RE: [doc] Roles and Responsibilities Update Needed [WAS Re: Mentors - the more, the merrier?]
Roy, Thanks. So let's clarify some of these issues (out of order from your reply). [The need for a Mentor to be an ASF Member was] imposed by no other agency than the Incubator PMC, itself. A need imposed by the board when it created the Incubator with a given purpose that cannot be achieved without a member in the loop. I am not aware of that being imposed by the Board. It is not present in the Resolution (http://incubator.apache.org/official/resolution.html), and checking with Greg, he is not aware of the Board having set that requirement. But I am willing to ask for the Board to make a clear statement if necessary. On the educated assumption that they will say that it is up to the Incubator PMC, which I expect, let's examine the rest of the issues. We just voted to elect a non-Member ASF Officer to the Incubator PMC in order for him to act as Mentor for the projects sponsored by the PMC of which he is the PMC Chair. Do we wish to declare that election and process null and void? Or do you concur that the Incubator PMC has the right to elect whom it feels appropriate to execute the role, based upon its collective human judgement? The Incubator PMC decided that only an ASF member can qualify as being a Mentor, period. And has, on more than one occasion, voted in violation of that decision. No, it hasn't. Some people may have voted for a project proposal without realizing that the Mentor is not an ASF member, and that may have allowed an invalid proposal to pass. It should not happen. That's one interpretation, but I don't believe that the facts bear it out, since it was clear that the Officer in question is (a) not an ASF Member, and (b) was being voted on specifically to Mentor those projects, which have no other Mentor (an issue to be addressed orthogonally). And that's only one of several such occasions. But, again, that's past. Let's deal with now and forward. So at least some months ago, we started talking (more than once on this list) about Mentors being just the active Incubator PMC members involved in the project. But that is neither here nor there at this point. What matters is the consensus going forward. We have talked about a lot of things -- the policy has not changed. I'll bring up a formal vote to address it. Every incubator project must have at least one Mentor who is an ASF member. The reason is because only an ASF member has access to everything in the ASF, which is sometimes necessary for a podling to know what it should be doing in any given situation. Now *that* is something I can concur with, because you are correct that even non-Member Officers lack access to certain information. But I'll note that you refer to at least one Mentor who is an ASF Member -- it is easy to read that as suggesting that there can be other Mentors who are not. I don't mean that to sound like being hoist by your own petard; just noting that the imprecision sometimes present in the English language allows multiple valid interpretations of intended meaning. I'm happy to put forth a vote of the form: An Incubator Project SHOULD have at least three (3) Mentors, of which at least one (1) Mentor MUST be an ASF Member. All Mentors MUST be members of the Incubator PMC. I'd accept that as a reasonable compromise. Personally, any non-Member whom I would vote to use as a Mentor would be someone I'd expect to nominate or see nominated for Membership at the next Election. The fact that we trust these people implicitly doesn't make up for the fact that they do not have access to the private information needed to mentor a podling. That private information includes, among other things, the sum of all mistakes made by previous Apache projects. Interesting elaboration on your earlier point, although I believe that you're taking it too far by insisting that such information is so vital on a normal basis as to preclude non-Members from serving as Mentors. As for the Board voting non-Members to be Officers, you can discuss that with the Board directly. --- Noel - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [doc] Roles and Responsibilities Update Needed [WAS Re: Mentors - the more, the merrier?]
Roy T. Fielding [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That doesn't mean people need to be an ASF member to be involved in incubation of a project Goes without saying. :-) More on the rest in a bit. --- Noel - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [doc] Roles and Responsibilities Update Needed [WAS Re: Mentors - the more, the merrier?]
