Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
FWIW, I've been saying that I might be interested in helping with IP
auditing of podling releases, but not in the larger role of IPMC member.
You're right that temporary and restricted IPMC membership may be less
work, but here's a larger proposal anyway:
1. Establish role of 'IP Auditor' ('Steward' might have gender
implications).
1.a. All past and present members of TLP PMCs automatically become IP
Auditors.
1.b. New IP Auditors require approval by 3 other IP Auditors.
2. Change release voting to require two kinds of votes: Majority vote on
quality and consensus vote (with vetos allowed) on IP management. This
will emphasis the importance of IP management, not only in the incubator,
but throughout the ASF.
Yes, this doesn't address the clearance and maintenance of IP as it is
introduced to and modified in the repo, just the process of verifying that
things are labelled correctly (assuming clearance and maintenance was done
properly). Regarding clearance and maintenance, I don't know if there are
tools like the ones schools use to check for copying and plagiarism or
tools that highlight header changes, but IP Auditors could have a role
there as well.
In the incubator, PPMC's would be formed as they are now, but worthy PPMC
candidates can be promoted to IP Auditor at any time.
-Alex
On 11/20/13 1:57 AM, Bertrand Delacretaz bdelacre...@apache.org wrote:
On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 10:41 AM, Joseph Schaefer
joe_schae...@yahoo.com wrote:
Can I just ask how many people have we encountered who upon
being offered IPMC membership turned it down with grounds along
these lines?...
I'm not saying there are any, hence starting my suggesting with
assuming Upayavira's concerns are true.
My temporary PMC member election suggestion is easy to implement and
revert, I thought it might be easier to agree on and move on than the
larger proposals seen in this thread.
-Bertrand
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Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Hi Alex,
I like where you are going with this, but I think that rather than invent a new
role within the ASF we might actually be on the track to how we make the IPMC
more like a normal PMC.
What you are calling IP Auditors is really one example of Incubator Committer
- there are two kinds of Committer roles that have been discussed, but there
are others.
- IP / Release auditors.
- Shepherds.
When IPMC members and Apache Members identify people who are getting it in a
podling and they are either committers and PPMC members (ICLA and Apache
account is the minimum) they can ask the IPMC to vote on them in private as
Incubator Committers. This will encourage such people to help other podlings.
This is just like a normal PMC.
Good incubator committer candidates are the people who are making substantial
non-code contributions to their communities - IP, RM, Infra, Civility, etc.
If podlings are found without active Mentors or in need of IP triage Incubator
committers should just start helping and report back. The IPMC can recognize
further merit and make them IPMC members. This can be a way to make a VOTE
binding. It can start non-binding, but as an Incubator Committer it is more
visible. Like for code commits, the IPMC recognizes that (1 - Committer) they
know know what they are doing for their podling and (2 - IPMC) they know how to
do it constructively for another community.
Rather than inventing new structure for edge case communities we should be
working to make sure that podlings gain an understanding of the few, but
important expectations that the Foundation has for its Communities.
Regards,
Dave
On Nov 21, 2013, at 9:25 AM, Alex Harui wrote:
FWIW, I've been saying that I might be interested in helping with IP
auditing of podling releases, but not in the larger role of IPMC member.
You're right that temporary and restricted IPMC membership may be less
work, but here's a larger proposal anyway:
1. Establish role of 'IP Auditor' ('Steward' might have gender
implications).
1.a. All past and present members of TLP PMCs automatically become IP
Auditors.
1.b. New IP Auditors require approval by 3 other IP Auditors.
2. Change release voting to require two kinds of votes: Majority vote on
quality and consensus vote (with vetos allowed) on IP management. This
will emphasis the importance of IP management, not only in the incubator,
but throughout the ASF.
Yes, this doesn't address the clearance and maintenance of IP as it is
introduced to and modified in the repo, just the process of verifying that
things are labelled correctly (assuming clearance and maintenance was done
properly). Regarding clearance and maintenance, I don't know if there are
tools like the ones schools use to check for copying and plagiarism or
tools that highlight header changes, but IP Auditors could have a role
there as well.
In the incubator, PPMC's would be formed as they are now, but worthy PPMC
candidates can be promoted to IP Auditor at any time.
-Alex
On 11/20/13 1:57 AM, Bertrand Delacretaz bdelacre...@apache.org wrote:
On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 10:41 AM, Joseph Schaefer
joe_schae...@yahoo.com wrote:
Can I just ask how many people have we encountered who upon
being offered IPMC membership turned it down with grounds along
these lines?...
I'm not saying there are any, hence starting my suggesting with
assuming Upayavira's concerns are true.
My temporary PMC member election suggestion is easy to implement and
revert, I thought it might be easier to agree on and move on than the
larger proposals seen in this thread.
-Bertrand
-
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Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Its not totally clear to me what that would look like. What would then be the difference between an IP Stewards and what we currently call mentor, where would they discuss and vote on adding new IP Stewards? I'm not saying it couldn't be made to work and i guess this is the sort of thing an experiment would help sort out, but it does seem like its starting to make things unnecessarily complicated. The original pTLP approach where the PMC is all the PPMC + some others providing oversight is easy and simple. If it looks like they're going off course the ones providing the oversight step in, if necessary with -1s, if those are ignored the pTLP gets sent back to the Incubator. ...ant On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Joseph Schaefer joe_schae...@yahoo.com wrote: Then lets disambiguate by not referring to the “IP Stewards” as being the PPMC. Seems simple enough. On Nov 19, 2013, at 4:34 AM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: The reason it might be dis-empowering is that currently one of the main roles of the PPMC is voting in new committers so if the PPMC is initially just the mentors then the other podling members wont be involved in that. It might still be worth trying the approach as an experiment if a willing podling can be found, but i doubt all new podlings would be very happy with the approach. ...ant On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 12:12 PM, Joseph Schaefer joe_schae...@yahoo.comwrote: I don’t see how the situation is any worse than it is now, where no one on the project currently has a binding vote on a release. Going from that to “a few” may seem unfair, but we have to start somewhere and we need to keep in mind that this is partly a training exercise, where we need to see people actually demonstrate good judgement on policy matters. Unfortunately this doesn’t solve the bootstrapping issue directly with the first release, unless we use it as a remedy for letting release votes stall. On Nov 18, 2013, at 6:41 AM, Andy Seaborne a...@apache.org wrote: On 17/11/13 11:17, Upayavira wrote: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013, at 04:59 AM, Alex Harui wrote: On 11/16/13 8:47 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: Alex, I'm not sure I see the difference between a release auditor and an IPMC member. If someone is sufficiently clued up to audit a release, then they're surely ready to join the Incubator PMC. Am I missing something? To me, there is more responsibility in being on the IPMC, like reviewing proposals for new podlings and voting on their graduation and becoming a mentor. Personally, that's why I don't want to be on the IPMC, but I might be willing to help IP audit a podling's release. Just like some projects don't have all committers on the PMC, a Release Auditor is just someone who can do that specific task, and there is no need to vote them in if they are already on some other TLP PMC because any member of a TLP PMC supposedly knows how to do release auditing. My interest is in a lesser level of involvement, where someone has shown merit within their own PPMC and can get a binding vote there, but no-where else. That feels to me like a very useful intermediate step to have. I agree, except for the no-where else part. If you know how to check a RAT report and have an idea of what should be in the NOTICE files, you should be able to help out any other podling by reviewing their release and casting a binding vote so they can learn how to do that. I'd say that 3 IPMC members must vote to give a person Release Auditor status if they are not already on a TLP PMC. Consider this: I am an the Flex PMC but not the IPMC, but if I join the PPMC of some new podling, why shouldn't I be able to cast a binding vote for that podling's releases? With a two tier model - with PPMC membership granting voting rights on podling releases, then a podling would start with just mentors on its PPMC. If you clearly knew what you were doing, you'd get voted onto the PPMC pretty quickly, and thus you'd be able to vote on your releases. I am concerned that it would be dis-empowering to the incoming community if at least the active and major developers of the podling were not on the PPMC at the start. Andy Upayavira - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Please don’t cry out for something simple, you know what my answer is but you don’t like hearing it. The bottom line is that we need to provide to the board, possibly on a per-podling basis, a list of people we have approved for making binding decisions about release votes. Why you want to tie that into mentoring, personnel voting, etc. makes little sense unless you intend for that list to be self-populating too, in which case I’d agree that PPMC alignment would make the most sense. The ultimate question is that do you want to fiddle around at the ends of the status quo or induce a sea-change into how release voting works in this part of the org? I’d expect support for your position will depend more on this answer than anything else you cook up. On Nov 20, 2013, at 4:13 AM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: Its not totally clear to me what that would look like. What would then be the difference between an IP Stewards and what we currently call mentor, where would they discuss and vote on adding new IP Stewards? I'm not saying it couldn't be made to work and i guess this is the sort of thing an experiment would help sort out, but it does seem like its starting to make things unnecessarily complicated. The original pTLP approach where the PMC is all the PPMC + some others providing oversight is easy and simple. If it looks like they're going off course the ones providing the oversight step in, if necessary with -1s, if those are ignored the pTLP gets sent back to the Incubator. ...ant On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Joseph Schaefer joe_schae...@yahoo.com wrote: Then lets disambiguate by not referring to the “IP Stewards” as being the PPMC. Seems simple enough. On Nov 19, 2013, at 4:34 AM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: The reason it might be dis-empowering is that currently one of the main roles of the PPMC is voting in new committers so if the PPMC is initially just the mentors then the other podling members wont be involved in that. It might still be worth trying the approach as an experiment if a willing podling can be found, but i doubt all new podlings would be very happy with the approach. ...ant On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 12:12 PM, Joseph Schaefer joe_schae...@yahoo.comwrote: I don’t see how the situation is any worse than it is now, where no one on the project currently has a binding vote on a release. Going from that to “a few” may seem unfair, but we have to start somewhere and we need to keep in mind that this is partly a training exercise, where we need to see people actually demonstrate good judgement on policy matters. Unfortunately this doesn’t solve the bootstrapping issue directly with the first release, unless we use it as a remedy for letting release votes stall. On Nov 18, 2013, at 6:41 AM, Andy Seaborne a...@apache.org wrote: On 17/11/13 11:17, Upayavira wrote: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013, at 04:59 AM, Alex Harui wrote: On 11/16/13 8:47 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: Alex, I'm not sure I see the difference between a release auditor and an IPMC member. If someone is sufficiently clued up to audit a release, then they're surely ready to join the Incubator PMC. Am I missing something? To me, there is more responsibility in being on the IPMC, like reviewing proposals for new podlings and voting on their graduation and becoming a mentor. Personally, that's why I don't want to be on the IPMC, but I might be willing to help IP audit a podling's release. Just like some projects don't have all committers on the PMC, a Release Auditor is just someone who can do that specific task, and there is no need to vote them in if they are already on some other TLP PMC because any member of a TLP PMC supposedly knows how to do release auditing. My interest is in a lesser level of involvement, where someone has shown merit within their own PPMC and can get a binding vote there, but no-where else. That feels to me like a very useful intermediate step to have. I agree, except for the no-where else part. If you know how to check a RAT report and have an idea of what should be in the NOTICE files, you should be able to help out any other podling by reviewing their release and casting a binding vote so they can learn how to do that. I'd say that 3 IPMC members must vote to give a person Release Auditor status if they are not already on a TLP PMC. Consider this: I am an the Flex PMC but not the IPMC, but if I join the PPMC of some new podling, why shouldn't I be able to cast a binding vote for that podling's releases? With a two tier model - with PPMC membership granting voting rights on podling releases, then a podling would start with just mentors on its PPMC. If you clearly knew what you were doing, you'd get voted onto the PPMC pretty quickly, and thus you'd be able to vote on your releases. I am concerned that it would be dis-empowering to the
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Hi, On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: ...My issue is that granting PMC membership is too big a step for many podling members. Going from being newbie podling member, to a part of a team responsible for 50+ incubator projects is, with the freedom to mentor other podlings, is too big a step for most podling members, and will remain scary even if you attempt to restrict 'powers' through social convention... Assuming that's true, instead of inventing new roles I would suggest electing those deserving podling committers as Incubator PMC members *for a limited time*. Make them IPMC members for six months or until their podling graduates, and elect them permanently after that if they're still around doing good work. Make it clear that they're not really expected to care for other podlings at this point, but welcome to do so in a constructive way. Not much bad can happen, and if it's the case the IPMC can still kick out anyone on short notice as a last resort. IMO that's the simplest way to empower people without scaring them too much, without making things much more complicated - you'd just need a file in svn to keep track of which people have such expiring memberships. -Bertrand - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Can I just ask how many people have we encountered who upon being offered IPMC membership turned it down with grounds along these lines? Why do we design policy about the fringes and not the happy, average, well-adjusted individuals we meet daily here who would be honored to help out and act responsibly? On Nov 20, 2013, at 4:28 AM, Bertrand Delacretaz bdelacre...@apache.org wrote: Hi, On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: ...My issue is that granting PMC membership is too big a step for many podling members. Going from being newbie podling member, to a part of a team responsible for 50+ incubator projects is, with the freedom to mentor other podlings, is too big a step for most podling members, and will remain scary even if you attempt to restrict 'powers' through social convention... Assuming that's true, instead of inventing new roles I would suggest electing those deserving podling committers as Incubator PMC members *for a limited time*. Make them IPMC members for six months or until their podling graduates, and elect them permanently after that if they're still around doing good work. Make it clear that they're not really expected to care for other podlings at this point, but welcome to do so in a constructive way. Not much bad can happen, and if it's the case the IPMC can still kick out anyone on short notice as a last resort. IMO that's the simplest way to empower people without scaring them too much, without making things much more complicated - you'd just need a file in svn to keep track of which people have such expiring memberships. -Bertrand - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 10:41 AM, Joseph Schaefer joe_schae...@yahoo.com wrote: Can I just ask how many people have we encountered who upon being offered IPMC membership turned it down with grounds along these lines?... I'm not saying there are any, hence starting my suggesting with assuming Upayavira's concerns are true. My temporary PMC member election suggestion is easy to implement and revert, I thought it might be easier to agree on and move on than the larger proposals seen in this thread. -Bertrand - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
The reason it might be dis-empowering is that currently one of the main roles of the PPMC is voting in new committers so if the PPMC is initially just the mentors then the other podling members wont be involved in that. It might still be worth trying the approach as an experiment if a willing podling can be found, but i doubt all new podlings would be very happy with the approach. ...ant On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 12:12 PM, Joseph Schaefer joe_schae...@yahoo.comwrote: I don’t see how the situation is any worse than it is now, where no one on the project currently has a binding vote on a release. Going from that to “a few” may seem unfair, but we have to start somewhere and we need to keep in mind that this is partly a training exercise, where we need to see people actually demonstrate good judgement on policy matters. Unfortunately this doesn’t solve the bootstrapping issue directly with the first release, unless we use it as a remedy for letting release votes stall. On Nov 18, 2013, at 6:41 AM, Andy Seaborne a...@apache.org wrote: On 17/11/13 11:17, Upayavira wrote: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013, at 04:59 AM, Alex Harui wrote: On 11/16/13 8:47 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: Alex, I'm not sure I see the difference between a release auditor and an IPMC member. If someone is sufficiently clued up to audit a release, then they're surely ready to join the Incubator PMC. Am I missing something? To me, there is more responsibility in being on the IPMC, like reviewing proposals for new podlings and voting on their graduation and becoming a mentor. Personally, that's why I don't want to be on the IPMC, but I might be willing to help IP audit a podling's release. Just like some projects don't have all committers on the PMC, a Release Auditor is just someone who can do that specific task, and there is no need to vote them in if they are already on some other TLP PMC because any member of a TLP PMC supposedly knows how to do release auditing. My interest is in a lesser level of involvement, where someone has shown merit within their own PPMC and can get a binding vote there, but no-where else. That feels to me like a very useful intermediate step to have. I agree, except for the no-where else part. If you know how to check a RAT report and have an idea of what should be in the NOTICE files, you should be able to help out any other podling by reviewing their release and casting a binding vote so they can learn how to do that. I'd say that 3 IPMC members must vote to give a person Release Auditor status if they are not already on a TLP PMC. Consider this: I am an the Flex PMC but not the IPMC, but if I join the PPMC of some new podling, why shouldn't I be able to cast a binding vote for that podling's releases? With a two tier model - with PPMC membership granting voting rights on podling releases, then a podling would start with just mentors on its PPMC. If you clearly knew what you were doing, you'd get voted onto the PPMC pretty quickly, and thus you'd be able to vote on your releases. I am concerned that it would be dis-empowering to the incoming community if at least the active and major developers of the podling were not on the PPMC at the start. Andy Upayavira - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Then lets disambiguate by not referring to the “IP Stewards” as being the PPMC. Seems simple enough. On Nov 19, 2013, at 4:34 AM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: The reason it might be dis-empowering is that currently one of the main roles of the PPMC is voting in new committers so if the PPMC is initially just the mentors then the other podling members wont be involved in that. It might still be worth trying the approach as an experiment if a willing podling can be found, but i doubt all new podlings would be very happy with the approach. ...ant On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 12:12 PM, Joseph Schaefer joe_schae...@yahoo.comwrote: I don’t see how the situation is any worse than it is now, where no one on the project currently has a binding vote on a release. Going from that to “a few” may seem unfair, but we have to start somewhere and we need to keep in mind that this is partly a training exercise, where we need to see people actually demonstrate good judgement on policy matters. Unfortunately this doesn’t solve the bootstrapping issue directly with the first release, unless we use it as a remedy for letting release votes stall. On Nov 18, 2013, at 6:41 AM, Andy Seaborne a...