This is one aspect that I feel needs fixing. Currently there are too many people who "might" be responsible. What we need is someone who *is* responsible. It's initially the mentors, but if (as per your original question) a podling has failed to file for 4 months then the mentors are clearly dropping the ball or they need assistance in impressing upon the podling community how important this is. So who next?
My answer is the IPMC, but then we hit the "too many cooks problem". I'll not go into suggestions for fixing this problem as there are plenty of threads already looking at how to improve oversight. This is just one of the many symptoms of the problem. To your "shepherd" point below the term here in the IPMC is different to the term at the board level. Board shepherds *are* responsible for following up after board meetings. That's where the buck stops. Ross -----Original Message----- From: Marvin Humphrey [mailto:mar...@rectangular.com] Sent: Monday, October 19, 2015 1:27 PM To: general@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: When podlings don't file a report On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 10:56 AM, Ross Gardler <ross.gard...@microsoft.com> wrote: > Mentors, in my opinion, are not responsible for their podlings. They > are responsible for guiding the podlings but not for filing. > > Mentors do have a responsibility to the IPMC to make a recommendation (e.g. > "I've looked into the failure to report and am happy with the status, > it's just busy people this month" or "Looks to me like the podling > community don't take reporting seriously. As a mentor I've tried but > failed to communicate the importance this.") When is that responsibility to the IPMC discharged? Only when a shepherd, or a random volunteer, inquires? If a podling fails to report indefinitely, do we have any expectation that its Mentors will act? I suppose that as an individual volunteer I can start threads about the podlings that are not reporting on either private@incubator or general@incubator. It seems wrong to have an independent meddler taking on that task, though, instead of the project Mentors. I think this illustrates again why the "shepherd" institution as implemented by the Incubator is pernicious. Incubator shepherds shouldn't own the task of checking up on podlings -- they are unreliable and their responsibility is ephemeral. It should instead be Mentors performing shepherding tasks, since Mentors are assigned to podlings durably and are accountable to the IPMC. Marvin Humphrey --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