Roy T. Fielding wrote: Noel J. Bergman wrote: Membership is a half-way point? What's the full distance? ;-) I'll let you know when I get there. According to some, disagreeing with Roy is the obligatory Right of Passage. ;-) But I agree with you: It is absolute nonsense to have someone guiding newbies through the ASF process when they haven't even made it to the halfway point themselves. And so we should not elect them to the Incubator PMC. You don't have to be a mentor to be involved. Of course not. That was never in question. We just voted to elect a non-Member ASF Officer to the Incubator PMC in order for him to act as Mentor for the projects sponsored by the PMC of which he is the PMC Chair. Do we wish to declare that election and process null and void? Or do you concur that the Incubator PMC has the right to elect whom it feels appropriate to execute the role, based upon its collective human judgement? The Incubator PMC decided that only an ASF member can qualify as being a Mentor, period. And has, on more than one occasion, voted in violation of that decision. So at least some months ago, we started talking (more than once on this list) about Mentors being just the active Incubator PMC members involved in the project. But that is neither here nor there at this point. What matters is the consensus going forward. That has nothing whatsoever to do with who is able to be on the PMC. [anyone involved in the process should be on the incubator PMC.] So we would have people who have a binding vote on all decisions made within the Incubator, including all projects under Incubation, and yet not qualified to be Mentors? How would you care to differentiate the two? Incubator PMC members are, by definition in the Bylaws (http://www.apache.org/foundation/bylaws.html#6.3), the people responsible for active management of the Incubator project(s). The role of Mentor is strictly a construction of the Incubator PMC, which I believe ought to be able to select Mentors as the PMC sees fit. Especially since any criteria are of its own making. Is the Board wrong to permit Officers who are not Members? Just how far do you want to take this? Are you really going to hold the Incubator PMC's (and the Board's) decisions hostage to the voting schedule of the Foundation? Yes. The only way that we have for the ASF as a whole to validate that someone has sufficient clue and commitment to guide future projects is to elect them as an ASF member. No one else has the right to say they are qualified. No one else but whom? And why exactly does the Incubator PMC not have that right, when the Mentor role (and the necessary criteria) is one of its own creation? And although I've made the comment that I put considerable weight on whether or not I feel that a nominee for Membership would make a good Mentor, the Membership as a whole has never identified having sufficient clue and commitment to guide future projects as a key criteria for Member election. So whether or not the Membership *should* be that judge, it certainly has not been to date, in that it has not made that a key criteria. If we are to take your statement in that light, it would be an important point to make clear to all Members that they should only nominate and vote for those whom they feel have sufficient clue and commitment to guide future projects. Well, that ought to slow down growth of the Membership. And there are those who would not be Members had that been a primary (or mandatory) basis. Regardless, this does reinforce my belief that the Incubator may well be the best place for someone interested in becoming a Member to invest time, since it is one of the few places were their participation would be visible to a wide range of existing Members. There are some people who should have been made an ASF member long before they became officers, but that is in the past. And yet they hadn't. Why not? And why would you therefore want to say that the Incubator PMC should preclude itself from selecting such people, whom you feel should have long since been Members, as Mentors? Right now, the people who are officers and not yet ASF members simply do not know what they need to know to do their job well, and we struggle from that quite frequently. So, yes, the Board is wrong to make non-Members ASF Officers? And from where would you expect the missing education to come? That doesn't mean people need to be an ASF member to be involved in incubation of a project -- they simply don't meet the required need for a Mentor who is an ASF member. A need imposed by no other agency than the Incubator PMC, itself. --- Noel - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [doc] Roles and Responsibilities Update Needed [WAS Re: Mentors - the more, the merrier?]
On 7/14/06, Cliff Schmidt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 7/14/06, robert burrell donkin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 7/14/06, Noel J. Bergman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Kenneth Tam wrote: http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Roles_and_Responsibilities.html A Mentor is a role undertaken by a permanent member of the Apache Software Foundation and is chosen by the Sponsor to actively lead in the discharge of their duties (listed above). We still haven't fixed that doc? Ok, rhetorical. We need to fix that doc. +1 i'm still working on a couple of draft documents so i'm not sure i'll be able to get this one before the middle of next week. anyone care to volunteer? Could someone point to the post that would explain how it should be fixed? (focussing just on the document, not the content) IMO policy should be maintained in only one document. the supporting documentation should add descriptive and discursive content (unsuitable for policy) and refer to the policy rather than repeat it. the policy document should contain links to material in other documents that explain and discuss the policy. roles and responsibilities has a lot of overlap with the policy document and has sections that repeat policy content. it lacks links to the actual policy. i'd like to see definitions removed from the document and replaced by links to the normative sections in policy document. as for the actual policy, the policy document still contains the original definition (members only) but IMHO this is a policy matter rather than a documentation one. - robert
Re: [doc] Roles and Responsibilities Update Needed [WAS Re: Mentors - the more, the merrier?]