@apache.org wrote: On 17/11/13 11:17, Upayavira wrote: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013, at 04:59 AM, Alex Harui wrote: On 11/16/13 8:47 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: Alex, I'm not sure I see the difference between a release auditor and an IPMC member. If someone is sufficiently clued up to audit a release, then they're surely ready to join the Incubator PMC. Am I missing something? To me, there is more responsibility in being on the IPMC, like reviewing proposals for new podlings and voting on their graduation and becoming a mentor. Personally, that's why I don't want to be on the IPMC, but I might be willing to help IP audit a podling's release. Just like some projects don't have all committers on the PMC, a Release Auditor is just someone who can do that specific task, and there is no need to vote them in if they are already on some other TLP PMC because any member of a TLP PMC supposedly knows how to do release auditing. My interest is in a lesser level of involvement, where someone has shown merit within their own PPMC and can get a binding vote there, but no-where else. That feels to me like a very useful intermediate step to have. I agree, except for the no-where else part. If you know how to check a RAT report and have an idea of what should be in the NOTICE files, you should be able to help out any other podling by reviewing their release and casting a binding vote so they can learn how to do that. I'd say that 3 IPMC members must vote to give a person Release Auditor status if they are not already on a TLP PMC. Consider this: I am an the Flex PMC but not the IPMC, but if I join the PPMC of some new podling, why shouldn't I be able to cast a binding vote for that podling's releases? With a two tier model - with PPMC membership granting voting rights on podling releases, then a podling would start with just mentors on its PPMC. If you clearly knew what you were doing, you'd get voted onto the PPMC pretty quickly, and thus you'd be able to vote on your releases. I am concerned that it would be dis-empowering to the incoming community if at least the active and major developers of the podling were not on the PPMC at the start. Andy Upayavira - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Hi Benson, On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 10:12 PM, Benson Margulies bimargul...@gmail.com wrote: If the board were offering us another structural approach, this would be a different discussion. But, unless I've gotten lost in the torrent of email, the board isn't offering an alternative. Yep you must have gotten lost. The board _is_ open alternatives and trying some experiments. Roy said this here on general@, several others have said that on board@. Our working assumption should be that they'll ok us trying some things. Also, given the diverse and disparate group that make up the Incubator PMC I hope everyone can try to have an open mind about experiments and not try to block people trying things just because its not what they personally think will work or is the best experiment. ...ant - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On 17/11/13 11:17, Upayavira wrote: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013, at 04:59 AM, Alex Harui wrote: On 11/16/13 8:47 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: Alex, I'm not sure I see the difference between a release auditor and an IPMC member. If someone is sufficiently clued up to audit a release, then they're surely ready to join the Incubator PMC. Am I missing something? To me, there is more responsibility in being on the IPMC, like reviewing proposals for new podlings and voting on their graduation and becoming a mentor. Personally, that's why I don't want to be on the IPMC, but I might be willing to help IP audit a podling's release. Just like some projects don't have all committers on the PMC, a Release Auditor is just someone who can do that specific task, and there is no need to vote them in if they are already on some other TLP PMC because any member of a TLP PMC supposedly knows how to do release auditing. My interest is in a lesser level of involvement, where someone has shown merit within their own PPMC and can get a binding vote there, but no-where else. That feels to me like a very useful intermediate step to have. I agree, except for the no-where else part. If you know how to check a RAT report and have an idea of what should be in the NOTICE files, you should be able to help out any other podling by reviewing their release and casting a binding vote so they can learn how to do that. I'd say that 3 IPMC members must vote to give a person Release Auditor status if they are not already on a TLP PMC. Consider this: I am an the Flex PMC but not the IPMC, but if I join the PPMC of some new podling, why shouldn't I be able to cast a binding vote for that podling's releases? With a two tier model - with PPMC membership granting voting rights on podling releases, then a podling would start with just mentors on its PPMC. If you clearly knew what you were doing, you'd get voted onto the PPMC pretty quickly, and thus you'd be able to vote on your releases. I am concerned that it would be dis-empowering to the incoming community if at least the active and major developers of the podling were not on the PPMC at the start. Andy Upayavira - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
I don’t see how the situation is any worse than it is now, where no one on the project currently has a binding vote on a release. Going from that to “a few” may seem unfair, but we have to start somewhere and we need to keep in mind that this is partly a training exercise, where we need to see people actually demonstrate good judgement on policy matters. Unfortunately this doesn’t solve the bootstrapping issue directly with the first release, unless we use it as a remedy for letting release votes stall. On Nov 18, 2013, at 6:41 AM, Andy Seaborne a...@apache.org wrote: On 17/11/13 11:17, Upayavira wrote: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013, at 04:59 AM, Alex Harui wrote: On 11/16/13 8:47 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: Alex, I'm not sure I see the difference between a release auditor and an IPMC member. If someone is sufficiently clued up to audit a release, then they're surely ready to join the Incubator PMC. Am I missing something? To me, there is more responsibility in being on the IPMC, like reviewing proposals for new podlings and voting on their graduation and becoming a mentor. Personally, that's why I don't want to be on the IPMC, but I might be willing to help IP audit a podling's release. Just like some projects don't have all committers on the PMC, a Release Auditor is just someone who can do that specific task, and there is no need to vote them in if they are already on some other TLP PMC because any member of a TLP PMC supposedly knows how to do release auditing. My interest is in a lesser level of involvement, where someone has shown merit within their own PPMC and can get a binding vote there, but no-where else. That feels to me like a very useful intermediate step to have. I agree, except for the no-where else part. If you know how to check a RAT report and have an idea of what should be in the NOTICE files, you should be able to help out any other podling by reviewing their release and casting a binding vote so they can learn how to do that. I'd say that 3 IPMC members must vote to give a person Release Auditor status if they are not already on a TLP PMC. Consider this: I am an the Flex PMC but not the IPMC, but if I join the PPMC of some new podling, why shouldn't I be able to cast a binding vote for that podling's releases? With a two tier model - with PPMC membership granting voting rights on podling releases, then a podling would start with just mentors on its PPMC. If you clearly knew what you were doing, you'd get voted onto the PPMC pretty quickly, and thus you'd be able to vote on your releases. I am concerned that it would be dis-empowering to the incoming community if at least the active and major developers of the podling were not on the PPMC at the start. Andy Upayavira - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Sun, Nov 17, 2013, at 04:59 AM, Alex Harui wrote: On 11/16/13 8:47 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: Alex, I'm not sure I see the difference between a release auditor and an IPMC member. If someone is sufficiently clued up to audit a release, then they're surely ready to join the Incubator PMC. Am I missing something? To me, there is more responsibility in being on the IPMC, like reviewing proposals for new podlings and voting on their graduation and becoming a mentor. Personally, that's why I don't want to be on the IPMC, but I might be willing to help IP audit a podling's release. Just like some projects don't have all committers on the PMC, a Release Auditor is just someone who can do that specific task, and there is no need to vote them in if they are already on some other TLP PMC because any member of a TLP PMC supposedly knows how to do release auditing. My interest is in a lesser level of involvement, where someone has shown merit within their own PPMC and can get a binding vote there, but no-where else. That feels to me like a very useful intermediate step to have. I agree, except for the no-where else part. If you know how to check a RAT report and have an idea of what should be in the NOTICE files, you should be able to help out any other podling by reviewing their release and casting a binding vote so they can learn how to do that. I'd say that 3 IPMC members must vote to give a person Release Auditor status if they are not already on a TLP PMC. Consider this: I am an the Flex PMC but not the IPMC, but if I join the PPMC of some new podling, why shouldn't I be able to cast a binding vote for that podling's releases? With a two tier model - with PPMC membership granting voting rights on podling releases, then a podling would start with just mentors on its PPMC. If you clearly knew what you were doing, you'd get voted onto the PPMC pretty quickly, and thus you'd be able to vote on your releases. Upayavira - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Joining a PMC does not meaning being handed even one of the keys to the launch console for a nuclear missile. Joining a PMC means accepting responsibility for the supervision of a project. We vote to add someone to a PMC when they have shown the necessary commitment and, well, common sense. Part of 'common sense' is knowing what you know and what you don't know. Not every PMC member needs to be prepared to wade into every swamp, just as not every committer is qualified to modify every class in the source code. We add committers when have evidence to justify trusting them to do the right thing (with the PMC as backstop supervision), and we add PMC members similarly, with the backstop of the rest of the PMC. On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 6:17 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013, at 04:59 AM, Alex Harui wrote: On 11/16/13 8:47 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: Alex, I'm not sure I see the difference between a release auditor and an IPMC member. If someone is sufficiently clued up to audit a release, then they're surely ready to join the Incubator PMC. Am I missing something? To me, there is more responsibility in being on the IPMC, like reviewing proposals for new podlings and voting on their graduation and becoming a mentor. Personally, that's why I don't want to be on the IPMC, but I might be willing to help IP audit a podling's release. Just like some projects don't have all committers on the PMC, a Release Auditor is just someone who can do that specific task, and there is no need to vote them in if they are already on some other TLP PMC because any member of a TLP PMC supposedly knows how to do release auditing. My interest is in a lesser level of involvement, where someone has shown merit within their own PPMC and can get a binding vote there, but no-where else. That feels to me like a very useful intermediate step to have. I agree, except for the no-where else part. If you know how to check a RAT report and have an idea of what should be in the NOTICE files, you should be able to help out any other podling by reviewing their release and casting a binding vote so they can learn how to do that. I'd say that 3 IPMC members must vote to give a person Release Auditor status if they are not already on a TLP PMC. Consider this: I am an the Flex PMC but not the IPMC, but if I join the PPMC of some new podling, why shouldn't I be able to cast a binding vote for that podling's releases? With a two tier model - with PPMC membership granting voting rights on podling releases, then a podling would start with just mentors on its PPMC. If you clearly knew what you were doing, you'd get voted onto the PPMC pretty quickly, and thus you'd be able to vote on your releases. Upayavira - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On 11/17/13 3:17 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: With a two tier model - with PPMC membership granting voting rights on podling releases, then a podling would start with just mentors on its PPMC. If you clearly knew what you were doing, you'd get voted onto the PPMC pretty quickly, and thus you'd be able to vote on your releases. My concerns with this is that: 1) I think there is more to PPMC membership than just voting on releases. I think the first major votes for Apache Flex was what the project icon was going to be, and voting in new committers. 2) I thought the main thrust of this thread is about what to do when mentors get too busy. If they are too busy then either they won't grant worthy podling newbies the right to cast binding votes on releases, or they will do so too hastily. All I'm suggesting is that there is an existing list of qualified folks that is much larger than the IPMC to help back up busy mentors and allow a podling to get a release out. If you think that all TLP PMC members is too wide a net, the backup could also just be any ASF member. -Alex - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Benson, How does that relate to my post? Not sure if I can see the connection. Are you suggesting that we should be okay voting PPMC members who are taking responsibility within their project into the Incubator PMC? To me, that would be equivalent to granting a new committer ASF membership while we're at it. Sure, it'll probably be alright, but best to offer someone something at a point when they have some appreciation of what they are joining, no? Upayavira On Sun, Nov 17, 2013, at 01:24 PM, Benson Margulies wrote: Joining a PMC does not meaning being handed even one of the keys to the launch console for a nuclear missile. Joining a PMC means accepting responsibility for the supervision of a project. We vote to add someone to a PMC when they have shown the necessary commitment and, well, common sense. Part of 'common sense' is knowing what you know and what you don't know. Not every PMC member needs to be prepared to wade into every swamp, just as not every committer is qualified to modify every class in the source code. We add committers when have evidence to justify trusting them to do the right thing (with the PMC as backstop supervision), and we add PMC members similarly, with the backstop of the rest of the PMC. On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 6:17 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013, at 04:59 AM, Alex Harui wrote: On 11/16/13 8:47 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: Alex, I'm not sure I see the difference between a release auditor and an IPMC member. If someone is sufficiently clued up to audit a release, then they're surely ready to join the Incubator PMC. Am I missing something? To me, there is more responsibility in being on the IPMC, like reviewing proposals for new podlings and voting on their graduation and becoming a mentor. Personally, that's why I don't want to be on the IPMC, but I might be willing to help IP audit a podling's release. Just like some projects don't have all committers on the PMC, a Release Auditor is just someone who can do that specific task, and there is no need to vote them in if they are already on some other TLP PMC because any member of a TLP PMC supposedly knows how to do release auditing. My interest is in a lesser level of involvement, where someone has shown merit within their own PPMC and can get a binding vote there, but no-where else. That feels to me like a very useful intermediate step to have. I agree, except for the no-where else part. If you know how to check a RAT report and have an idea of what should be in the NOTICE files, you should be able to help out any other podling by reviewing their release and casting a binding vote so they can learn how to do that. I'd say that 3 IPMC members must vote to give a person Release Auditor status if they are not already on a TLP PMC. Consider this: I am an the Flex PMC but not the IPMC, but if I join the PPMC of some new podling, why shouldn't I be able to cast a binding vote for that podling's releases? With a two tier model - with PPMC membership granting voting rights on podling releases, then a podling would start with just mentors on its PPMC. If you clearly knew what you were doing, you'd get voted onto the PPMC pretty quickly, and thus you'd be able to vote on your releases. Upayavira - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Sun, Nov 17, 2013, at 03:41 PM, Alex Harui wrote: On 11/17/13 3:17 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: With a two tier model - with PPMC membership granting voting rights on podling releases, then a podling would start with just mentors on its PPMC. If you clearly knew what you were doing, you'd get voted onto the PPMC pretty quickly, and thus you'd be able to vote on your releases. My concerns with this is that: 1) I think there is more to PPMC membership than just voting on releases. I think the first major votes for Apache Flex was what the project icon was going to be, and voting in new committers. 2) I thought the main thrust of this thread is about what to do when mentors get too busy. If they are too busy then either they won't grant worthy podling newbies the right to cast binding votes on releases, or they will do so too hastily. All I'm suggesting is that there is an existing list of qualified folks that is much larger than the IPMC to help back up busy mentors and allow a podling to get a release out. If you think that all TLP PMC members is too wide a net, the backup could also just be any ASF member. Alex, First, I'll say I like the way you are thinking - it feels fresh. For me, as a mentor, I'd see voting someone else in to vote on releases would be something of a way out, and would take less mental effort than reviewing a release vote (a task that I personally find onerous). I guess also my theory is that mentorship generally remains a responsibility for too long. If a mentor could start to shed some of their responsibility quicker, by voting in others early on, at a point at which they are still active, perhaps we would avoid the point at which mentors are bored reviewing another release, or have changed jobs and don't have time, or... Make it possible for mentors to do useful stuff as early on in the life of a podling as possible. Also, any ASF member can ask to join the Incubator PMC. So, any ASF member can technically review any vote, simply by sending an email to the Incubator PMC private list - so we have that situation already. I'd have no issue with members of other PMCs volunteering with the incubator and the incubator PMC also. Again, it should be relatively easy for them to join. So again, don't we more or less have that already? Upayavira - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 7:41 AM, Alex Harui aha...@adobe.com wrote: 1) I think there is more to PPMC membership than just voting on releases. I'm sure that everyone agrees on this point 100%. Everything that Benson had to say a couple messages back about PMC membership[1] also applies to PPMC membership. Nevertheless, while podlings are in the Incubator, their most pressing needs are for contributions in the areas of community development and IP stewardship. It is appropriate to emphasize those criteria even while voting in new PPMC members for a variety of reasons. 2) I thought the main thrust of this thread is about what to do when mentors get too busy. I don't see it that way. The point is this: The Incubator has a fundamental structural flaw: it lacks a mechanism to reward merit earned by individual podling contributors. Because the current system for approving incubating releases relies on IPMC votes rather than podling contributor votes, it conflicts with our belief in the imperative of meritocratic self-governance. The best solution will be one that brings us back into alignment with our principles. IP stewardship is not something that happens only during IP clearance, only in preparation for the first incubating release, or only at punctuated intervals thereafter in preparation for subsequent releases. It is an ongoing process which happens with _every commit_. The Incubator's priority should be (per the title of this thread) to cultivate outstanding IP stewards to watch over projects -- commit by commit -- both during incubation and after graduation, for the lifetime of the project. The only people with the motivation to serve in that capacity are project contributors. Correct the Incubator's structural flaw and you'll also solve the acute problem of what to do when mentors get too busy. Marvin Humphrey [1] http://s.apache.org/URj - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Marvin, you have my wholehearted agreement. Upayavira On Sun, Nov 17, 2013, at 07:18 PM, Marvin Humphrey wrote: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 7:41 AM, Alex Harui aha...@adobe.com wrote: 1) I think there is more to PPMC membership than just voting on releases. I'm sure that everyone agrees on this point 100%. Everything that Benson had to say a couple messages back about PMC membership[1] also applies to PPMC membership. Nevertheless, while podlings are in the Incubator, their most pressing needs are for contributions in the areas of community development and IP stewardship. It is appropriate to emphasize those criteria even while voting in new PPMC members for a variety of reasons. 