Rodent of Unusual Size wrote:
Stephen McConnell wrote:
The incubator has a scope concerning "incubation". I hope the incubator aims to to provide the role of gatekeeper together with a support infrasture the accelerate the sucessful exit of incubated projects.
so far so good.
Within the objective and scope, opinions have been put forward concerning the process of incubation focussed rightly on the subject of incubation. However - the discussion concerning the publication of artifacts moves us out of the domain of incubation and into the domain of managing a incubated project. This is in my opinion a fault - it is a subject that is the concern of the incubated project - not the incubator.
i really don't understand why this is so difficult to understand. perhaps it's because you're coming from the jakarta subproject culture?
I don't think that's the reason.
I think the real reason is that I have a lot of scepticism about the successful functioning of the Incubator. I imaging future scenarios where candidates are keep waiting with little or no feedback while the Incubator PMC debates some highly important and engaging topic, ignoring operational responsibilities. I imagine a future where a project is left to its own devices because a Shepherd has wondered off into the mountains and the Sponsor is preoccupied with greater things. I also imagine a future where irrespective of the failure of the system - an individual subject to the overhead of incubation can reach out and make things happen simply by holding the PMC and Chair responsible relative to a set of policies and procedures.
The "holding the PMC responsible" is coming together - however, the distinction between Incubator responsibility, Sponsoring Entity responsibility, and Podling responsibility is blurred with respect to this notion of publication. It is blurred because there are valid reasons for each party to claim a sense of jurisdiction:
* the podling has the right to claim jurisdiction because it is the domain expert
* the Sponsoring Entity has the right to claim jurisdiction as they are the entity that has implicit responsibility
* the Incubator has a claim on jurisdiction only in that the podling is implementing Apache practices (e.g. infrastructure release guidelines could be an example)
However, there is already is implicit release simply via publication of code under CVS as a result of acceptance of a candidate into incubation. So how does one correlate these different claims to jurisdiction?
Here is a suggestion:
* the incubator establishes a specific incubation license template that includes relevant statements concerning incubation status
* every incubated project uses the incubator template
* an incubated project should be allowed to demonstrate its ability to form a quasi PMC and vote on a release/publication
* such a decision should be ratified by the Sponsoring Entity
* but the Incubator PMC should be able to veto a publication recommendation
This places the incubated project in a position where is has to act like a PMC - get it structure in place - and go though the motions of a release/publication cycles. The appropriate due-diligence is assured by the decisions of the Sponsoring Entity while maintaining an effective oversite is a role maintained by the Incubator PMC.
everything the podling does is most especially the concern of the incubator. until the podling graduates, it is *not* an independent part of the asf or even of another tlp. the incubator has the responsibility of getting the podling to the point at which is can be such -- but until that happens, it is in a grey area.
Agreed.
and until it's an approved asf entity, it can't release anything
with the asf stamp of 'this is 100% apache software' on it.
releases yes, afaic, of course -- but 'this is asf software' releases,
no.
Which is I think addressed in the division of responsibilities I have outlined above.
Strephen.
--
Stephen J. McConnell mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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