On Jul 14, 2006, at 11:20 PM, Noel J. Bergman wrote: We just voted to elect a non-Member ASF Officer to the Incubator PMC in order for him to act as Mentor for the projects sponsored by the PMC of which he is the PMC Chair. Do we wish to declare that election and process null and void? Or do you concur that the Incubator PMC has the right to elect whom it feels appropriate to execute the role, based upon its collective human judgement? The Incubator PMC decided that only an ASF member can qualify as being a Mentor, period. And has, on more than one occasion, voted in violation of that decision. No, it hasn't. Some people may have voted for a project proposal without realizing that the Mentor is not an ASF member, and that may have allowed an invalid proposal to pass. It should not happen. So at least some months ago, we started talking (more than once on this list) about Mentors being just the active Incubator PMC members involved in the project. But that is neither here nor there at this point. What matters is the consensus going forward. We have talked about a lot of things -- the policy has not changed. That has nothing whatsoever to do with who is able to be on the PMC. [anyone involved in the process should be on the incubator PMC.] So we would have people who have a binding vote on all decisions made within the Incubator, including all projects under Incubation, and yet not qualified to be Mentors? How would you care to differentiate the two? Every incubator project must have at least one Mentor who is an ASF member. The reason is because only an ASF member has access to everything in the ASF, which is sometimes necessary for a podling to know what it should be doing in any given situation. Incubator PMC members are, by definition in the Bylaws (http://www.apache.org/foundation/bylaws.html#6.3), the people responsible for active management of the Incubator project(s). The role of Mentor is strictly a construction of the Incubator PMC, which I believe ought to be able to select Mentors as the PMC sees fit. Especially since any criteria are of its own making. Yes, and we made it: a Mentor must be an ASF member. There are many more PMC members than Mentors. The fact that we trust these people implicitly doesn't make up for the fact that they do not have access to the private information needed to mentor a podling. That private information includes, among other things, the sum of all mistakes made by previous Apache projects. Is the Board wrong to permit Officers who are not Members? Just how far do you want to take this? Are you really going to hold the Incubator PMC's (and the Board's) decisions hostage to the voting schedule of the Foundation? Yes. The only way that we have for the ASF as a whole to validate that someone has sufficient clue and commitment to guide future projects is to elect them as an ASF member. No one else has the right to say they are qualified. No one else but whom? And why exactly does the Incubator PMC not have that right, when the Mentor role (and the necessary criteria) is one of its own creation? The Incubator PMC has made its decision. I have no idea what you are talking about when you say that the documentation needs to be changed when the policy HAS NOT CHANGED. And although I've made the comment that I put considerable weight on whether or not I feel that a nominee for Membership would make a good Mentor, the Membership as a whole has never identified having sufficient clue and commitment to guide future projects as a key criteria for Member election. So whether or not the Membership *should* be that judge, it certainly has not been to date, in that it has not made that a key criteria. If we are to take your statement in that light, it would be an important point to make clear to all Members that they should only nominate and vote for those whom they feel have sufficient clue and commitment to guide future projects. No, but once they become Members they do have access to a clue, whereas it is guaranteed that non-members do not. Well, that ought to slow down growth of the Membership. And there are those who would not be Members had that been a primary (or mandatory) basis. Regardless, this does reinforce my belief that the Incubator may well be the best place for someone interested in becoming a Member to invest time, since it is one of the few places were their participation would be visible to a wide range of existing Members. Alternatively, we can encourage the lazy bastards in underrepresented projects to nominate people on time, as I did for the last election. There are some people who should have been made an ASF member long before they became officers, but that is in the past. And yet they hadn't. Why not? And why would you therefore want to say that the Incubator PMC should preclude itself from selecting such people, whom
Re: [doc] Roles and Responsibilities Update Needed [WAS Re: Mentors - the more, the merrier?]
On 7/14/06, robert burrell donkin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 7/14/06, Noel J. Bergman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Kenneth Tam wrote: http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Roles_and_Responsibilities.html A Mentor is a role undertaken by a permanent member of the Apache Software Foundation and is chosen by the Sponsor to actively lead in the discharge of their duties (listed above). We still haven't fixed that doc? Ok, rhetorical. We need to fix that doc. +1 i'm still working on a couple of draft documents so i'm not sure i'll be able to get this one before the middle of next week. anyone care to volunteer? Could someone point to the post that would explain how it should be fixed? Cliff - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [doc] Roles and Responsibilities Update Needed [WAS Re: Mentors - the more, the merrier?]