2) I thought the main thrust of this thread is about what to do when mentors get too busy. I don't see it that way. The point is this: The Incubator has a fundamental structural flaw: it lacks a mechanism to reward merit earned by individual podling contributors. Because the current system for approving incubating releases relies on IPMC votes rather than podling contributor votes, it conflicts with our belief in the imperative of meritocratic self-governance. The best solution will be one that brings us back into alignment with our principles. IP stewardship is not something that happens only during IP clearance, only in preparation for the first incubating release, or only at punctuated intervals thereafter in preparation for subsequent releases. It is an ongoing process which happens with _every commit_. The Incubator's priority should be (per the title of this thread) to cultivate outstanding IP stewards to watch over projects -- commit by commit -- both during incubation and after graduation, for the lifetime of the project. The only people with the motivation to serve in that capacity are project contributors. Correct the Incubator's structural flaw and you'll also solve the acute problem of what to do when mentors get too busy. Marvin Humphrey [1] http://s.apache.org/URj - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 1:32 PM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: Benson, How does that relate to my post? Not sure if I can see the connection. I thought I was replying to Alex, but my sentiment is applicable to what you write below. The IPMC is a group of people with a job. It's not a 'project community' in the usual sense of the term at the Foundation. My view is that a person who has shown a firm grip on how to operate inside a PPMC could be trusted to join that group. I think it's possible to explain to a proposed IPMC member that they are being invited to join a group with responsibility across all the podlings, but with the understanding that they will stick to their podling to start with. The point of my email was to emphasize the low risk to the function of the IPMC and the Foundation from this strategy -- which I appreciate is not the only consideration. If the board were offering us another structural approach, this would be a different discussion. But, unless I've gotten lost in the torrent of email, the board isn't offering an alternative. The legal framework requires three PMC members to approve a release, not three 'something else's'. So I see this as a choice of the lesser of weevils: bug #1 is releases that never get their votes, and bug #2 is this scheme of adding IPMC members based on PPMC merit. So, yes, I accept your point that inviting PPMC members to join the IPMC is not delux. While I'm using my metered window of verbiage around here, I'll add: much as I value the careful curation of NOTICE and LICENSE, those aren't where the legal risks come in. They come in every day, when code is committed. If someone goes and commits some misappropriated code into SVN with Apache headers tacked on, the chances of a 'release inspector' detecting it are small. Once a project is up and running, this is a matter of appropriate grant of commit access and appropriate supervision by PMC members -- though it's not like we supply them with Black Duck. Are you suggesting that we should be okay voting PPMC members who are taking responsibility within their project into the Incubator PMC? To me, that would be equivalent to granting a new committer ASF membership while we're at it. Sure, it'll probably be alright, but best to offer someone something at a point when they have some appreciation of what they are joining, no? Upayavira On Sun, Nov 17, 2013, at 01:24 PM, Benson Margulies wrote: Joining a PMC does not meaning being handed even one of the keys to the launch console for a nuclear missile. Joining a PMC means accepting responsibility for the supervision of a project. We vote to add someone to a PMC when they have shown the necessary commitment and, well, common sense. Part of 'common sense' is knowing what you know and what you don't know. Not every PMC member needs to be prepared to wade into every swamp, just as not every committer is qualified to modify every class in the source code. We add committers when have evidence to justify trusting them to do the right thing (with the PMC as backstop supervision), and we add PMC members similarly, with the backstop of the rest of the PMC. On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 6:17 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013, at 04:59 AM, Alex Harui wrote: On 11/16/13 8:47 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: Alex, I'm not sure I see the difference between a release auditor and an IPMC member. If someone is sufficiently clued up to audit a release, then they're surely ready to join the Incubator PMC. Am I missing something? To me, there is more responsibility in being on the IPMC, like reviewing proposals for new podlings and voting on their graduation and becoming a mentor. Personally, that's why I don't want to be on the IPMC, but I might be willing to help IP audit a podling's release. Just like some projects don't have all committers on the PMC, a Release Auditor is just someone who can do that specific task, and there is no need to vote them in if they are already on some other TLP PMC because any member of a TLP PMC supposedly knows how to do release auditing. My interest is in a lesser level of involvement, where someone has shown merit within their own PPMC and can get a binding vote there, but no-where else. That feels to me like a very useful intermediate step to have. I agree, except for the no-where else part. If you know how to check a RAT report and have an idea of what should be in the NOTICE files, you should be able to help out any other podling by reviewing their release and casting a binding vote so they can learn how to do that. I'd say that 3 IPMC members must vote to give a person Release Auditor status if they are not already on a TLP PMC. Consider this: I am an the Flex PMC but not the IPMC, but if I join the PPMC of some new podling, why shouldn't I be able to cast a binding vote for that podling's
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On 11/17/13 10:38 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: Also, any ASF member can ask to join the Incubator PMC. So, any ASF member can technically review any vote, simply by sending an email to the Incubator PMC private list - so we have that situation already. I'd have no issue with members of other PMCs volunteering with the incubator and the incubator PMC also. Again, it should be relatively easy for them to join. So again, don't we more or less have that already? I'm just saying that from my personal perspective, I'm still shying away from being an IPMC member. It is a larger role than I would want, even though I know I can certainly just do the part I want to. Maybe there are other folks who could and want to help with releases who are also like me and are hestitant to join the IPMC. If the IPMC wants to take the time to vote in folks as full IPMC members in order to grow their ranks to try to find more folks to help with podling releases that's it's choice. I was just proposing that there is a large existing list of folks who could probably help without requiring them to be IPMC members. -Alex - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Fri, Nov 15, 2013, at 06:07 PM, Alex Harui wrote: On 11/14/13 9:07 PM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 10:47 AM, Alex Harui aha...@adobe.com wrote: I still think that having a Release Auditor role provides backup for getting incubator releases out without having folks have to be on the IPMC to approve the legal aspects of a release. Just like any ASF Member can backup busy PMC Chairs for some actions, any TLP PMC member should be able to backup a busy IPMC member for release auditing. Speaking as someone who would presumably be suitable for this Release Auditor role, I'm opposed to the idea -- and not just because I don't want to get stuck doing all the dirty work. People who sign up to Mentor a podling should expect to vote on releases -- especially the first. The Incubator PMC tasks Mentors with overseeing the IP clearance processes. A Mentor who votes +1 on the first incubating release is implicitly affirming that IP clearance was done properly -- because that was their assignment, and if something had gone awry they would surely not vote to release. Well, sure, clearly a highly-engaged mentor can better manage IP clearance. But is release voting really an approval of IP clearance? I thought it was more about IP maintenance: making sure that everything in the package has a header. Usually there is a significant amount of time between the incubating IP hitting the repo and it being offered for release and I thought the clearance had to happen when it hit the repo, not at release voting time. A +1 vote from a Release Auditor who did not participate in IP clearance is much less meaningful: all it tells you is that whatever superficial inspection they performed on the finished product did not reveal any defects. If some committer mistakenly attaches an ALv2 header to a file that shouldn't have one, a Release Auditor won't find that. To catch such problems, you need someone monitoring the the dev and commits lists: possibly a Mentor, ideally a project contributor. I thought the main point of this thread was to find a way to unblock podlings looking to release but their mentors dis-engaged, even temporarily. Are you saying that the IPMC members who step in to help (like the ones who recently stepped in for VXQuery) must do the forensics of IP clearance by scanning the commit emails? Seems like folks doing release auditing can do that as well if that's really required. We might even make a tool that searches through repo history for add/remove of copyrights. The most meaningful +1 votes are those cast by enlightened core contributors, because they speak from deep knowledge of the code base and its history. IP stewardship is a continuous process, and the Incubator's goal should be to graduate communities with the motivation and expertise to attend to it over the long term -- not to certify code. Agreed. The only purpose of having a Release Auditor role is to expand the pool of folks who can vote on a release without requiring them to become full-fledged IPMC members. Now if you're saying that having backup voters is not going to meet some requirement of IP safety, it seems like it can just be made a requirement of a backup vote to do whatever that work is. If you're saying that will never work because the only folks who can validate a release are folks who are engaged in the podling, then even having other IPMC folks backup them isn't going to work either, and solutions need to be found to somehow get those mentors to find the time to meet their obligations. Alex, I'm not sure I see the difference between a release auditor and an IPMC member. If someone is sufficiently clued up to audit a release, then they're surely ready to join the Incubator PMC. Am I missing something? My interest is in a lesser level of involvement, where someone has shown merit within their own PPMC and can get a binding vote there, but no-where else. That feels to me like a very useful intermediate step to have. Upayavira - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On 11/16/13 8:47 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: Alex, I'm not sure I see the difference between a release auditor and an IPMC member. If someone is sufficiently clued up to audit a release, then they're surely ready to join the Incubator PMC. Am I missing something? To me, there is more responsibility in being on the IPMC, like reviewing proposals for new podlings and voting on their graduation and becoming a mentor. Personally, that's why I don't want to be on the IPMC, but I might be willing to help IP audit a podling's release. Just like some projects don't have all committers on the PMC, a Release Auditor is just someone who can do that specific task, and there is no need to vote them in if they are already on some other TLP PMC because any member of a TLP PMC supposedly knows how to do release auditing. My interest is in a lesser level of involvement, where someone has shown merit within their own PPMC and can get a binding vote there, but no-where else. That feels to me like a very useful intermediate step to have. I agree, except for the no-where else part. If you know how to check a RAT report and have an idea of what should be in the NOTICE files, you should be able to help out any other podling by reviewing their release and casting a binding vote so they can learn how to do that. I'd say that 3 IPMC members must vote to give a person Release Auditor status if they are not already on a TLP PMC. Consider this: I am an the Flex PMC but not the IPMC, but if I join the PPMC of some new podling, why shouldn't I be able to cast a binding vote for that podling's releases? -Alex - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 5:08 AM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 1:08 AM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: What i'd like to try is more similar to the pTLP approach previously talked about. So take some existing podling, eg Stratos and/or VXQuery, and give the PPMC binding votes. They have experienced and active mentors so there will be oversight and nothing to worry about. They already have experienced participants so know what they're doing anyway. Anyone on the Incubator PMC can join in or watch what happens and intervene at any point to have the experiment shutdown in the unlikely event that they go wild. I think there are some issues with that approach. * Being listed in the initial committer list of a proposal is not sufficient justification for granting a binding vote. Each individual needs to demonstrate merit in the context of incubation and there needs to be a VOTE. * When it's already excruciatingly difficult to get IPMC members to review releases, making such reviews optional just means hardly anybody will get around to them -- even if they have the best of intentions. * Under this model, a first incubating release could be approved with solely PPMC votes. We need more accountability than that. No no, thats not what i'm suggesting, this isn't for some new podling thats never done a release or anything its for a more experienced podling thats been here for a while and already done a release but is still here for some reason. So they mostly know what they're doing, and they'll have active mentors. Please don't just rule this out as too scary, its just an experiment and even when successful would be unlikly ever become the mainstream approach for most podlings. ...ant - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On 10 November 2013 08:00, Alex Harui aha...@adobe.com wrote: IMO, there are two problems: 1) We're trying to train folks to manage IP for their community but they have to seek approval from folks are aren't as vested in their community. My analogy is telling a new city council member: Welcome to the city council. For the next year all of your decisions will require ratification by 3 state senators. 2) Release voting takes a long time. It would seem like tools should be able to reduce the time on several of the steps, except for this one from [1] compile it as provided, and test the resulting executable on their own platform. Sometimes I think about trying to get on the IPMC and helping some podling get a release out but: A) Really, I just want to help check the legal aspects of a podling's release and don't have bandwidth to want to take on the other roles implied by being on the IPMC. B) I don't want to take the time to figure out how to build and test a release that I have no vested interest in. Now, incubating releases are not official releases, right? Huh? AIUI, they *are* official releases, but with certain caveats (the DISCLAIMER). The source is published from the mirrors in the same way as for TLP releases. That is why it is vital to get the NOTICE and LICENSE files right. So why have such time- consuming requirements to get approval from the IPMC? Let's assume that the podling folks tested the building and operation of the source package. Could we build an ant script that any IPMC member or any PMC member from any TLP (to expand the pool of potential helpers to folks who supposedly know how) can run just to check: 1) source package has the name incubating 2) source package is signed 3) unzip source package 4) grab a tag from SVN/Git 5) Diff 6) Run Rat (without any fileset exclusions) Then some podling writes to general@ and says: can we get legal approval to release? Please run the release checker ant script with the following inputs url to package url to SVN/Git tag Then it could run while I read through all of the other ASF emails and eventually I get a report that contains mainly a list of non-Apache files in the RAT report that I review and comment on if needed. To me, if you're reviewing a RAT report, you are a building inspector who has looked around inside. Can we make it that simple? For sure, if any podling member is qualified for IPMC before graduation they should be nominated and added, and I suppose we could also approve them to cast binding votes as a release checker which may be a lower bar and maybe less of a time commitment, but I think if it is possible to have a larger group of folks approve incubating releases mainly be reviewing RAT reports that might make it easier for a podling to get a release out the door and still assist in the training of the podling's future PMC members. [1] http://www.apache.org/dev/release.html#approving-a-release My two cents (probably more), -Alex On 11/9/13 9:38 PM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 4:11 AM, Dave Brondsema d...@brondsema.net wrote: On 11/09/2013 02:23 AM, Jake Farrell wrote: If mentors are not performing their duties to vote on a given releases for a podling, then it is up to the IPMC as a whole to help that podling by doing the do diligence and casting a vote. We all asked to be apart of the IPMC or where honored by a nomination and accepted the role. It is up to us to show these podlings what the Apache was really means. These projects have all come to the ASF and we (the IPMC) have openly voted them into incubation, its up to us to help them succeed. While this is true in theory it's hard in practice to wrangle those votes together. That's not the only problem. While IPMC volunteers who perform freelance release reviews keep the Incubator from grinding to a halt, our reliance on them undermines the Incubator's effectiveness as an IP clearinghouse. I wish that we would redirect those volunteer energies elsewhere. IPMC members who vote +1 on an initial incubating release are endorsing the the code import and IP clearance process[1], as well as any work done in-house since incubation started. Votes on subsequent incubating releases are less weighty because they chiefly endorse work done in-house since the last release. Non-Mentors who swoop in at the last minute to vote +1 on a codebase they've never looked at produced by a community they've never interacted with are not in a position to make such endorsements, particularly for the first incubating release. They are like building inspectors who never go inside. Merit stands above all else, and the contributors that you have pointed out are all exceptional individuals that have advanced their projects and continued to do so after graduation within the ASF. There are no short cuts here, merit is earned. I am 100% behind helping individuals that show
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On 11/14/13 9:07 PM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 10:47 AM, Alex Harui aha...@adobe.com wrote: I still think that having a Release Auditor role provides backup for getting incubator releases out without having folks have to be on the IPMC to approve the legal aspects of a release. Just like any ASF Member can backup busy PMC Chairs for some actions, any TLP PMC member should be able to backup a busy IPMC member for release auditing. Speaking as someone who would presumably be suitable for this Release Auditor role, I'm opposed to the idea -- and not just because I don't want to get stuck doing all the dirty work. People who sign up to Mentor a podling should expect to vote on releases -- especially the first. The Incubator PMC tasks Mentors with overseeing the IP clearance processes. A Mentor who votes +1 on the first incubating release is implicitly affirming that IP clearance was done properly -- because that was their assignment, and if something had gone awry they would surely not vote to release. Well, sure, clearly a highly-engaged mentor can better manage IP clearance. But is release voting really an approval of IP clearance? I thought it was more about IP maintenance: making sure that everything in the package has a header. Usually there is a significant amount of time between the incubating IP hitting the repo and it being offered for release and I thought the clearance had to happen when it hit the repo, not at release voting time. A +1 vote from a Release Auditor who did not participate in IP clearance is much less meaningful: all it tells you is that whatever superficial inspection they performed on the finished product did not reveal any defects. If some committer mistakenly attaches an ALv2 header to a file that shouldn't have one, a Release Auditor won't find that. To catch such problems, you need someone monitoring the the dev and commits lists: possibly a Mentor, ideally a project contributor. I thought the main point of this thread was to find a way to unblock podlings looking to release but their mentors dis-engaged, even temporarily. Are you saying that the IPMC members who step in to help (like the ones who recently stepped in for VXQuery) must do the forensics of IP clearance by scanning the commit emails? Seems like folks doing release auditing can do that as well if that's really required. We might even make a tool that searches through repo history for add/remove of copyrights. The most meaningful +1 votes are those cast by enlightened core contributors, because they speak from deep knowledge of the code base and its history. IP stewardship is a continuous process, and the Incubator's goal should be to graduate communities with the motivation and expertise to attend to it over the long term -- not to certify code. Agreed. The only purpose of having a Release Auditor role is to expand the pool of folks who can vote on a release without requiring them to become full-fledged IPMC members. Now if you're saying that having backup voters is not going to meet some requirement of IP safety, it seems like it can just be made a requirement of a backup vote to do whatever that work is. If you're saying that will never work because the only folks who can validate a release are folks who are engaged in the podling, then even having other IPMC folks backup them isn't going to work either, and solutions need to be found to somehow get those mentors to find the time to meet their obligations. -Alex - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Those sound like fine experiments to try - having a release auditor, and a new podling with the PPMC have binding votes and initially seeded just with IPMC members - however they aren't the experiments i was thinking of. What i'd like to try is more similar to the pTLP approach previously talked about. So take some existing podling, eg Stratos and/or VXQuery, and give the PPMC binding votes. They have experienced and active mentors so there will be oversight and nothing to worry about. They already have experienced participants so know what they're doing anyway. Anyone on the Incubator PMC can join in or watch what happens and intervene at any point to have the experiment shutdown in the unlikely event that they go wild. Its just a small experimental trial. Even if successful this likely wouldn't ever become the approach used for most podlings, but it could be a useful step for some. Lets give it a try. What do you say? ...ant On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 7:05 PM, Suresh Marru sma...