On 11/19/05, Martin Sebor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > robert burrell donkin wrote: > > On 11/17/05, Martin Sebor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >>Rodent of Unusual Size wrote: > >> > >>>APACHE INCUBATOR PROJECT STATUS: -*-indented-text-*- > >>>Last modified at [$Date: 2005-01-20 01:12:13 -0500 (Thu, 20 Jan > > > > 2005) $] > > > >>It has been pointed out a couple of times in the past (see the posts > >>below) that this status report is out of date. In an effort to prevent > >>this from causing confusion in the future I would like to propose that > >>the incubator status file not be posted here unless it is up to date > >>and unless it has changed since the last time it was posted. > > > > > > > > i wonder whether one of ken's reasons for automating this posting was to > > encourage folks to keep the status up-to-date. > > I suspect you are right. The problem is that it is not being kept up > to date and that people such as myself who are new to this community > and trying to learn have been confused by it. >
(as with many things) apache tends to evolve documentation (and policy) as opposed to spending a lot of time working out authoritative and definitive solutions before time. this approach means that there are times when you need to work out what the right question is and where to ask it and then create a patch improve the documentation. (which is what you're doing :) <snip> > if you've found some errors in the status page then these > > need to > > be fixed. if you don't have the required karma then i'd recommend > > submitting > > a patch in JIRA. > > I will be happy to put together a patch but being new here I'm afraid > I'm not sure that my proposed fix is correct. Let me post it here for > review before I put it in Jira. i don't think in quite those terms: i'd describe it as feeling the need to establish a consensus for this policy change. it often takes some experience of a particular community to gauge the level of consensus required. submitting a patch is a good way of passing this responsibility on to those with karma (and therefore knowledge of the community). if this is something that's usually managed by lazy consensus (commit, review the log and anyone who objects can veto the change and force a VOTE) then the change might just be committed. otherwise, the committer might decide that they need an active concensus and start either a VOTE or PROPOSAL thread. (if it seems to have slipped under the radar then posting followups is sometimes necessary.) i think what you're trying to do is what i'd describe it as trying to build a consensus for a change (which is a reasonable approach). building a concensus is useful when you now a change is neccessary but aren't too sure what the right approach is. it's important (when trying to build a concensus) to make sure that the right people are aware of this. the approach i'd take would be to flag this as an issue which pmc'ers need to pay particular attention to. prefixing the subject with [PROPOSAL] is a conventional way to do this. Comments are welcome! Index: /build/sebor/incubator/STATUS > =================================================================== > --- /build/sebor/incubator/STATUS (revision 345672) > +++ /build/sebor/incubator/STATUS (working copy) > @@ -43,11 +43,11 @@ > o Coming up with a set of bylaws for the project > ( > http://mail-archives.apache.org/eyebrowse/[EMAIL > PROTECTED]&by=thread&from=517190 > ) > > - o All projects under incubation must use a STATUS file (or a > - status.xml file if the project prefers XML) that contains > - information the PMC needs about the project. This file must > - live at the root of the project cvs module > - ( > http://mail-archives.apache.org/eyebrowse/[EMAIL > PROTECTED]&by=thread&from=504543 > ) > + o All projects under incubation must maintain a status Web page that > + contains information the PMC needs about the project. The page is > + generated from a .html or .cwiki source file which resides in the > + following Subversion subdirectory > + > http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/public/trunk/site-author/projects/ i'd be inclined to make a smaller change: probably all that's needed is that the podling has the option to use a html/cwiki page as a status file. subversion supports fancy linking so there isn't any substantial reason to change the location specified (but someone will need to go through and create links for the existing podlings). (but i'm not an incubator pmc'er so don't take this as authoritative) - robert
