On Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 4:50 PM, Craig Russell <apache....@gmail.com> wrote: > I would respectfully suggest that the PPMC guide section that describes how > to invite new committers and PPMC members is not adequate to the task. > > This is what I think is the relevant section of > https://incubator.apache.org/guides/ppmc.html : > > There are no ASF wide rules on how to decide when to make someone a > committer, podlings need to agree an approach that works for them. Some ASF > projects have a high bar requiring significant contributions before someone > is considered, other projects grant it more freely to anyone who shows > interest in contributing. Some projects use formal [DISCUSS] and [VOTE] > threads on the private mailing list, others use a more lazy consensus > approach. For more information see, commit access and the ASF How it Works > document, which explains meritocracy and roles. > > Once the decision has been made the proposer offers committership to the > nominee. If the nominee accepts the responsibility of being a committer for > the project, the nominee formally becomes an Apache committer. > > The proposer then asks an Incubator PMC member (typically one of the mentors) > to follow the documented procedures > http://www.apache.org/dev/pmc.html#newcommitter to complete the process. If > the nominee is already an Apache committer on another project, the Incubator > PMC member simply updates the SVN authorization settings to include the > nominee as a committer on the podling.
To me the biggest problem with the above is that it actually fails to communicate the point that establishing these types of basic principles of how to self-govern is, in fact, part of a succesful incubation process. As a community you may very well arrive at a process that's very different from the rest of the ASF's TLPs, but it has to be well understood. Worst possible thing for a community is to keep changing these types of goal posts. In addition to that -- it is a job of mentors to actually make sure that a podling community converges on a reasonable process. Now a few comments: > I suggest that we look again at this section for these aspects: > > 1. We should document how we expect podlings to discuss, vote, and invite > committers and PPMC members. The paragraph describing how to decide on new > committers should be non-prescriptive with regard to the criteria, but > prescribe the process. If a podling doesn't want to follow the process of > discussing, voting, and inviting, it should explicitly document what it wants > to do so that its unique process can be incorporated into the project's > unique Project By-Laws. But most podlings will want to follow the processes > of most TLPs: > > a: discuss in private the desire to invite a new committer/PPMC member > b: hold a vote in private, with +1, -1, +0 and -0 > c: end the vote when all PPMC members have voted, or at least 72 hours have > passed; with at least three binding (IPMC members) votes in favor, and no -1 > votes I agree in principle, but it all depends on how this is worded. Like I said above -- I think it would be totally fine to tell the podling -- look how the rest of the PMCs are functioning. At the same time -- I've had a series of unfortunate experiences where anything that we write on that page gets quoted back to you as immutable dogma. We should avoid that. Once again -- we really should make sure that mentors understand that this is their responsibility to make sure these types of things are understood by a PPMC (but, of course, something like this is much easier said than done :-(). > 2. We should document the process in the guide and *not* refer to the page > that describes how PMCs invite new committers. The processes are different in > the case of podlings and it is simply confusing to mix them. Podlings > especially could use help with "standard" emails similar to those found here: > http://community.apache.org/newcommitter.html#new-committer-process Big +1 here! > 3. It is not obvious what the policy is for a podling to invite new > committers and PPMC members. I don't believe it should be the responsibility > of the podling to decide in isolation the process to invite new committers, > just as it is not the podlings' decision how to invite new PPMC members. I actually don't quite understand this point. Care to elaborate? Thanks, Roman. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