@apache.org wrote: On Nov 13, 2013, at 1:14 PM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 11:58 PM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: So, we _can_ let podlings have their own binding release votes and we could do our own pTLP type experiments without even needing to go to the board. We should try that. Not for every podling but just for select ones where the circumstances mean it will work better than the current approach. If there are no major objections to some experiments with this approach then i'd like to start trying one. +1 to run an experiment. The position that Roy has taken changes the equation. While a number of people have expressed a preference for the approach of electing more podling contributors directly onto the IPMC, in practice it remains uncertain whether the IPMC is capable of identifying, nominating and voting in enough candidates -- as evidenced by some threads currently in progress on private@incubator. I propose that the experiment take the following form: 1. The initial PPMC shall be composed exclusively of IPMC members. 2. PPMC votes are binding for every release except the first. 3. One IPMC vote is required for each release after the first. I believe that this model provides sufficient oversight because the first release must cross a high bar, and because it changes the dynamics of electing PPMC members: even core contributors will now have to earn PPMC membership, demonstrating to an initial PPMC composed of IPMC members that they understand the Apache Way well enough to steward their project. + 1, I like this balance and caveats. In my personal view (which I am not generalizing), getting the first release is very time consuming but educational and very much worth it. I do not look at it as one month or so for a release is unreasonable, but rather think it as, one month amortized over quality subsequent releases. Which ever approach or policy changes we take, we still need patient incumbents and overly patient mentors. The only way mentors scale is to teach the process and groom new teachers. Ofcourse not many students will like the teachers until they also become teachers. Atleast this happened to me, I appreciate my mentors more now then when I was a student :) Suresh Marvin Humphrey - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 10:47 AM, Alex Harui aha...@adobe.com wrote: I still think that having a Release Auditor role provides backup for getting incubator releases out without having folks have to be on the IPMC to approve the legal aspects of a release. Just like any ASF Member can backup busy PMC Chairs for some actions, any TLP PMC member should be able to backup a busy IPMC member for release auditing. Speaking as someone who would presumably be suitable for this Release Auditor role, I'm opposed to the idea -- and not just because I don't want to get stuck doing all the dirty work. People who sign up to Mentor a podling should expect to vote on releases -- especially the first. The Incubator PMC tasks Mentors with overseeing the IP clearance processes. A Mentor who votes +1 on the first incubating release is implicitly affirming that IP clearance was done properly -- because that was their assignment, and if something had gone awry they would surely not vote to release. A +1 vote from a Release Auditor who did not participate in IP clearance is much less meaningful: all it tells you is that whatever superficial inspection they performed on the finished product did not reveal any defects. If some committer mistakenly attaches an ALv2 header to a file that shouldn't have one, a Release Auditor won't find that. To catch such problems, you need someone monitoring the the dev and commits lists: possibly a Mentor, ideally a project contributor. The most meaningful +1 votes are those cast by enlightened core contributors, because they speak from deep knowledge of the code base and its history. IP stewardship is a continuous process, and the Incubator's goal should be to graduate communities with the motivation and expertise to attend to it over the long term -- not to certify code. Marvin Humphrey - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 1:08 AM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: What i'd like to try is more similar to the pTLP approach previously talked about. So take some existing podling, eg Stratos and/or VXQuery, and give the PPMC binding votes. They have experienced and active mentors so there will be oversight and nothing to worry about. They already have experienced participants so know what they're doing anyway. Anyone on the Incubator PMC can join in or watch what happens and intervene at any point to have the experiment shutdown in the unlikely event that they go wild. I think there are some issues with that approach. * Being listed in the initial committer list of a proposal is not sufficient justification for granting a binding vote. Each individual needs to demonstrate merit in the context of incubation and there needs to be a VOTE. * When it's already excruciatingly difficult to get IPMC members to review releases, making such reviews optional just means hardly anybody will get around to them -- even if they have the best of intentions. * Under this model, a first incubating release could be approved with solely PPMC votes. We need more accountability than that. Marvin Humphrey - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 11:58 PM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: So, we _can_ let podlings have their own binding release votes and we could do our own pTLP type experiments without even needing to go to the board. We should try that. Not for every podling but just for select ones where the circumstances mean it will work better than the current approach. If there are no major objections to some experiments with this approach then i'd like to start trying one. +1 to run an experiment. The position that Roy has taken changes the equation. While a number of people have expressed a preference for the approach of electing more podling contributors directly onto the IPMC, in practice it remains uncertain whether the IPMC is capable of identifying, nominating and voting in enough candidates -- as evidenced by some threads currently in progress on private@incubator. I propose that the experiment take the following form: 1. The initial PPMC shall be composed exclusively of IPMC members. 2. PPMC votes are binding for every release except the first. 3. One IPMC vote is required for each release after the first. I believe that this model provides sufficient oversight because the first release must cross a high bar, and because it changes the dynamics of electing PPMC members: even core contributors will now have to earn PPMC membership, demonstrating to an initial PPMC composed of IPMC members that they understand the Apache Way well enough to steward their project. Marvin Humphrey - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Wed, Nov 13, 2013, at 06:14 PM, Marvin Humphrey wrote: On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 11:58 PM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: So, we _can_ let podlings have their own binding release votes and we could do our own pTLP type experiments without even needing to go to the board. We should try that. Not for every podling but just for select ones where the circumstances mean it will work better than the current approach. If there are no major objections to some experiments with this approach then i'd like to start trying one. +1 to run an experiment. The position that Roy has taken changes the equation. While a number of people have expressed a preference for the approach of electing more podling contributors directly onto the IPMC, in practice it remains uncertain whether the IPMC is capable of identifying, nominating and voting in enough candidates -- as evidenced by some threads currently in progress on private@incubator. I propose that the experiment take the following form: 1. The initial PPMC shall be composed exclusively of IPMC members. 2. PPMC votes are binding for every release except the first. 3. One IPMC vote is required for each release after the first. I believe that this model provides sufficient oversight because the first release must cross a high bar, and because it changes the dynamics of electing PPMC members: even core contributors will now have to earn PPMC membership, demonstrating to an initial PPMC composed of IPMC members that they understand the Apache Way well enough to steward their project. I would be very supportive of such an experiment. Make the size of the merit granted fit the stage at which an individual is at. I presume #4 is: Three +1 votes from PPMC members required. Upayavira - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On 11/13/13 10:14 AM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: While a number of people have expressed a preference for the approach of electing more podling contributors directly onto the IPMC, in practice it remains uncertain whether the IPMC is capable of identifying, nominating and voting in enough candidates -- as evidenced by some threads currently in progress on private@incubator. I propose that the experiment take the following form: 1. The initial PPMC shall be composed exclusively of IPMC members. 2. PPMC votes are binding for every release except the first. 3. One IPMC vote is required for each release after the first. I believe that this model provides sufficient oversight because the first release must cross a high bar, and because it changes the dynamics of electing PPMC members: even core contributors will now have to earn PPMC membership, demonstrating to an initial PPMC composed of IPMC members that they understand the Apache Way well enough to steward their project. Isn't there a possible bug here where given a higher bar for entry to the PPMC (you would now have to prove you understand the legal aspects of Apache releases before you can get on the PPMC) that it will burden the IPMC folks on the PPMC because they are the only ones who can cast votes to accept new committers, and if a first release happens but there's only one newbie who truly gets the legal aspects that the PPMC only grows by 1 and can still be left hanging if the IPMC folks walk away? I still think that having a Release Auditor role provides backup for getting incubator releases out without having folks have to be on the IPMC to approve the legal aspects of a release. Just like any ASF Member can backup busy PMC Chairs for some actions, any TLP PMC member should be able to backup a busy IPMC member for release auditing. -Alex - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Nov 13, 2013, at 1:14 PM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 11:58 PM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: So, we _can_ let podlings have their own binding release votes and we could do our own pTLP type experiments without even needing to go to the board. We should try that. Not for every podling but just for select ones where the circumstances mean it will work better than the current approach. If there are no major objections to some experiments with this approach then i'd like to start trying one. +1 to run an experiment. The position that Roy has taken changes the equation. While a number of people have expressed a preference for the approach of electing more podling contributors directly onto the IPMC, in practice it remains uncertain whether the IPMC is capable of identifying, nominating and voting in enough candidates -- as evidenced by some threads currently in progress on private@incubator. I propose that the experiment take the following form: 1. The initial PPMC shall be composed exclusively of IPMC members. 2. PPMC votes are binding for every release except the first. 3. One IPMC vote is required for each release after the first. I believe that this model provides sufficient oversight because the first release must cross a high bar, and because it changes the dynamics of electing PPMC members: even core contributors will now have to earn PPMC membership, demonstrating to an initial PPMC composed of IPMC members that they understand the Apache Way well enough to steward their project. + 1, I like this balance and caveats. In my personal view (which I am not generalizing), getting the first release is very time consuming but educational and very much worth it. I do not look at it as one month or so for a release is unreasonable, but rather think it as, one month amortized over quality subsequent releases. Which ever approach or policy changes we take, we still need patient incumbents and overly patient mentors. The only way mentors scale is to teach the process and groom new teachers. Ofcourse not many students will like the teachers until they also become teachers. Atleast this happened to me, I appreciate my mentors more now then when I was a student :) Suresh Marvin Humphrey - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Release votes are expected to be a decision of the list of people empowered by the foundation to make that decision. How that list of people is populated for podlings is up to the PMC. Right now, the only list we have is the IPMC itself, as appointed by the board. If the Incubator wants to create separate subcommittees to mimic the operations of podling PMCs, with the subcommittee delegated the right to mint incubating releases and the subcommittee membership recorded in an appropriate place for Incubator committee records, that would meet my approval. The purpose of this requirement is to protect the folks who make release decisions (i.e., to provide a corporate record of their right to do an ASF release, since most of them have no other employment, contract, or officer role to back them up). Roy On Nov 10, 2013, at 7:34 AM, Joseph Schaefer wrote: Unlikely to get at least Roy’s approval because release votes are expected to be a decision of the full committee, not any one member of it. On Nov 10, 2013, at 10:29 AM, Alan D. Cabrera l...@toolazydogs.com wrote: On Nov 10, 2013, at 1:04 AM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: How about simply changing the rules for Incubator releases so that they don't require at least three binding votes, but instead make it at least three votes only one of which must be binding. That would mean there would still be the element of oversight that a mentor vote gives but avoids all the problems with not having three mentors. I'm sure the board would grant the Incubator authority to implement that change. The board has charged us to vet the podlings and their releases. What process is used is up to us. I would prefer a variant of your proposal. The first release needs three mentor/IPMC votes. Subsequent releases only require one mentor/IPMC vote. Regards, Alan - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Thanks for that Roy. So, we _can_ let podlings have their own binding release votes and we could do our own pTLP type experiments without even needing to go to the board. We should try that. Not for every podling but just for select ones where the circumstances mean it will work better than the current approach. If there are no major objections to some experiments with this approach then i'd like to start trying one. ...ant On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 11:12 AM, Roy T. Fielding field...@gbiv.com wrote: Release votes are expected to be a decision of the list of people empowered by the foundation to make that decision. How that list of people is populated for podlings is up to the PMC. Right now, the only list we have is the IPMC itself, as appointed by the board. If the Incubator wants to create separate subcommittees to mimic the operations of podling PMCs, with the subcommittee delegated the right to mint incubating releases and the subcommittee membership recorded in an appropriate place for Incubator committee records, that would meet my approval. The purpose of this requirement is to protect the folks who make release decisions (i.e., to provide a corporate record of their right to do an ASF release, since most of them have no other employment, contract, or officer role to back them up). Roy On Nov 10, 2013, at 7:34 AM, Joseph Schaefer wrote: Unlikely to get at least Roy’s approval because release votes are expected to be a decision of the full committee, not any one member of it. On Nov 10, 2013, at 10:29 AM, Alan D. Cabrera l...@toolazydogs.com wrote: On Nov 10, 2013, at 1:04 AM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: How about simply changing the rules for Incubator releases so that they don't require at least three binding votes, but instead make it at least three votes only one of which must be binding. That would mean there would still be the element of oversight that a mentor vote gives but avoids all the problems with not having three mentors. I'm sure the board would grant the Incubator authority to implement that change. The board has charged us to vet the podlings and their releases. What process is used is up to us. I would prefer a variant of your proposal. The first release needs three mentor/IPMC votes. Subsequent releases only require one mentor/IPMC vote. Regards, Alan - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
I don't think this is prudent, having only one binding vote is too low a check. We at the ASF have a responsibility to the public. I want to be certain that no one steam rolls the process. Just the fact that there are edge cases means we need to be careful. Regards, Dave Sent from my iPhone On Nov 10, 2013, at 4:04 AM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: How about simply changing the rules for Incubator releases so that they don't require at least three binding votes, but instead make it at least three votes only one of which must be binding. That would mean there would still be the element of oversight that a mentor vote gives but avoids all the problems with not having three mentors. I'm sure the board would grant the Incubator authority to implement that change. ...ant On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 8:00 AM, Alex Harui aha...@adobe.com wrote: IMO, there are two problems: 1) We're trying to train folks to manage IP for their community but they have to seek approval from folks are aren't as vested in their community. My analogy is telling a new city council member: Welcome to the city council. For the next year all of your decisions will require ratification by 3 state senators. 2) Release voting takes a long time. It would seem like tools should be able to reduce the time on several of the steps, except for this one from [1] compile it as provided, and test the resulting executable on their own platform. Sometimes I think about trying to get on the IPMC and helping some podling get a release out but: A) Really, I just want to help check the legal aspects of a podling's release and don't have bandwidth to want to take on the other roles implied by being on the IPMC. B) I don't want to take the time to figure out how to build and test a release that I have no vested interest in. Now, incubating releases are not official releases, right? So why have such time- consuming requirements to get approval from the IPMC? Let's assume that the podling folks tested the building and operation of the source package. Could we build an ant script that any IPMC member or any PMC member from any TLP (to expand the pool of potential helpers to folks who supposedly know how) can run just to check: 1) source package has the name incubating - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
IMO, there are two problems: 1) We're trying to train folks to manage IP for their community but they have to seek approval from folks are aren't as vested in their community. My analogy is telling a new city council member: Welcome to the city council. For the next year all of your decisions will require ratification by 3 state senators. 2) Release voting takes a long time. It would seem like tools should be able to reduce the time on several of the steps, except for this one from [1] compile it as provided, and test the resulting executable on their own platform. Sometimes I think about trying to get on the IPMC and helping some podling get a release out but: A) Really, I just want to help check the legal aspects of a podling's release and don't have bandwidth to want to take on the other roles implied by being on the IPMC. B) I don't want to take the time to figure out how to build and test a release that I have no vested interest in. Now, incubating releases are not official releases, right? So why have such time- consuming requirements to get approval from the IPMC? Let's assume that the podling folks tested the building and operation of the source package. Could we build an ant script that any IPMC member or any PMC member from any TLP (to expand the pool of potential helpers to folks who supposedly know how) can run just to check: 1) source package has the name incubating 2) source package is signed 3) unzip source package 4) grab a tag from SVN/Git 5) Diff 6) Run Rat (without any fileset exclusions) Then some podling writes to general@ and says: can we get legal approval to release? Please run the release checker ant script with the following inputs url to package url to SVN/Git tag Then it could run while I read through all of the other ASF emails and eventually I get a report that contains mainly a list of non-Apache files in the RAT report that I review and comment on if needed. To me, if you're reviewing a RAT report, you are a building inspector who has looked around inside. Can we make it that simple? For sure, if any podling member is qualified for IPMC before graduation they should be nominated and added, and I suppose we could also approve them to cast binding votes as a release checker which may be a lower bar and maybe less of a time commitment, but I think if it is possible to have a larger group of folks approve incubating releases mainly be reviewing RAT reports that might make it easier for a podling to get a release out the door and still assist in the training of the podling's future PMC members. [1] http://www.apache.org/dev/release.html#approving-a-release My two cents (probably more), -Alex On 11/9/13 9:38 PM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 4:11 AM, Dave Brondsema d...@brondsema.net wrote: On 11/09/2013 02:23 AM, Jake Farrell wrote: If mentors are not performing their duties to vote on a given releases for a podling, then it is up to the IPMC as a whole to help that podling by doing the do diligence and casting a vote. We all asked to be apart of the IPMC or where honored by a nomination and accepted the role. It is up to us to show these podlings what the Apache was really means. These projects have all come to the ASF and we (the IPMC) have openly voted them into incubation, its up to us to help them succeed. While this is true in theory it's hard in practice to wrangle those votes together. That's not the only problem. While IPMC volunteers who perform freelance release reviews keep the Incubator from grinding to a halt, our reliance on them undermines the Incubator's effectiveness as an IP clearinghouse. I wish that we would redirect those volunteer energies elsewhere. IPMC members who vote +1 on an initial incubating release are endorsing the the code import and IP clearance process[1], as well as any work done in-house since incubation started. Votes on subsequent incubating releases are less weighty because they chiefly endorse work done in-house since the last release. Non-Mentors who swoop in at the last minute to vote +1 on a codebase they've never looked at produced by a community they've never interacted with are not in a position to make such endorsements, particularly for the first incubating release. They are like building inspectors who never go inside. Merit stands above all else, and the contributors that you have pointed out are all exceptional individuals that have advanced their projects and continued to do so after graduation within the ASF. There are no short cuts here, merit is earned. I am 100% behind helping individuals that show exceptional merit within a podling and deserve to be apart of the IPMC and have a binding vote. Yes, lets do this. No new structures, minimal risks. True. It seems that a number of people find this approach attractive. Let's focus on the challenges: 1. Candidates have to be nominated. 2. The votes have to pass. Not all of them, but
