Conor MacNeill wrote:
Let me propose a few questions to see if there is consensus:
1. Should there be a common set of bylaws to govern all Apache projects. Individual projects could apply amendments, if necessary, to provide for their own requirements. For example, Incubator itself may have unique rules for project adoption decisions, etc.
I think so.
2. If there should be a common set of bylaws, where should it be maintained? Should it live in Incubator or somwhere else. If so, where do you think?I think it would be good to have it @ incubator. My reasoning is that when incubator sends a project on to live on its own, it would be nice to have some "boilerplate" to base any kind of charter on. Similarly, the new PMCs would like such a boilerplate but it doesn't really exist :D
As part of the Ant PMC establishment process, I have developed a draft set of bylaws. The Ant PMC is currently considering these. I think the Avalon PMC is also working on this (I think they are probably adopting a quite different approach).we're working on this stuff, slowly but steadily. We've had talks about the role of the PMC, basically building understanding about what the PMC should and should not do amongst ourselves (and in good dialogue with board peeps and asf veterans). We've just (finally!) got ourselves an agreement on how we want to handle PMC voting (the text is not online yet, but you can look at the avalon-dev archives; search for "PMC:VOTE", or just "PMC" in the subject for all the discussion that led to the text).
We've also gotten a draft charter in cvs at jakarta-avalon/src/proposal (it's been stale for a few weeks now....lots of things to do :D).
One thing I took away from conversation between Greg & Sam and avalon peeps (some of this on the avalon PMC list and thus not publicly archived I guess) is that it isn't really neccessary to be real formal about things like charter and bylaws; those things have mostly informational purpose. They serve as reference for agreements between the community members on how to "do their thing", as an indication to other peeps (like users, other asf projects and the board) about where the project is heading, etc etc.
IOW, there is no particular legal or ASF-steered organisational need for detailed bylaws. What really matters there are the actual *actions* undertaken by the ASF and its various organisational bodies and people, the board minutes, the official ASF bylaws, the ASF license, and any official activity by the ASF members (like electing the board I guess, but I dunno about all that as I'm not a member).
So the goal with a charter/bylaws/project guidelines is basically to define what your project is for, where it is heading (focussing can be real difficult ;), and how you want to do that within the apache spirit of consensus-oriented development. It is probably fruitless to define the "where" here, but we can certainly do the "how" once and then just incorporate by reference.
Avalon's been primarily working to get some consensus about which direction the community wants to take our project (y'all probably know avalon has gone in various directions over the years). The process is going rather well even without a reference charter in place. When we get our noses aligned again, I guess that's when the "where" will be written up, too.
I'd definately like to see it. I'll also try and get the attention of other avalon peeps so we can maybe get some creative juices flowing over here.Anyway, I can contribute my draft if there is consensus to do that here.
Regardless, I think it would be nice to have some talks about the whole "PMC thing" so many of us are new to. We can have those talks here or over @ community@apache I guess. I'll find some time to try and share some experiences so far.
cheers,
- Leo
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