Cliff Schmidt wrote: Could someone point to the post that would explain how it should be fixed? To quote myself, but this is hardly the first time it has come up: --- Mentors are (MUST BE) Incubator PMC Members. ASF Members are automatically eligible for PMC membership; non-Members may be elected at the discretion of the Incubator PMC. The Incubator PMC is understandably selective, but we have had non-Members as Mentors, more than once. --- --- Noel - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [doc] Roles and Responsibilities Update Needed [WAS Re: Mentors - the more, the merrier?]
On Jul 14, 2006, at 1:14 PM, Noel J. Bergman wrote: To quote myself, but this is hardly the first time it has come up: --- Mentors are (MUST BE) Incubator PMC Members. ASF Members are automatically eligible for PMC membership; non-Members may be elected at the discretion of the Incubator PMC. The Incubator PMC is understandably selective, but we have had non-Members as Mentors, more than once. --- Since when, Noel? Mentors must be ASF members. It is absolute nonsense to have someone guiding newbies through the ASF process when they haven't even made it to the halfway point themselves. Roy - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [doc] Roles and Responsibilities Update Needed [WAS Re: Mentors - the more, the merrier?]
Roy T. Fielding wrote: It is absolute nonsense to have someone guiding newbies through the ASF process when they haven't even made it to the halfway point themselves. Membership is a half-way point? What's the full distance? ;-) But I agree with you: It is absolute nonsense to have someone guiding newbies through the ASF process when they haven't even made it to the halfway point themselves. And so we should not elect them to the Incubator PMC. We just voted to elect a non-Member ASF Officer to the Incubator PMC in order for him to act as Mentor for the projects sponsored by the PMC of which he is the PMC Chair. Do we wish to declare that election and process null and void? Or do you concur that the Incubator PMC has the right to elect whom it feels appropriate to execute the role, based upon its collective human judgement? Is the Board wrong to permit Officers who are not Members? Just how far do you want to take this? Are you really going to hold the Incubator PMC's (and the Board's) decisions hostage to the voting schedule of the Foundation? --- Noel - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [doc] Roles and Responsibilities Update Needed [WAS Re: Mentors - the more, the merrier?]
On Jul 14, 2006, at 1:57 PM, Noel J. Bergman wrote: Roy T. Fielding wrote: It is absolute nonsense to have someone guiding newbies through the ASF process when they haven't even made it to the halfway point themselves. Membership is a half-way point? What's the full distance? ;-) I'll let you know when I get there. But I agree with you: It is absolute nonsense to have someone guiding newbies through the ASF process when they haven't even made it to the halfway point themselves. And so we should not elect them to the Incubator PMC. No, anyone involved in the process should be on the incubator PMC. You don't have to be a mentor to be involved. We just voted to elect a non-Member ASF Officer to the Incubator PMC in order for him to act as Mentor for the projects sponsored by the PMC of which he is the PMC Chair. Do we wish to declare that election and process null and void? Or do you concur that the Incubator PMC has the right to elect whom it feels appropriate to execute the role, based upon its collective human judgement? The Incubator PMC decided that only an ASF member can qualify as being a Mentor, period. That has nothing whatsoever to do with who is able to be on the PMC. Is the Board wrong to permit Officers who are not Members? Just how far do you want to take this? Are you really going to hold the Incubator PMC's (and the Board's) decisions hostage to the voting schedule of the Foundation? Yes. The only way that we have for the ASF as a whole to validate that someone has sufficient clue and commitment to guide future projects is to elect them as an ASF member. No one else has the right to say they are qualified. There are some people who should have been made an ASF member long before they became officers, but that is in the past. Right now, the people who are officers and not yet ASF members simply do not know what they need to know to do their job well, and we struggle from that quite frequently. That doesn't mean people need to be an ASF member to be involved in incubation of a project -- they simply don't meet the required need for a Mentor who is an ASF member. Roy - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [doc] Roles and Responsibilities Update Needed [WAS Re: Mentors - the more, the merrier?]
On 7/14/06, Roy T. Fielding [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That doesn't mean people need to be an ASF member to be involved in incubation of a project -- they simply don't meet the required need for a Mentor who is an ASF member. +1. -- justin - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [doc] Roles and Responsibilities Update Needed [WAS Re: Mentors - the more, the merrier?]
On 7/14/06, Justin Erenkrantz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 7/14/06, Roy T. Fielding [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That doesn't mean people need to be an ASF member to be involved in incubation of a project -- they simply don't meet the required need for a Mentor who is an ASF member. +1. -- justin +1 (non-binding) -Matt - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