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
How about simply changing the rules for Incubator releases so that they don't require at least three binding votes, but instead make it at least three votes only one of which must be binding. That would mean there would still be the element of oversight that a mentor vote gives but avoids all the problems with not having three mentors. I'm sure the board would grant the Incubator authority to implement that change. ...ant On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 8:00 AM, Alex Harui aha...@adobe.com wrote: IMO, there are two problems: 1) We're trying to train folks to manage IP for their community but they have to seek approval from folks are aren't as vested in their community. My analogy is telling a new city council member: Welcome to the city council. For the next year all of your decisions will require ratification by 3 state senators. 2) Release voting takes a long time. It would seem like tools should be able to reduce the time on several of the steps, except for this one from [1] compile it as provided, and test the resulting executable on their own platform. Sometimes I think about trying to get on the IPMC and helping some podling get a release out but: A) Really, I just want to help check the legal aspects of a podling's release and don't have bandwidth to want to take on the other roles implied by being on the IPMC. B) I don't want to take the time to figure out how to build and test a release that I have no vested interest in. Now, incubating releases are not official releases, right? So why have such time- consuming requirements to get approval from the IPMC? Let's assume that the podling folks tested the building and operation of the source package. Could we build an ant script that any IPMC member or any PMC member from any TLP (to expand the pool of potential helpers to folks who supposedly know how) can run just to check: 1) source package has the name incubating 2) source package is signed 3) unzip source package 4) grab a tag from SVN/Git 5) Diff 6) Run Rat (without any fileset exclusions) Then some podling writes to general@ and says: can we get legal approval to release? Please run the release checker ant script with the following inputs url to package url to SVN/Git tag Then it could run while I read through all of the other ASF emails and eventually I get a report that contains mainly a list of non-Apache files in the RAT report that I review and comment on if needed. To me, if you're reviewing a RAT report, you are a building inspector who has looked around inside. Can we make it that simple? For sure, if any podling member is qualified for IPMC before graduation they should be nominated and added, and I suppose we could also approve them to cast binding votes as a release checker which may be a lower bar and maybe less of a time commitment, but I think if it is possible to have a larger group of folks approve incubating releases mainly be reviewing RAT reports that might make it easier for a podling to get a release out the door and still assist in the training of the podling's future PMC members. [1] http://www.apache.org/dev/release.html#approving-a-release My two cents (probably more), -Alex On 11/9/13 9:38 PM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 4:11 AM, Dave Brondsema d...@brondsema.net wrote: On 11/09/2013 02:23 AM, Jake Farrell wrote: If mentors are not performing their duties to vote on a given releases for a podling, then it is up to the IPMC as a whole to help that podling by doing the do diligence and casting a vote. We all asked to be apart of the IPMC or where honored by a nomination and accepted the role. It is up to us to show these podlings what the Apache was really means. These projects have all come to the ASF and we (the IPMC) have openly voted them into incubation, its up to us to help them succeed. While this is true in theory it's hard in practice to wrangle those votes together. That's not the only problem. While IPMC volunteers who perform freelance release reviews keep the Incubator from grinding to a halt, our reliance on them undermines the Incubator's effectiveness as an IP clearinghouse. I wish that we would redirect those volunteer energies elsewhere. IPMC members who vote +1 on an initial incubating release are endorsing the the code import and IP clearance process[1], as well as any work done in-house since incubation started. Votes on subsequent incubating releases are less weighty because they chiefly endorse work done in-house since the last release. Non-Mentors who swoop in at the last minute to vote +1 on a codebase they've never looked at produced by a community they've never interacted with are not in a position to make such endorsements, particularly for the first incubating release. They are like building inspectors who never go inside. Merit stands above all else, and the contributors that you have pointed out are all
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On 10/11/13 09:04, ant elder wrote: How about simply changing the rules for Incubator releases so that they don't require at least three binding votes, but instead make it at least three votes only one of which must be binding. That would mean there would still be the element of oversight that a mentor vote gives but avoids all the problems with not having three mentors. I'm sure the board would grant the Incubator authority to implement that change. ...ant Having some mechanism to give real, effective value to the PPMC votes seems like an excellent idea. Whether it is this exact proposal or something else, I don't know. At the moment, the PPMC votes are not essential which I find a bit odd. Maybe make some/all the mentor votes being votes on the process of the release (IP checking included), not the content. (Or maybe different mentor vote classes is just complexity.) Doing IP the first time seems to come a surprise for podlings (in my very limited experience). But once one or two people on the PPMC get it, it's time to handover that responsibility to the PPMC. Andy On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 8:00 AM, Alex Harui aha...@adobe.com wrote: IMO, there are two problems: 1) We're trying to train folks to manage IP for their community but they have to seek approval from folks are aren't as vested in their community. My analogy is telling a new city council member: Welcome to the city council. For the next year all of your decisions will require ratification by 3 state senators. 2) Release voting takes a long time. It would seem like tools should be able to reduce the time on several of the steps, except for this one from [1] compile it as provided, and test the resulting executable on their own platform. Sometimes I think about trying to get on the IPMC and helping some podling get a release out but: A) Really, I just want to help check the legal aspects of a podling's release and don't have bandwidth to want to take on the other roles implied by being on the IPMC. B) I don't want to take the time to figure out how to build and test a release that I have no vested interest in. Now, incubating releases are not official releases, right? So why have such time- consuming requirements to get approval from the IPMC? Let's assume that the podling folks tested the building and operation of the source package. Could we build an ant script that any IPMC member or any PMC member from any TLP (to expand the pool of potential helpers to folks who supposedly know how) can run just to check: 1) source package has the name incubating 2) source package is signed 3) unzip source package 4) grab a tag from SVN/Git 5) Diff 6) Run Rat (without any fileset exclusions) Then some podling writes to general@ and says: can we get legal approval to release? Please run the release checker ant script with the following inputs url to package url to SVN/Git tag Then it could run while I read through all of the other ASF emails and eventually I get a report that contains mainly a list of non-Apache files in the RAT report that I review and comment on if needed. To me, if you're reviewing a RAT report, you are a building inspector who has looked around inside. Can we make it that simple? For sure, if any podling member is qualified for IPMC before graduation they should be nominated and added, and I suppose we could also approve them to cast binding votes as a release checker which may be a lower bar and maybe less of a time commitment, but I think if it is possible to have a larger group of folks approve incubating releases mainly be reviewing RAT reports that might make it easier for a podling to get a release out the door and still assist in the training of the podling's future PMC members. [1] http://www.apache.org/dev/release.html#approving-a-release My two cents (probably more), -Alex On 11/9/13 9:38 PM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 4:11 AM, Dave Brondsema d...@brondsema.net wrote: On 11/09/2013 02:23 AM, Jake Farrell wrote: If mentors are not performing their duties to vote on a given releases for a podling, then it is up to the IPMC as a whole to help that podling by doing the do diligence and casting a vote. We all asked to be apart of the IPMC or where honored by a nomination and accepted the role. It is up to us to show these podlings what the Apache was really means. These projects have all come to the ASF and we (the IPMC) have openly voted them into incubation, its up to us to help them succeed. While this is true in theory it's hard in practice to wrangle those votes together. That's not the only problem. While IPMC volunteers who perform freelance release reviews keep the Incubator from grinding to a halt, our reliance on them undermines the Incubator's effectiveness as an IP clearinghouse. I wish that we would redirect those volunteer energies elsewhere. IPMC members who vote +1 on an initial incubating release are
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
A summarized agreement with this thread: The bottom line, I think, is that _someone_ has to provide the supervision that the board delegates to a PMC. The virtue of the 'demolish the incubator' proposal is that it makes that point absolutely clear. If there were no incubator, the board would need to see three people whom it could trust to form the initial core of the project. The board has reiterated that it wants the IPMC to manage the bootstrap to a state: a PMC that the board can delegate to. What's the fastest path to that state? If you look at it this way, then you could look at Mentors in a slightly different light. They have two critical jobs at the outset: (a) detailed IP supervision until members of the podling community know what to do, and (b) get the members of the podling community up to speed as fast as possible. (c) then becomes: get those people onto the IPMC. That's the only tool the incubator has from the board, so the incubator should just use it. Once (c) is accomplished, the podling doesn't necessarily graduate. It is prudent to continue with some IPMC supervision for a bit, to look out for various bears. One could hope that this schema is a near-complete solution to vote problems. The _first_ release benefits from mentors who signed up to be there and vote, and subsequent releases have votes from inside the group. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On 11/10/13 5:46 AM, Benson Margulies bimargul...@gmail.com wrote: A summarized agreement with this thread: The bottom line, I think, is that _someone_ has to provide the supervision that the board delegates to a PMC. The virtue of the 'demolish the incubator' proposal is that it makes that point absolutely clear. If there were no incubator, the board would need to see three people whom it could trust to form the initial core of the project. The board has reiterated that it wants the IPMC to manage the bootstrap to a state: a PMC that the board can delegate to. What's the fastest path to that state? If you look at it this way, then you could look at Mentors in a slightly different light. They have two critical jobs at the outset: (a) detailed IP supervision until members of the podling community know what to do, and (b) get the members of the podling community up to speed as fast as possible. (c) then becomes: get those people onto the IPMC. That's the only tool the incubator has from the board, so the incubator should just use it. I guess the problem I have with that is, during my days in incubation, I would have been hesitant to accept membership in the IPMC. I still don't want to be a member of the IPMC. It comes with greater obligations. IOW, why do I need to be approved as a candidate for state office if I just want to be on my town council? Once (c) is accomplished, the podling doesn't necessarily graduate. It is prudent to continue with some IPMC supervision for a bit, to look out for various bears. One could hope that this schema is a near-complete solution to vote problems. The _first_ release benefits from mentors who signed up to be there and vote, and subsequent releases have votes from inside the group. I should have provided a more concise summary in my write-up. It is: 1) Establish the role of Release Auditor in the Incubator. 2) Incubating releases need 3 votes from Release Auditors 3) Any current or former TLP PMC member is automatically a Release Auditor 4) Podling members can be approved as a Release Auditor by vote of the IPMC. 5) Release Auditors check the process and legal aspects of a release and are not required to build and test the release package. 6) Can we build an Ant script that does the grunt work of preparing a report for release auditing? Thanks, -Alex - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Nov 10, 2013, at 1:04 AM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: How about simply changing the rules for Incubator releases so that they don't require at least three binding votes, but instead make it at least three votes only one of which must be binding. That would mean there would still be the element of oversight that a mentor vote gives but avoids all the problems with not having three mentors. I'm sure the board would grant the Incubator authority to implement that change. The board has charged us to vet the podlings and their releases. What process is used is up to us. I would prefer a variant of your proposal. The first release needs three mentor/IPMC votes. Subsequent releases only require one mentor/IPMC vote. Regards, Alan - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 5:46 AM, Benson Margulies bimargul...@gmail.com wrote: A summarized agreement with this thread: 8 snip 8 One could hope that this schema is a near-complete solution to vote problems. The _first_ release benefits from mentors who signed up to be there and vote, and subsequent releases have votes from inside the group. +1 to your summary, Benson. We're on the same page. Marvin Humphrey - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Unlikely to get at least Roy’s approval because release votes are expected to be a decision of the full committee, not any one member of it. On Nov 10, 2013, at 10:29 AM, Alan D. Cabrera l...@toolazydogs.com wrote: On Nov 10, 2013, at 1:04 AM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: How about simply changing the rules for Incubator releases so that they don't require at least three binding votes, but instead make it at least three votes only one of which must be binding. That would mean there would still be the element of oversight that a mentor vote gives but avoids all the problems with not having three mentors. I'm sure the board would grant the Incubator authority to implement that change. The board has charged us to vet the podlings and their releases. What process is used is up to us. I would prefer a variant of your proposal. The first release needs three mentor/IPMC votes. Subsequent releases only require one mentor/IPMC vote. Regards, Alan - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Hi, I'm proud to be part of that group. I would like to see it grow -- in my view, the Incubator has erred by not recruiting aggressively enough! +1 On every project that goes through incubation there should be several candidates that now understand the incubation process worked and the issues their project faced. There experiences and knowledge should be put to good use. Thanks, Justin - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 10:34 AM, Joseph Schaefer joe_schae...@yahoo.com wrote: Unlikely to get at least Roy’s approval because release votes are expected to be a decision of the full committee, not any one member of it. +1: Much as some people here as in favor of dismantlement, and others would like to see some structure in between IPMC membership and nothing, the legal structure requires a release to be voted by PMC members. To mangle Pogo: We have met the PMC, and, friends, it is us. It is the job of the more seasoned IPMC members to provide the backstop for the folks like Alex. On Nov 10, 2013, at 10:29 AM, Alan D. Cabrera l...@toolazydogs.com wrote: On Nov 10, 2013, at 1:04 AM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: How about simply changing the rules for Incubator releases so that they don't require at least three binding votes, but instead make it at least three votes only one of which must be binding. That would mean there would still be the element of oversight that a mentor vote gives but avoids all the problems with not having three mentors. I'm sure the board would grant the Incubator authority to implement that change. The board has charged us to vet the podlings and their releases. What process is used is up to us. I would prefer a variant of your proposal. The first release needs three mentor/IPMC votes. Subsequent releases only require one mentor/IPMC vote. Regards, Alan - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
No offense folks, but this isn’t exactly new information or has anyone offered an actual PATH to follow to get us out of this mess. Bringing more people into the IPMC can be accomplished by anyone willing to put some names out there for us to consider, but that hasn’t yielded anything so far to help us manage our workload. Talk is cheap in a doocracy, we need an action plan and leadership not more argumentation passing itself off as helpful suggestions. On Nov 10, 2013, at 1:25 PM, Benson Margulies bimargul...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 10:34 AM, Joseph Schaefer joe_schae...@yahoo.com wrote: Unlikely to get at least Roy’s approval because release votes are expected to be a decision of the full committee, not any one member of it. +1: Much as some people here as in favor of dismantlement, and others would like to see some structure in between IPMC membership and nothing, the legal structure requires a release to be voted by PMC members. To mangle Pogo: We have met the PMC, and, friends, it is us. It is the job of the more seasoned IPMC members to provide the backstop for the folks like Alex. On Nov 10, 2013, at 10:29 AM, Alan D. Cabrera l...@toolazydogs.com wrote: On Nov 10, 2013, at 1:04 AM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: How about simply changing the rules for Incubator releases so that they don't require at least three binding votes, but instead make it at least three votes only one of which must be binding. That would mean there would still be the element of oversight that a mentor vote gives but avoids all the problems with not having three mentors. I'm sure the board would grant the Incubator authority to implement that change. The board has charged us to vet the podlings and their releases. What process is used is up to us. I would prefer a variant of your proposal. The first release needs three mentor/IPMC votes. Subsequent releases only require one mentor/IPMC vote. Regards, Alan - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Hi Marvin Am 09.11.13 07:15, schrieb Marvin Humphrey: On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 2:54 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: On Fri, Nov 8, 2013, at 08:10 AM, Ross Gardler wrote: IMO the IPMC cannot delegate legal oversight to a sub-committee (for example) unless that sub-committee consisted of members of the IPMC. The reason for this is hat only members of the IPMC are recognized by the board and thus only IPMC members have binding votes. That is what the board has done to date. That is not the only possibility in terms of what the board *could* do, which is much more where my question was leading. The issue was brought before the Board earlier this week and they have explicitly bounced it back to us. Their rationale is that the problem lies within the scope of project governance that the Board has delegated to the Incubator PMC. The Board has plenty going on these days; I can understand that they don't want to get involved in debates over e.g. the nitty gritty details of pTLP design. So, it's our responsibility to design a solution using only the resources currently available to us. If we exercise a little creativity and flexibility, I don't think we will find ourselves unduly constrained. My issue is that granting PMC membership is too big a step for many podling members. Going from being newbie podling member, to a part of a team responsible for 50+ incubator projects is, with the freedom to mentor other podlings, is too big a step for most podling members, and will remain scary even if you attempt to restrict 'powers' through social convention. That sounds unreasonably pessimistic. Historically, when contributors from active podlings have been nominated, vetted and successfully voted onto the IPMC, things have worked out very well: Brian Duxbury (Thrift) Richard Hirsch (ESME) Marvin Humphrey (Lucy) Karl Wright (ManifoldCF) Dave Fisher (OpenOffice) Andrei Savu (Provisionr) I'm proud to be part of that group. I would like to see it grow -- in my view, the Incubator has erred by not recruiting aggressively enough! Probabily yes, but a step between IPMC and nothing would lower the barrier. Well, I'm shepherd now, reading the lists etc. But I beleve the incubator miss samething to show the ability to be a mentor. Maybe something like a Assistent mentor. The assistent Mentor can be assinged to a podling but have for exemple not the right to subscribe the private lists. That would probabily also encourage more. Greetings Raphael - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On 11/09/2013 03:38 AM, Raphael Bircher wrote: Hi Marvin Am 09.11.13 07:15, schrieb Marvin Humphrey: On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 2:54 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: On Fri, Nov 8, 2013, at 08:10 AM, Ross Gardler wrote: IMO the IPMC cannot delegate legal oversight to a sub-committee (for example) unless that sub-committee consisted of members of the IPMC. The reason for this is hat only members of the IPMC are recognized by the board and thus only IPMC members have binding votes. That is what the board has done to date. That is not the only possibility in terms of what the board *could* do, which is much more where my question was leading. The issue was brought before the Board earlier this week and they have explicitly bounced it back to us. Their rationale is that the problem lies within the scope of project governance that the Board has delegated to the Incubator PMC. The Board has plenty going on these days; I can understand that they don't want to get involved in debates over e.g. the nitty gritty details of pTLP design. So, it's our responsibility to design a solution using only the resources currently available to us. If we exercise a little creativity and flexibility, I don't think we will find ourselves unduly constrained. My issue is that granting PMC membership is too big a step for many podling members. Going from being newbie podling member, to a part of a team responsible for 50+ incubator projects is, with the freedom to mentor other podlings, is too big a step for most podling members, and will remain scary even if you attempt to restrict 'powers' through social convention. That sounds unreasonably pessimistic. Historically, when contributors from active podlings have been nominated, vetted and successfully voted onto the IPMC, things have worked out very well: Brian Duxbury (Thrift) Richard Hirsch (ESME) Marvin Humphrey (Lucy) Karl Wright (ManifoldCF) Dave Fisher (OpenOffice) Andrei Savu (Provisionr) I'm proud to be part of that group. I would like to see it grow -- in my view, the Incubator has erred by not recruiting aggressively enough! Probabily yes, but a step between IPMC and nothing would lower the barrier. Well, I'm shepherd now, reading the lists etc. But I beleve the incubator miss samething to show the ability to be a mentor. Maybe something like a Assistent mentor. The assistent Mentor can be assinged to a podling but have for exemple not the right to subscribe the private lists. That would probabily also encourage more. I think we're discussing moving podling contributors up towards the IPMC, not adding more mentors (the too many mentors problem is real, IMO). And podling contributors are already on the private list. -- Dave Brondsema : d...