun Microsystems GmbH mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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D-20097 Hamburg
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Sonnenallee 1, D-85551 Kirchheim-Heimstetten
Amtsgericht München: HRB 161028
Geschäftsführer: Thomas Schröder, Wolfgang Engels, Dr. Roland Bömer
Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrates: Martin Häring
OpenJDK GB Minutes: 2008/4/10
The fifth meeting of the OpenJDK Governance Board took place via conference
call on Thursday, 10 April 2008 at 16:00 UTC, with the following agenda:
1 Dalibor's change of status
2 Charter renewal
3 Building community before formalizing governance
All GB members were present: Doug Lea, Fabiane Nardon, Dalibor Topic, Simon
Phipps, and Mark Reinhold.
The intent of these minutes is to capture the conversational flow of the GB's
discussion and also to record agreed-upon resolutions. If you are interested
only in the latter then search for the word AGREED throughout the text.
1 Dalibor's change of status
Dalibor had announced on his blog [1] that he would start working for Sun
Microsystems on 15 April 2008. Mark presented three different options for
dealing with that change of status:
A: Dalibor steps down, Simon steps down, Sun appoints Dalibor as
the second Sun member of the Interim Governance Board, and then
Sun appoints someone else from outside Sun to fill Dalibor's
current seat.
Advantage would be that this option looks good from a community perspective,
and is consistent with what the GB has discussed before in terms of having
the Constitution require that no one organization hold a majority of the GB
seats.
Disadvantage would be losing Simon's expertise in the process of drafting a
Constitution.
B: Since the charter of the Interim GB does not actually require that the
Community seats not be held by Sun employees, and Sun employees
are Members of the OpenJDK Community, then we can
retain the status quo, i.e., both Dalibor and Simon stay.
This option was discussed on the #openjdk IRC channel on Tuesday, 8 April
2008.
Advantage would be keeping Simon on board.
Disadvantage would be a Sun majority on the Interim GB.
C: Sun expands the Interim GB by at least one seat, if not two,
and Sun fills them with people who are not Sun employees.
This option was suggested by Simon to Mark on Wednesday, 9 April 2008.
Advantage would be broadening the Community representation on the GB, while
also allowing Simon to stay on.
Disadvantage would be a larger GB, which would make consensus harder to
achieve.
Fabiane wanted Simon to stay on board, and preferred option C. Doug
preferred whatever option would cause this Interim GB to be dissolved first,
so increasing the number of people who can produce rather than guide or
critique documents and constitutions and rules would be really wonderful.
Dalibor suggested that for him stepping down would be the easiest option, but
it would burden the GB with having to find a replacement for the brief
interim period before being rechartered at JavaOne under option C. Doug
suggested that with Dalibor working at Sun, now there is somebody new who can
put some energy and attention to the work on the Constitution, which requires
access to Sun's legal and other resources. Dalibor was happy to include the
GB work in his duties, and favored option C. Doug agreed. Simon suggested
to go with option C, expanding the GB by two members, based on his experience
with OpenSolaris, with three members from Sun, and four members outside Sun.
Mark's favored option was C as well, expanding the board to seven members.
2 Charter renewal
After the above discussion the GB unanimously
AGREED: To request Sun Microsystems to amend the OpenJDK Charter to
expand the number of GB members to seven, with three members
employed by Sun and four members from outside Sun.
The GB then discussed potential candidates for the two additional seats, and
AGREED: To let Doug and Mark contact potential candidates.
The GB then discussed the role Dalibor should play until the GB is
rechartered, and
AGREED: To ask Dalibor to publicly state that he will continue to
participate, but abstain from voting until the GB is rechartered.
3 Building community before formalizing governance
The GB then went on to discuss the schedule for the Constitution. Mark
pointed out that the initial schedule was optimistic; due to changes in Sun's
priorities over the past year the work on the Constitution is running behind
the schedule and won't be finished by JavaOne, as originally planned. In
conversations over the past few months with Dalibor, Simon, and others, Mark
had concluded that building the Community and the infrastructure for
collaboration was much more important than formalizing governance, and
prioritized his work accordingly.
Dalibor pointed out that currently the Community is for the largest part made
up of Sun employees, and he'd prefer to see it grow to include significant
Membership from outside Sun. Once a Constitution is ratified it will likely
take a significant effort by new Community Members to amend it, so it would
be better to grow the Community first than to rush to draft a Constitution
that would ultimately end up being very tailored to what Sun wants.
Fabiane agreed that the Community as a whole has been more concerned about
infrastructure and participation than about the Constitution, and suggested
that the project should strive to increase non-Sun participation in all areas
in order to be able to have a Constitution that makes sense for everyone.
Mark agreed, and pointed out that a rushed Constitution would likely undergo
fairly heavy revision as the Community grew. Doug pointed out that not doing
things out of fear of doing them wrong was a bad idea. He instead suggested
that if the GB wants want a thoughtful, high-quality, but not permanent and
not oriented towards perfection Constitution out there by the end of the
year, and driving that would be part of Dalibor's tasks at Sun, that would be
a great reason to adjust the schedule. Dalibor agreed, and the GB went on to
discuss the schedule for further infrastructure improvements, and how that
affected the schedule for a Constitution draft.
Simon proposed to have the Community reaffirm the Interim GB and the interim
governance rules with the modification to increase the number of GB members
to seven, for another 18 months. Doug liked the idea. Mark objected, noting
that running a plenary vote in the couple of weeks before JavaOne would be
logistically challenging since most of the Members work at Sun. Dalibor
agreed, and Fabiane pointed out that, realistically, nothing is going to
happen until after JavaOne.
Mark observed that the majority of Community Members working at Sun would be
on vacation in the weeks after JavaOne, so early June/July would be the best
time to start with regular calls and the discussion of drafts. Dalibor
committed to writing up remaining minutes, and Mark was happy to delegate
that task.
With that, the GB
AGREED: To strive for a draft Constitution by the end of the year; and
AGREED: To ask Dalibor to prepare the minutes of this meeting, and of
the October meeting, as soon as possible.
At this point the GB adjourned.
[1] http://robilad.livejournal.com/30463.html
