Thanks, Jack, for taking the time to put this initiative together. I will borrow Julian Hyde’s example of the blind men and the elephant [1]:
“Do you know the story of the blind men and the elephant? Each man touches a different part of the elephant, so they assume they are touching a different animal.” While it may be beneficial for some projects to be approached or evolved differently by different people, I think Iceberg is on the other side of this spectrum. Its core value lies in standardization, pluggability, and extensibility, which require a very specific set of skills. This is where defining the criteria for voting on proposals, merging changes, and admitting new members becomes more challenging with projects like Iceberg. On one hand, as the project grows, we want to include more people who can help drive the project forward. On the other hand, we want to ensure these people are capable of doing so in the right direction. This means we might have two sets of expectations for both the community and the current PMC/committer group: * The community should appreciate the level of Iceberg's complexity and the fact that its learning curve (not just to use but to extend properly) can be steep. They should understand that the current PMC/committers are coming from a good place when vetting designs or PRs. Directly following the steps of other projects does not necessarily mean their rules are suitable for Iceberg, nor that those rules were beneficial for the original project in the first place. * Conversely, the current PMC and committers should be deeply invested in identifying the right individuals who can carry the project forward and contribute positively. This should be one of the main activities performed while reviewing code or designs, not an afterthought. The process might be slow due to the high standards, but it should progress steadily. This helps the PMCs/committers scale, and consequently, the project to grow. It also potentially addresses diversity gaps and single vendor concentration. [1] https://lists.apache.org/thread/yk41gvvjrwxloyy2jklq71j9ronwr2vg Thanks, Walaa.