@brondsema.net http://www.brondsema.net : personal http://www.splike.com : programming signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On 11/09/2013 02:23 AM, Jake Farrell wrote: We have a process in place which graduates a given incubating project to TLP, why add a middle layer with a pTLP? There are enough steps in the process, pTLP is not needed in my opinion. I wholeheartedly agree. Adding more layers of projects or roles adds complexity. There's already a lot to figure out when you are a new podling. If mentors are not performing their duties to vote on a given releases for a podling, then it is up to the IPMC as a whole to help that podling by doing the do diligence and casting a vote. We all asked to be apart of the IPMC or where honored by a nomination and accepted the role. It is up to us to show these podlings what the Apache was really means. These projects have all come to the ASF and we (the IPMC) have openly voted them into incubation, its up to us to help them succeed. While this is true in theory it's hard in practice to wrangle those votes together. Merit stands above all else, and the contributors that you have pointed out are all exceptional individuals that have advanced their projects and continued to do so after graduation within the ASF. There are no short cuts here, merit is earned. I am 100% behind helping individuals that show exceptional merit within a podling and deserve to be apart of the IPMC and have a binding vote. Yes, lets do this. No new structures, minimal risks. The IPMC can fulfill their duty (when appropriate) by identifying people that merit IPMC membership, so less people will have to invest the significant effort of assessing all the many many details for new releases. (I believe I'm thinking objectively about this, but recognize I am perhaps in a biased position) -Jake On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 1:15 AM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.comwrote: On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 2:54 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: On Fri, Nov 8, 2013, at 08:10 AM, Ross Gardler wrote: IMO the IPMC cannot delegate legal oversight to a sub-committee (for example) unless that sub-committee consisted of members of the IPMC. The reason for this is hat only members of the IPMC are recognized by the board and thus only IPMC members have binding votes. That is what the board has done to date. That is not the only possibility in terms of what the board *could* do, which is much more where my question was leading. The issue was brought before the Board earlier this week and they have explicitly bounced it back to us. Their rationale is that the problem lies within the scope of project governance that the Board has delegated to the Incubator PMC. The Board has plenty going on these days; I can understand that they don't want to get involved in debates over e.g. the nitty gritty details of pTLP design. So, it's our responsibility to design a solution using only the resources currently available to us. If we exercise a little creativity and flexibility, I don't think we will find ourselves unduly constrained. My issue is that granting PMC membership is too big a step for many podling members. Going from being newbie podling member, to a part of a team responsible for 50+ incubator projects is, with the freedom to mentor other podlings, is too big a step for most podling members, and will remain scary even if you attempt to restrict 'powers' through social convention. That sounds unreasonably pessimistic. Historically, when contributors from active podlings have been nominated, vetted and successfully voted onto the IPMC, things have worked out very well: Brian Duxbury (Thrift) Richard Hirsch (ESME) Marvin Humphrey (Lucy) Karl Wright (ManifoldCF) Dave Fisher (OpenOffice) Andrei Savu (Provisionr) I'm proud to be part of that group. I would like to see it grow -- in my view, the Incubator has erred by not recruiting aggressively enough! Whereas, if it were possible to grant a lesser role, which allowed podling members to cast binding votes for their podling alone, we'd likely see a lot more podling members voted into that position (sure, they can only be voted in by Incubator PMC members). I'm afraid I find it very tedious us attempting to shoe-horn the incubator into a structure (a standard PMC) that just doesn't quite fit, rather than seeking a structure that will suit the both the incubator and the foundation, allowing merit to be recognised in individuals at a range of stages within a podlings lifecycle. I understand exactly where you're coming from: structural flaws in the Incubator require Board-level fixes. The feedback I've taken from the Board is that if we can persuade them that a structural change is truly in the best interest of the foundation, they will accomodate us. However, first we need to run some experiments and build our case. Incremental, reversible steps, as they say. Running a pilot pTLP wholly within the Incubator is actually more straightforward than running it as an
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
The reason we are reduced to guesswork and posturing about how to fix what ails us is because we haven’t a clue what the core problems with incubation are. All we have are a rash of symptoms: inadequate release voting oversight, inadequate podling community development, etc. It sure would’ve been nice to collect feedback from successful podlings who cause us little or no strife to see what actually distinguishes these problems other than perceived noise levels and our strong desire to quash drama wherever it appears. I’m afraid drama in small doses is a necessary part of how we do business at the ASF, because nobody has time to think long-term unless they are dealing with another newfound crisis to remedy. On Nov 9, 2013, at 3:38 AM, Raphael Bircher r.birc...@gmx.ch wrote: Hi Marvin Am 09.11.13 07:15, schrieb Marvin Humphrey: On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 2:54 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: On Fri, Nov 8, 2013, at 08:10 AM, Ross Gardler wrote: IMO the IPMC cannot delegate legal oversight to a sub-committee (for example) unless that sub-committee consisted of members of the IPMC. The reason for this is hat only members of the IPMC are recognized by the board and thus only IPMC members have binding votes. That is what the board has done to date. That is not the only possibility in terms of what the board *could* do, which is much more where my question was leading. The issue was brought before the Board earlier this week and they have explicitly bounced it back to us. Their rationale is that the problem lies within the scope of project governance that the Board has delegated to the Incubator PMC. The Board has plenty going on these days; I can understand that they don't want to get involved in debates over e.g. the nitty gritty details of pTLP design. So, it's our responsibility to design a solution using only the resources currently available to us. If we exercise a little creativity and flexibility, I don't think we will find ourselves unduly constrained. My issue is that granting PMC membership is too big a step for many podling members. Going from being newbie podling member, to a part of a team responsible for 50+ incubator projects is, with the freedom to mentor other podlings, is too big a step for most podling members, and will remain scary even if you attempt to restrict 'powers' through social convention. That sounds unreasonably pessimistic. Historically, when contributors from active podlings have been nominated, vetted and successfully voted onto the IPMC, things have worked out very well: Brian Duxbury (Thrift) Richard Hirsch (ESME) Marvin Humphrey (Lucy) Karl Wright (ManifoldCF) Dave Fisher (OpenOffice) Andrei Savu (Provisionr) I'm proud to be part of that group. I would like to see it grow -- in my view, the Incubator has erred by not recruiting aggressively enough! Probabily yes, but a step between IPMC and nothing would lower the barrier. Well, I'm shepherd now, reading the lists etc. But I beleve the incubator miss samething to show the ability to be a mentor. Maybe something like a Assistent mentor. The assistent Mentor can be assinged to a podling but have for exemple not the right to subscribe the private lists. That would probabily also encourage more. Greetings Raphael - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 4:11 AM, Dave Brondsema d...@brondsema.net wrote: On 11/09/2013 02:23 AM, Jake Farrell wrote: If mentors are not performing their duties to vote on a given releases for a podling, then it is up to the IPMC as a whole to help that podling by doing the do diligence and casting a vote. We all asked to be apart of the IPMC or where honored by a nomination and accepted the role. It is up to us to show these podlings what the Apache was really means. These projects have all come to the ASF and we (the IPMC) have openly voted them into incubation, its up to us to help them succeed. While this is true in theory it's hard in practice to wrangle those votes together. That's not the only problem. While IPMC volunteers who perform freelance release reviews keep the Incubator from grinding to a halt, our reliance on them undermines the Incubator's effectiveness as an IP clearinghouse. I wish that we would redirect those volunteer energies elsewhere. IPMC members who vote +1 on an initial incubating release are endorsing the the code import and IP clearance process[1], as well as any work done in-house since incubation started. Votes on subsequent incubating releases are less weighty because they chiefly endorse work done in-house since the last release. Non-Mentors who swoop in at the last minute to vote +1 on a codebase they've never looked at produced by a community they've never interacted with are not in a position to make such endorsements, particularly for the first incubating release. They are like building inspectors who never go inside. Merit stands above all else, and the contributors that you have pointed out are all exceptional individuals that have advanced their projects and continued to do so after graduation within the ASF. There are no short cuts here, merit is earned. I am 100% behind helping individuals that show exceptional merit within a podling and deserve to be apart of the IPMC and have a binding vote. Yes, lets do this. No new structures, minimal risks. True. It seems that a number of people find this approach attractive. Let's focus on the challenges: 1. Candidates have to be nominated. 2. The votes have to pass. Not all of them, but most of them. In order for the votes to pass, those IPMC members who have misgivings will have to lay them aside. But maybe this isn't such a big problem, because my sense is that there are a number of candidates out there that even the skeptics would feel pretty comfortable with. I can't believe we let Marmotta escape the Incubator without nominating any of its contributors! So how do we solve the problem of nominating people? Ideally, Mentors would proactively identify and propose candidates -- even when, as would have been the case throughout Marmotta's incubation, the podling has no immediate need for additional Mentors. And maybe that will happen more often if it's less contentious. Still, there will be podlings where the nominations won't happen -- and here, maybe the IPMC at large can play a role. * Diagnose Mentor attrition sooner, using report sign-off and shepherd review. (Or even better, mailing list archive scans.) * Ping podling Mentors on private@incubator asking why the release manager who handled that last release so well hasn't been nominated. * ... The IPMC can fulfill their duty (when appropriate) by identifying people that merit IPMC membership, so less people will have to invest the significant effort of assessing all the many many details for new releases. Right now, when a release candidate shows up on general@incubator without three +1 Mentor votes, here's what we do: 1. First, wait for an outsider to cast a freelance +1 IPMC vote. 2. Finally, explore the possibility of nominating a standout podling contributor for the IPMC -- but only when all else fails. How about we reverse that: look for a podling contributor whose vote deserves to be binding *first*, and only consider bringing in an outsider as a last resort? Marvin Humphrey [1] http://incubator.apache.org/guides/mentor.html#initial-ip-clearance - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On 7 November 2013 22:22, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: Concretely, there are several possible implementations. There's this pTLP variant: 1. Start with a Board resolution establishing a pTLP PMC seeded with IPMC members. 2. Vote podling contributors onto the PMC as they demonstrate merit. 3. When there are enough PMC members, consider graduation. +1 this is essentially what I proposed for the pTLP experiment with Stratos. I wrote the proposal up in outline on the Stratos dev list a few days after the podling got started. Unfortunately the mentors who signed up to oversee that experiment never found the time to do so. I still think this is an approach worth exploring more fully and will be happy to sig out that email for you if it would help. A more incremental approach, suggested upthread, is to start voting select podling contributors onto the IPMC more aggressively. However, there are a few drawbacks: * With rare exceptions, podling contributors have generally been voted onto the IPMC to replace missing Mentors. Rewarding excellence proactively is a completely different mentality. For example, under this model it would have been *wrong* that CloudStack made it through to graduation without landing at least two of its stellar contributors on the IPMC. * Enlarging the IPMC makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I'm leery that increasing the pace too much may provoke controversy and too many cooks squabbling. The too many cooks problem has solutions too. This approach is just fine as long as the IPMC membership as a whole doesn't regularly interject in projects they are not fully up to speed with. There are proposed solutions to this issue in the wiki. Pick one and try it out. * The private@incubator list would get a lot noisier. Why? There should be nothing on private other than voting in new members and the occasional sensitive issue. Votes are easily managed in mail clients (or switch to using Steve) and having more IPMC members shouldn't increase the number of sensitive issues. Then there's the suggestion of electing Podling Chairs, possibly augmented with Co-Chairs. Granting extra privileges to a solo leader seems somewhat less Apache-like than rewarding merit on an individual basis. However, in practice having a podling Chair would solve *other* problems in addition to mitigating the problem of vote scarcity, and it would probably be the least controversial option to implement. Would Podling Chairs join the IPMC, presumably voted in by the podling's Mentors? If not, how would we grant them a binding vote? This would create one vote per project, so probably doesn't solve the issue. I'm not sure this adds much over the idea of making some podling members IPMC members. Personally I wouldn't waste my time on this, but it is an incremental step towards the bigger idea. While I wouldn't bother with this if I were chair I do understand the least controversial argument and thus this might be a good step to take. Also, if a new person gets voted in as Podling Chair, are we OK with the podling's increasing IPMC representation? (I think that could have the desirable side effect of encouraging project founders to give up the Podling Chair position for the greater good of the podling.) See my too many cooks comment above. It does create slower growth so again a more incremental step. In summary I am +1 on you picking any of these and implementing them. All are reversible steps. Good luck. Ross Marvin Humphrey - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
As one of the mentors singled out I fully appreciate your very reasonable explanation of your motives. On top of that those mentors do have thick skins. No harm done, I'm sure. Ross Ross Gardler (@rgardler) Senior Technology Evangelist Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc. A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation On 7 November 2013 22:47, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:29 AM, Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com wrote: Certainly this is being addressed and fixed in the current 1.0.1 release thread... Indeed. So why is something 2 months old such a bee in your bonnet right now? I chose to highlight the Allura situation because it illustrates that IPMC release vote scarcity can strike your podling at any time regardless of how virtuous and healthy it is. If it can happen to Allura, a podling with fabulous contributors and outrageously qualified Mentors, it can happen to anyone. I could have instead cited other lengthy release votes: VXQuery (over a month now and still waiting), ODF Toolkit (20 days), Droids (probably the all-time record holder), Bloodhound (so frustrating that Brane coded up the voting monitor), ManifoldCF... but none of those podlings boasted Allura's all-star Mentor lineup. The point was to pick a podling with Mentors whose dedication to the ASF was unassailable (AWOL Mentors don't attend Board meetings!) because then nobody could blame the delay on insufficient Mentor dedication. I don't think it's a bad thing that podling core developers are inherently more invested in their projects than Mentors -- it's just a fact of life that we ought to accommodate ourselves to. Vote scarcity is not the fault of any one Mentor, or any group of Mentors -- it's just a phenomenon which is *guaranteed* to happen some of the time because the Incubator is structurally flawed. Still, because my point was awkwardly crafted, I wound up singling out the Allura team in a negative context. I apologize for my clumsiness. Marvin Humphrey - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
IMO the IPMC cannot delegate legal oversight to a sub-committee (for example) unless that sub-committee consisted of members of the IPMC. The reason for this is hat only members of the IPMC are recognized by the board and thus only IPMC members have binding votes. That doesn't prevent social conventions that say IPMC members only vote in podlings that recognize them as members of their project community. Furthermore, the IPMC could define a task force or whatever you want to call it, which is responsible for the health of the IPMC as a whole, including assisting podling with absent mentors and insufficient IPMC representation. My point is that once we think in terms of social conventions pretty much anything is possible. Ross Ross Gardler (@rgardler) Senior Technology Evangelist Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc. A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation On 7 November 2013 23:04, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: I have one (hopefully) simple question for those more familiar with the ASF\s bylaws/etc. As I understand it, the board has delegated responsibility for the incubator, and thus incubator podlings, to the Incubator PMC and its members. Thus, it is only members of the Incubator PMC that have the ability to vote. This much is straight-forward. So, the question is, what options does the Incubator PMC have in terms of further delegating responsibility? Can the Incubator PMC delegate (some) responsibility to people who are not themselves incubator PMC members? To do so, does the Incubator PMC need to inform the board of the change of composition of 'sub-committees'? My thought is that if we can clarify what is legally possible, we will be better placed to find the appropriate model for the incubator that fits within those legal/bylaw bounds. Upayavira On Fri, Nov 8, 2013, at 06:47 AM, Marvin Humphrey wrote: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:29 AM, Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com wrote: Certainly this is being addressed and fixed in the current 1.0.1 release thread... Indeed. So why is something 2 months old such a bee in your bonnet right now? I chose to highlight the Allura situation because it illustrates that IPMC release vote scarcity can strike your podling at any time regardless of how virtuous and healthy it is. If it can happen to Allura, a podling with fabulous contributors and outrageously qualified Mentors, it can happen to anyone. I could have instead cited other lengthy release votes: VXQuery (over a month now and still waiting), ODF Toolkit (20 days), Droids (probably the all-time record holder), Bloodhound (so frustrating that Brane coded up the voting monitor), ManifoldCF... but none of those podlings boasted Allura's all-star Mentor lineup. The point was to pick a podling with Mentors whose dedication to the ASF was unassailable (AWOL Mentors don't attend Board meetings!) because then nobody could blame the delay on insufficient Mentor dedication. I don't think it's a bad thing that podling core developers are inherently more invested in their projects than Mentors -- it's just a fact of life that we ought to accommodate ourselves to. Vote scarcity is not the fault of any one Mentor, or any group of Mentors -- it's just a phenomenon which is *guaranteed* to happen some of the time because the Incubator is structurally flawed. Still, because my point was awkwardly crafted, I wound up singling out the Allura team in a negative context. I apologize for my clumsiness. Marvin Humphrey - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Sent from my iPhone On Nov 7, 2013, at 4:36 PM, Ross Gardler rgard...@opendirective.com wrote: On 7 November 2013 11:20, Ted Dunning ted.dunn...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:13 AM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: The Incubator has a fundamental structural flaw: it lacks a mechanism to reward merit earned by individual podling contributors. Instead, we teach people to hate the Incubator by placing their projects at the mercy of Mentors. Our Mentors care, but they don't care enough. They don't care like core developers care. Nominate these meritorious contributors as IPMC members. +1 This is exactly what I have been proposing the incubator do for a very long time. In fact I set the precedent by having two podling committers voted onto the IPMC as an experiment. That experiment proved very successful (both helped with other podlings and both are now Members of the foundation). Yes it very much worked for me. I'll note that the two releases for OpenOffice had the same three +1 voters - a Mentor named Jim, an IPMC member Marvin, and me - one of the experimental PPMC to IPMC members. I was already a PMC member. From my experience different mentors and different podlings have different levels of understanding of licensing issues. That is not surprising. INAL so I take the advice of Legal Affairs seriously. I think that the recent flames there have a negative effect here. Clarity on concrete cases should come before abstract discussions. Yet others take the air out of the room. Lets think about that before we deconstruct the Incubator again. Regards, Dave That successful experiment should become part of the incubation process. Ross PS and yes I do see the need for me, as a mentor, of Alura to make this happen. I did discuss the projects strategy with project members a week ago. Not found the time to follow up yet but I would suggest highlighting individuals in a negative rather than positive light is not the way to encourage volunteers to find time - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Fri, Nov 8, 2013, at 08:10 AM, Ross Gardler wrote: IMO the IPMC cannot delegate legal oversight to a sub-committee (for example) unless that sub-committee consisted of members of the IPMC. The reason for this is hat only members of the IPMC are recognized by the board and thus only IPMC members have binding votes. That is what the board has done to date. That is not the only possibility in terms of what the board *could* do, which is much more where my question was leading. That doesn't prevent social conventions that say IPMC members only vote in podlings that recognize them as members of their project community. Furthermore, the IPMC could define a task force or whatever you want to call it, which is responsible for the health of the IPMC as a whole, including assisting podling with absent mentors and insufficient IPMC representation. My point is that once we think in terms of social conventions pretty much anything is possible. My issue is that granting PMC membership is too big a step for many podling members. Going from being newbie podling member, to a part of a team responsible for 50+ incubator projects is, with the freedom to mentor other podlings, is too big a step for most podling members, and will remain scary even if you attempt to restrict 'powers' through social convention. Whereas, if it were possible to grant a lesser role, which allowed podling members to cast binding votes for their podling alone, we'd likely see a lot more podling members voted into that position (sure, they can only be voted in by Incubator PMC members). I'm afraid I find it very tedious us attempting to shoe-horn the incubator into a structure (a standard PMC) that just doesn't quite fit, rather than seeking a structure that will suit the both the incubator and the foundation, allowing merit to be recognised in individuals at a range of stages within a podlings lifecycle. Upayavira - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Nov 8, 2013, at 1:47 AM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: Still, because my point was awkwardly crafted, I wound up singling out the Allura team in a negative context. I apologize for my clumsiness. And my apologies for ramping up the drama... This email came at a time when there was non-ending drama on board@ and, quite frankly, I was burned out by then :) 1st beer is on me. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 1:22 AM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:40 AM, Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com wrote: As soon as you step off your soapbox, be sure to provide some suggestions... When an individual makes major contributions to the incubation of a podling -- particularly in the areas of legal and community development -- they should be rewarded with a binding vote. Meritocracy should apply to podlings as it does to TLPs. By expressly dangling the incentive of a binding vote in front of podling core contributors, we will motivate more of them to learn The Apache Way more thoroughly and to become outstanding IP stewards. The presence of these individuals will then compensate for the natural phenomenon of Mentor attrition, and the problem of IPMC release vote scarcity will diminish. I wholeheartedly agree with the above sentiment - though I'd word it a bit differently - merit applies to individuals; if the individuals happen to be contributors to a podling, and have earned trust and demonstrated the merit, they should wholeheartedly be welcomed to the IPMC. I actually think this could be good for both the IPMC as well as the culture at the ASF. On the one hand it ensures that new, fresh blood is circulating, hopefully on a regular basis, inside the IPMC. Those folks will also be able to easily empathize with a new podling's travails. It also gets folks involved elsewhere at the ASF, exposing them to new folks, additional places they can get involved, etc. --David - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
No offense Ross but give me a break. While I’m glad to see my initial ideas gain so much traction in the incubator now that people no longer remember where they come from, and even are willing to falsely claim credit for them, but this whole idea of populating the IPMC with ordinary podling participants has been going on for years now under the experiment I started. The typical negative argument against this came from Bill Wrowe who felt that these people were unqualified to be able to cast binding decisions during things like podling graduations, but I have seen no indication that such folks overstep their welcome in real life. In any case the concept has my +1, the harder part is to find a process that will ensure appropriate people actually do get recognized. On Nov 7, 2013, at 4:36 PM, Ross Gardler rgard...@opendirective.com wrote: On 7 November 2013 11:20, Ted Dunning ted.dunn...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:13 AM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: The Incubator has a fundamental structural flaw: it lacks a mechanism to reward merit earned by individual podling contributors. Instead, we teach people to hate the Incubator by placing their projects at the mercy of Mentors. Our Mentors care, but they don't care enough. They don't care like core developers care. Nominate these meritorious contributors as IPMC members. +1 This is exactly what I have been proposing the incubator do for a very long time. In fact I set the precedent by having two podling committers voted onto the IPMC as an experiment. That experiment proved very successful (both helped with other podlings and both are now Members of the foundation). That successful experiment should become part of the incubation process. Ross PS and yes I do see the need for me, as a mentor, of Alura to make this happen. I did discuss the projects strategy with project members a week ago. Not found the time to follow up yet but I would suggest highlighting individuals in a negative rather than positive light is not the way to encourage volunteers to find time - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Yeah, sorry Joe. There have been many of us who tried to do this over the years. You are correct that you also championed a number of people as did some others possibly before and certainly after the ones I championed. My apologies, I didn't intend to take credit, only indicate that the IPMC as a whole has voted to do this on occasion and the world didn't implode. Would it cause problems if it were a more common activity? I don't think so, not if we took other measures to manage the too many cooks problem. Again, sorry for using wording that implied I own the entirety of the vision here. That was not my intention. These ideas have developed through the collaboration of the IPMC as a whole over the years. Ross Gardler (@rgardler) Senior Technology Evangelist Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc. A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation On 8 November 2013 07:57, Joseph Schaefer joe_schae...@yahoo.com wrote: No offense Ross but give me a break. While I’m glad to see my initial ideas gain so much traction in the incubator now that people no longer remember where they come from, and even are willing to falsely claim credit for them, but this whole idea of populating the IPMC with ordinary podling participants has been going on for years now under the experiment I started. The typical negative argument against this came from Bill Wrowe who felt that these people were unqualified to be able to cast binding decisions during things like podling graduations, but I have seen no indication that such folks overstep their welcome in real life. In any case the concept has my +1, the harder part is to find a process that will ensure appropriate people actually do get recognized. On Nov 7, 2013, at 4:36 PM, Ross Gardler rgard...@opendirective.com wrote: On 7 November 2013 11:20, Ted Dunning ted.dunn...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:13 AM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: The Incubator has a fundamental structural flaw: it lacks a mechanism to reward merit earned by individual podling contributors. Instead, we teach people to hate the Incubator by placing their projects at the mercy of Mentors. Our Mentors care, but they don't care enough. They don't care like core developers care. Nominate these meritorious contributors as IPMC members. +1 This is exactly what I have been proposing the incubator do for a very long time. In fact I set the precedent by having two podling committers voted onto the IPMC as an experiment. That experiment proved very successful (both helped with other podlings and both are now Members of the foundation). That successful experiment should become part of the incubation process. Ross PS and yes I do see the need for me, as a mentor, of Alura to make this happen. I did discuss the projects strategy with project members a week ago. Not found the time to follow up yet but I would suggest highlighting individuals in a negative rather than positive light is not the way to encourage volunteers to find time - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:59 PM, Ross Gardler rgard...@opendirective.com wrote: On 7 November 2013 22:22, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: 1. Start with a Board resolution establishing a pTLP PMC seeded with IPMC members. 2. Vote podling contributors onto the PMC as they demonstrate merit. 3. When there are enough PMC members, consider graduation. +1 this is essentially what I proposed for the pTLP experiment with Stratos. I wrote the proposal up in outline on the Stratos dev list a few days after the podling got started. Unfortunately the mentors who signed up to oversee that experiment never found the time to do so. I still think this is an approach worth exploring more fully and will be happy to sig out that email for you if it would help. Here a link to your writeup: http://s.apache.org/6Ph Since we now know that the Board prefers we run any pTLP experiments in the context of the Incubator, that settles some of the unresolved issues you identified -- at least for the time being. In summary I am +1 on you picking any of these and implementing them. All are reversible steps. Good luck. OK, I've thought things over. Here's what I'd like to do: First, I'd like to volunteer as a Mentor for VXQuery. It seems that the community is receptive to the the idea of of trying out a pTLP model, though my offer is not conditional upon that. I'll review their release candidate tomorrow. VXQuery is not a new podling, but I think it's a good candidate for a pilot pTLP (under the aegis of the Incubator). There are some community development conversations which I think it would be fruitful to have, and I believe that the process of assembling a pTLP PMC would provide an excellent framework for those conversations. Should that experiment run as expected, we will break the ice with pTLPs and get some data. And since VXQuery is has completed many incubation tasks already, things may happen quickly. Second, I intend to start nominating more outstanding podling contributors for IPMC membership, for reasons best articulated by David Nalley. I hope that other IPMC members will do the same. Lastly, with regards to Podling Chairs, I'd like us to continue that conversation, either now or later. It occurs to me that pTLPs should probably have Chairs -- so perhaps we will find that the proposals complement each other. Marvin Humphrey - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 2:54 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: On Fri, Nov 8, 2013, at 08:10 AM, Ross Gardler wrote: IMO the IPMC cannot delegate legal oversight to a sub-committee (for example) unless that sub-committee consisted of members of the IPMC. The reason for this is hat only members of the IPMC are recognized by the board and thus only IPMC members have binding votes. That is what the board has done to date. That is not the only possibility in terms of what the board *could* do, which is much more where my question was leading. The issue was brought before the Board earlier this week and they have explicitly bounced it back to us. Their rationale is that the problem lies within the scope of project governance that the Board has delegated to the Incubator PMC. The Board has plenty going on these days; I can understand that they don't want to get involved in debates over e.g. the nitty gritty details of pTLP design. So, it's our responsibility to design a solution using only the resources currently available to us. If we exercise a little creativity and flexibility, I don't think we will find ourselves unduly constrained. My issue is that granting PMC membership is too big a step for many podling members. Going from being newbie podling member, to a part of a team responsible for 50+ incubator projects is, with the freedom to mentor other podlings, is too big a step for most podling members, and will remain scary even if you attempt to restrict 'powers' through social convention. That sounds unreasonably pessimistic. Historically, when contributors from active podlings have been nominated, vetted and successfully voted onto the IPMC, things have worked out very well: Brian Duxbury (Thrift) Richard Hirsch (ESME) Marvin Humphrey (Lucy) Karl Wright (ManifoldCF) Dave Fisher (OpenOffice) Andrei Savu (Provisionr) I'm proud to be part of that group. I would like to see it grow -- in my view, the Incubator has erred by not recruiting aggressively enough! Whereas, if it were possible to grant a lesser role, which allowed podling members to cast binding votes for their podling alone, we'd likely see a lot more podling members voted into that position (sure, they can only be voted in by Incubator PMC members). I'm afraid I find it very tedious us attempting to shoe-horn the incubator into a structure (a standard PMC) that just doesn't quite fit, rather than seeking a structure that will suit the both the incubator and the foundation, allowing merit to be recognised in individuals at a range of stages within a podlings lifecycle. I understand exactly where you're coming from: structural flaws in the Incubator require Board-level fixes. The feedback I've taken from the Board is that if we can persuade them that a structural change is truly in the best interest of the foundation, they will accomodate us. However, first we need to run some experiments and build our case. Incremental, reversible steps, as they say. Running a pilot pTLP wholly within the Incubator is actually more straightforward than running it as an independent TLP. The chain of oversight is clear: a podling being run as a pTLP is the responsibility of the IPMC, not the Board. We also don't have to think about things like whether releases should go in the Incubator's release area, whether the pTLP is a podling (it is), or whether it is incubating (it is). Marvin Humphrey - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
We have a process in place which graduates a given incubating project to TLP, why add a middle layer with a pTLP? There are enough steps in the process, pTLP is not needed in my opinion. If mentors are not performing their duties to vote on a given releases for a podling, then it is up to the IPMC as a whole to help that podling by doing the do diligence and casting a vote. We all asked to be apart of the IPMC or where honored by a nomination and accepted the role. It is up to us to show these podlings what the Apache was really means. These projects have all come to the ASF and we (the IPMC) have openly voted them into incubation, its up to us to help them succeed. Merit stands above all else, and the contributors that you have pointed out are all exceptional individuals that have advanced their projects and continued to do so after graduation within the ASF. There are no short cuts here, merit is earned. I am 100% behind helping individuals that show exceptional merit within a podling and deserve to be apart of the IPMC and have a binding vote. -Jake On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 1:15 AM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.comwrote: On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 2:54 AM, Upayavira u...@odoko.co.uk wrote: On Fri, Nov 8, 2013, at 08:10 AM, Ross Gardler wrote: IMO the IPMC cannot delegate legal oversight to a sub-committee (for example) unless that sub-committee consisted of members of the IPMC. The reason for this is hat only members of the IPMC are recognized by the board and thus only IPMC members have binding votes. That is what the board has done to date. That is not the only possibility in terms of what the board *could* do, which is much more where my question was leading. The issue was brought before the Board earlier this week and they have explicitly bounced it back to us. Their rationale is that the problem lies within the scope of project governance that the Board has delegated to the Incubator PMC. The Board has plenty going on these days; I can understand that they don't want to get involved in debates over e.g. the nitty gritty details of pTLP design. So, it's our responsibility to design a solution using only the resources currently available to us. If we exercise a little creativity and flexibility, I don't think we will find ourselves unduly constrained. My issue is that granting PMC membership is too big a step for many podling members. Going from being newbie podling member, to a part of a team responsible for 50+ incubator projects is, with the freedom to mentor other podlings, is too big a step for most podling members, and will remain scary even if you attempt to restrict 'powers' through social convention. That sounds unreasonably pessimistic. Historically, when contributors from active podlings have been nominated, vetted and successfully voted onto the IPMC, things have worked out very well: Brian Duxbury (Thrift) Richard Hirsch (ESME) Marvin Humphrey (Lucy) Karl Wright (ManifoldCF) Dave Fisher (OpenOffice) Andrei Savu (Provisionr) I'm proud to be part of that group. I would like to see it grow -- in my view, the Incubator has erred by not recruiting aggressively enough! Whereas, if it were possible to grant a lesser role, which allowed podling members to cast binding votes for their podling alone, we'd likely see a lot more podling members voted into that position (sure, they can only be voted in by Incubator PMC members). I'm afraid I find it very tedious us attempting to shoe-horn the incubator into a structure (a standard PMC) that just doesn't quite fit, rather than seeking a structure that will suit the both the incubator and the foundation, allowing merit to be recognised in individuals at a range of stages within a podlings lifecycle. I understand exactly where you're coming from: structural flaws in the Incubator require Board-level fixes. The feedback I've taken from the Board is that if we can persuade them that a structural change is truly in the best interest of the foundation, they will accomodate us. However, first we need to run some experiments and build our case. Incremental, reversible steps, as they say. Running a pilot pTLP wholly within the Incubator is actually more straightforward than running it as an independent TLP. The chain of oversight is clear: a podling being run as a pTLP is the responsibility of the IPMC, not the Board. We also don't have to think about things like whether releases should go in the Incubator's release area, whether the pTLP is a podling (it is), or whether it is incubating (it is). Marvin Humphrey - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:13 AM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.comwrote: The Incubator has a fundamental structural flaw: it lacks a mechanism to reward merit earned by individual podling contributors. Instead, we teach people to hate the Incubator by placing their projects at the mercy of Mentors. Our Mentors care, but they don't care enough. They don't care like core developers care. Nominate these meritorious contributors as IPMC members.
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Certainly this is being addressed and fixed in the current 1.0.1 release thread... So why is something 2 months old such a bee in your bonnet right now? And no, it's not acceptable. And I will state that, imo, the reason is due to the mistake of having 1 mentor. Back when the Incubator 1st started, there was 1 mentor per podling and they knew they had responsibility. As the # of mentors increased, there is that all too common and human response to say OK, I'm busy, but that's OK some other mentor will take up the slack until no one takes up the slack. On Nov 7, 2013, at 2:13 PM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: Greetings, On August 28th, the Allura podling presented a release candidate to this list. Three weeks later, the VOTE was still open, and three of four Allura Mentors still had not been heard from. It so happens that the wayward Mentors all have illustrious reputations and exceptional records of contributing to the ASF. They include: * A current ASF Board member, past ASF President and ASF Board Chair. * A current ASF Board member and past ASF Board Chair. * The current ASF President. Should those individuals have skipped the monthly Board meeting to make time for Allura? Presumably not. And yet, how is it acceptable for a release vote -- which ought to take 72 hours -- to last for three weeks? Dave Brondsema and Cory Johns are two of Allura's core developers. With the help of the Incubator but largely through their own effort, they have become conversant with Apache intellectual property policy and release criteria. Their expertise exceeds that of most PMC members across all Apache TLPs. Furthermore, Dave and Cory are deeply invested in their project's future and intimately familiar with its code base. A vote by Dave or Cory to release Allura is ten times more meaningful than a vote by any Mentor, and a hundred times more meaningful than a vote by a freelance IPMC member who doesn't even read Allura's dev list -- let alone the commits list. But we don't count such votes. The Incubator has a fundamental structural flaw: it lacks a mechanism to reward merit earned by individual podling contributors. Instead, we teach people to hate the Incubator by placing their projects at the mercy of Mentors. Our Mentors care, but they don't care enough. They don't care like core developers care. The Incubator's system for approving releases is at odds with everything we believe at Apache about self-governance. It produces inferior releases, an inferior incubation experience, inferior students and an inferior ASF. We should change it. Marvin Humphrey - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Nov 7, 2013, at 2:13 PM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: The Incubator has a fundamental structural flaw: it lacks a mechanism to reward merit earned by individual podling contributors. Idea: Allow for podlings to nominate, and elect, Podling chairs which can cast Mentor-like votes. Instead, we teach people to hate the Incubator by placing their projects at the mercy of Mentors. Our Mentors care, but they don't care enough. They don't care like core developers care. How holier than thou. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Hey Guys, I agree with Ted below -- and also what I've seen you do Marvin as well -- let's nominate folks to the IPMC and get them binding VOTEs and get them rewarded as much as possible. Cheers, Chris -Original Message- From: Ted Dunning ted.dunn...@gmail.com Reply-To: general@incubator.apache.org general@incubator.apache.org Date: Thursday, November 7, 2013 12:20 PM To: general@incubator.apache.org general@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:13 AM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.comwrote: The Incubator has a fundamental structural flaw: it lacks a mechanism to reward merit earned by individual podling contributors. Instead, we teach people to hate the Incubator by placing their projects at the mercy of Mentors. Our Mentors care, but they don't care enough. They don't care like core developers care. Nominate these meritorious contributors as IPMC members. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
-Original Message- From: Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com Reply-To: general@incubator.apache.org general@incubator.apache.org Date: Thursday, November 7, 2013 12:31 PM To: general@incubator.apache.org general@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards On Nov 7, 2013, at 2:13 PM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: The Incubator has a fundamental structural flaw: it lacks a mechanism to reward merit earned by individual podling contributors. Idea: Allow for podlings to nominate, and elect, Podling chairs which can cast Mentor-like votes. +1 to me this is the Champion role, and ultimately gets us closer to my proposal that podlings are just (*)TLPs as well :) Eventually over time people will realize that it's a faux asterisk, IMO. Cheers, Chris - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Nov 7, 2013, at 2:13 PM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: The Incubator's system for approving releases is at odds with everything we believe at Apache about self-governance. It produces inferior releases, an inferior incubation experience, inferior students and an inferior ASF. We should change it. As soon as you step off your soapbox, be sure to provide some suggestions... And what *exactly* IS the role of the Incubator now? I suggest it's to oversee the Mentors, as well as do the initial OK for entry and the final approval for graduation (well, not approval but recommendation). Is the entire Incubator so busy that someone from the IPMC can't ping delinquent mentors directly, when they get off track, or too far backed up, ??? Would have sending an Email be s problematic? But, I guess, it wouldn't have been so dramatic. And yeah, I'm guilty about the voting stuff for the initial release. That's why I'm doing better following it now. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Nov 7, 2013, at 1:37 PM, Chris Mattmann mattm...@apache.org wrote: -Original Message- From: Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com Reply-To: general@incubator.apache.org general@incubator.apache.org Date: Thursday, November 7, 2013 12:31 PM To: general@incubator.apache.org general@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards On Nov 7, 2013, at 2:13 PM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: The Incubator has a fundamental structural flaw: it lacks a mechanism to reward merit earned by individual podling contributors. Idea: Allow for podlings to nominate, and elect, Podling chairs which can cast Mentor-like votes. +1 to me this is the Champion role No, I mean someone from the PPMC. For example, in the Allura case, the podling could nominate and elect Dave as podling chair and he would have Mentor powers. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Oooh, OK Jim, gotcha I didn't understand the first time. -Original Message- From: Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com Reply-To: general@incubator.apache.org general@incubator.apache.org Date: Thursday, November 7, 2013 12:49 PM To: general@incubator.apache.org general@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards On Nov 7, 2013, at 1:37 PM, Chris Mattmann mattm...@apache.org wrote: -Original Message- From: Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com Reply-To: general@incubator.apache.org general@incubator.apache.org Date: Thursday, November 7, 2013 12:31 PM To: general@incubator.apache.org general@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards On Nov 7, 2013, at 2:13 PM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: The Incubator has a fundamental structural flaw: it lacks a mechanism to reward merit earned by individual podling contributors. Idea: Allow for podlings to nominate, and elect, Podling chairs which can cast Mentor-like votes. +1 to me this is the Champion role No, I mean someone from the PPMC. For example, in the Allura case, the podling could nominate and elect Dave as podling chair and he would have Mentor powers. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 7:31 PM, Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com wrote: On Nov 7, 2013, at 2:13 PM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: The Incubator has a fundamental structural flaw: it lacks a mechanism to reward merit earned by individual podling contributors. Idea: Allow for podlings to nominate, and elect, Podling chairs which can cast Mentor-like votes. Ok, but how about we also allow there to be a Podling co-chair as well? That would make it possible for a podling with at least one active mentor to get the three binding votes needed to do a release. ...ant - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Nov 7, 2013, at 3:46 PM, ant elder ant.el...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 7:31 PM, Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com wrote: On Nov 7, 2013, at 2:13 PM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: The Incubator has a fundamental structural flaw: it lacks a mechanism to reward merit earned by individual podling contributors. Idea: Allow for podlings to nominate, and elect, Podling chairs which can cast Mentor-like votes. Ok, but how about we also allow there to be a Podling co-chair as well? That would make it possible for a podling with at least one active mentor to get the three binding votes needed to do a release. Or a rotating RM role...? - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On 7 November 2013 11:20, Ted Dunning ted.dunn...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:13 AM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: The Incubator has a fundamental structural flaw: it lacks a mechanism to reward merit earned by individual podling contributors. Instead, we teach people to hate the Incubator by placing their projects at the mercy of Mentors. Our Mentors care, but they don't care enough. They don't care like core developers care. Nominate these meritorious contributors as IPMC members. +1 This is exactly what I have been proposing the incubator do for a very long time. In fact I set the precedent by having two podling committers voted onto the IPMC as an experiment. That experiment proved very successful (both helped with other podlings and both are now Members of the foundation). That successful experiment should become part of the incubation process. Ross PS and yes I do see the need for me, as a mentor, of Alura to make this happen. I did discuss the projects strategy with project members a week ago. Not found the time to follow up yet but I would suggest highlighting individuals in a negative rather than positive light is not the way to encourage volunteers to find time
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On 7 November 2013 11:31, Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com wrote: On Nov 7, 2013, at 2:13 PM, Marvin Humphrey mar...@rectangular.com wrote: The Incubator has a fundamental structural flaw: it lacks a mechanism to reward merit earned by individual podling contributors. Idea: Allow for podlings to nominate, and elect, Podling chairs which can cast Mentor-like votes. This is also an idea I floated some time ago, a few times in fact in slightly different forms trying to get traction. It's been discussed on this list a number of times and is documented at http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/IncubatorIssues2013 (e.g. 01.8 and As well as being +1 on voting Podling committers to the IPMC I am +1 on other methods of recognizing podling members. See the pTLP proposal I originally floated and hoped would be explored in the Stratos project. I'm sure there are other approaches that might work. I don't think there need be another debate about this, there just needs to be action on one or more of these activities. When an experiment proves successful then it should become part of what the IPMC does. Ross
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:40 AM, Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com wrote: As soon as you step off your soapbox, be sure to provide some suggestions... When an individual makes major contributions to the incubation of a podling -- particularly in the areas of legal and community development -- they should be rewarded with a binding vote. Meritocracy should apply to podlings as it does to TLPs. By expressly dangling the incentive of a binding vote in front of podling core contributors, we will motivate more of them to learn The Apache Way more thoroughly and to become outstanding IP stewards. The presence of these individuals will then compensate for the natural phenomenon of Mentor attrition, and the problem of IPMC release vote scarcity will diminish. Concretely, there are several possible implementations. There's this pTLP variant: 1. Start with a Board resolution establishing a pTLP PMC seeded with IPMC members. 2. Vote podling contributors onto the PMC as they demonstrate merit. 3. When there are enough PMC members, consider graduation. A more incremental approach, suggested upthread, is to start voting select podling contributors onto the IPMC more aggressively. However, there are a few drawbacks: * With rare exceptions, podling contributors have generally been voted onto the IPMC to replace missing Mentors. Rewarding excellence proactively is a completely different mentality. For example, under this model it would have been *wrong* that CloudStack made it through to graduation without landing at least two of its stellar contributors on the IPMC. * Enlarging the IPMC makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I'm leery that increasing the pace too much may provoke controversy and too many cooks squabbling. * The private@incubator list would get a lot noisier. Then there's the suggestion of electing Podling Chairs, possibly augmented with Co-Chairs. Granting extra privileges to a solo leader seems somewhat less Apache-like than rewarding merit on an individual basis. However, in practice having a podling Chair would solve *other* problems in addition to mitigating the problem of vote scarcity, and it would probably be the least controversial option to implement. Would Podling Chairs join the IPMC, presumably voted in by the podling's Mentors? If not, how would we grant them a binding vote? Also, if a new person gets voted in as Podling Chair, are we OK with the podling's increasing IPMC representation? (I think that could have the desirable side effect of encouraging project founders to give up the Podling Chair position for the greater good of the podling.) Marvin Humphrey - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:29 AM, Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com wrote: Certainly this is being addressed and fixed in the current 1.0.1 release thread... Indeed. So why is something 2 months old such a bee in your bonnet right now? I chose to highlight the Allura situation because it illustrates that IPMC release vote scarcity can strike your podling at any time regardless of how virtuous and healthy it is. If it can happen to Allura, a podling with fabulous contributors and outrageously qualified Mentors, it can happen to anyone. I could have instead cited other lengthy release votes: VXQuery (over a month now and still waiting), ODF Toolkit (20 days), Droids (probably the all-time record holder), Bloodhound (so frustrating that Brane coded up the voting monitor), ManifoldCF... but none of those podlings boasted Allura's all-star Mentor lineup. The point was to pick a podling with Mentors whose dedication to the ASF was unassailable (AWOL Mentors don't attend Board meetings!) because then nobody could blame the delay on insufficient Mentor dedication. I don't think it's a bad thing that podling core developers are inherently more invested in their projects than Mentors -- it's just a fact of life that we ought to accommodate ourselves to. Vote scarcity is not the fault of any one Mentor, or any group of Mentors -- it's just a phenomenon which is *guaranteed* to happen some of the time because the Incubator is structurally flawed. Still, because my point was awkwardly crafted, I wound up singling out the Allura team in a negative context. I apologize for my clumsiness. Marvin Humphrey - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
I have one (hopefully) simple question for those more familiar with the ASF\s bylaws/etc. As I understand it, the board has delegated responsibility for the incubator, and thus incubator podlings, to the Incubator PMC and its members. Thus, it is only members of the Incubator PMC that have the ability to vote. This much is straight-forward. So, the question is, what options does the Incubator PMC have in terms of further delegating responsibility? Can the Incubator PMC delegate (some) responsibility to people who are not themselves incubator PMC members? To do so, does the Incubator PMC need to inform the board of the change of composition of 'sub-committees'? My thought is that if we can clarify what is legally possible, we will be better placed to find the appropriate model for the incubator that fits within those legal/bylaw bounds. Upayavira On Fri, Nov 8, 2013, at 06:47 AM, Marvin Humphrey wrote: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:29 AM, Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com wrote: Certainly this is being addressed and fixed in the current 1.0.1 release thread... Indeed. So why is something 2 months old such a bee in your bonnet right now? I chose to highlight the Allura situation because it illustrates that IPMC release vote scarcity can strike your podling at any time regardless of how virtuous and healthy it is. If it can happen to Allura, a podling with fabulous contributors and outrageously qualified Mentors, it can happen to anyone. I could have instead cited other lengthy release votes: VXQuery (over a month now and still waiting), ODF Toolkit (20 days), Droids (probably the all-time record holder), Bloodhound (so frustrating that Brane coded up the voting monitor), ManifoldCF... but none of those podlings boasted Allura's all-star Mentor lineup. The point was to pick a podling with Mentors whose dedication to the ASF was unassailable (AWOL Mentors don't attend Board meetings!) because then nobody could blame the delay on insufficient Mentor dedication. I don't think it's a bad thing that podling core developers are inherently more invested in their projects than Mentors -- it's just a fact of life that we ought to accommodate ourselves to. Vote scarcity is not the fault of any one Mentor, or any group of Mentors -- it's just a phenomenon which is *guaranteed* to happen some of the time because the Incubator is structurally flawed. Still, because my point was awkwardly crafted, I wound up singling out the Allura team in a negative context. I apologize for my clumsiness. Marvin Humphrey - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
Upayavira wrote: I have one (hopefully) simple question for those more familiar with the ASF\s bylaws/etc. As I understand it, the board has delegated responsibility for the incubator, and thus incubator podlings, to the Incubator PMC and its members. Thus, it is only members of the Incubator PMC that have the ability to vote. This much is straight-forward. So, the question is, what options does the Incubator PMC have in terms of further delegating responsibility? Can the Incubator PMC delegate (some) responsibility to people who are not themselves incubator PMC members? To do so, does the Incubator PMC need to inform the board of the change of composition of 'sub-committees'? My thought is that if we can clarify what is legally possible, we will be better placed to find the appropriate model for the incubator that fits within those legal/bylaw bounds. I was wondering the same. This seems to enable such: RESOLVED, that the initial Apache Incubator PMC be and hereby is tasked with the creation of a set of bylaws intended to encourage open development and increased participation in the Apache Incubator Project. http://incubator.apache.org/official/resolution.html -David Upayavira On Fri, Nov 8, 2013, at 06:47 AM, Marvin Humphrey wrote: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:29 AM, Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com wrote: Certainly this is being addressed and fixed in the current 1.0.1 release thread... Indeed. So why is something 2 months old such a bee in your bonnet right now? I chose to highlight the Allura situation because it illustrates that IPMC release vote scarcity can strike your podling at any time regardless of how virtuous and healthy it is. If it can happen to Allura, a podling with fabulous contributors and outrageously qualified Mentors, it can happen to anyone. I could have instead cited other lengthy release votes: VXQuery (over a month now and still waiting), ODF Toolkit (20 days), Droids (probably the all-time record holder), Bloodhound (so frustrating that Brane coded up the voting monitor), ManifoldCF... but none of those podlings boasted Allura's all-star Mentor lineup. The point was to pick a podling with Mentors whose dedication to the ASF was unassailable (AWOL Mentors don't attend Board meetings!) because then nobody could blame the delay on insufficient Mentor dedication. I don't think it's a bad thing that podling core developers are inherently more invested in their projects than Mentors -- it's just a fact of life that we ought to accommodate ourselves to. Vote scarcity is not the fault of any one Mentor, or any group of Mentors -- it's just a phenomenon which is *guaranteed* to happen some of the time because the Incubator is structurally flawed. Still, because my point was awkwardly crafted, I wound up singling out the Allura team in a negative context. I apologize for my clumsiness. Marvin Humphrey - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Cultivating Outstanding IP Stewards
David Crossley wrote: Upayavira wrote: I have one (hopefully) simple question for those more familiar with the ASF\s bylaws/etc. As I understand it, the board has delegated responsibility for the incubator, and thus incubator podlings, to the Incubator PMC and its members. Thus, it is only members of the Incubator PMC that have the ability to vote. This much is straight-forward. So, the question is, what options does the Incubator PMC have in terms of further delegating responsibility? Can the Incubator PMC delegate (some) responsibility to people who are not themselves incubator PMC members? To do so, does the Incubator PMC need to inform the board of the change of composition of 'sub-committees'? My thought is that if we can clarify what is legally possible, we will be better placed to find the appropriate model for the incubator that fits within those legal/bylaw bounds. I was wondering the same. This seems to enable such: RESOLVED, that the initial Apache Incubator PMC be and hereby is tasked with the creation of a set of bylaws intended to encourage open development and increased participation in the Apache Incubator Project. http://incubator.apache.org/official/resolution.html Oooh, i overlooked the word initial. -David - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
