On 6/29/06, Martin Sebor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Justin Erenkrantz wrote: [...] > 5. Until the Incubator PMC approves a podling proposal *and* the > podling initial drop code is in our source code repositories, a > project or any affiliated persons SHOULD NOT issue any 'press > releases' or affirmatively seek positive publicity (such as 'seeding > news stories') . While I don't necessarily disagree with this guideline it doesn't seem that it belongs here. Until a project is accepted no formal relationship between the proposer and the ASF exists (right?), so this guideline cannot be enforced or even expected to be known to the proposing party.
there are no effective sanctions. the electorate are free apply their own personal criteria. i would expect anyone thinking of proposing a project to RTFM which is what we're trying to write. (It only seems to apply to the typically
narrow window between the acceptance of a project and the code drop.)
unfortunately too often these windows which are too long. press attention during this period just makes things more difficult for us. the right time to seek press is when the source has been dropped. prior to that the project doesn't really exist. press announcements have (sometimes) proved highly effective in creating interest but the easiest way to lose momentum is to have loads of enthusiatic people show up only to be told the project isn't ready yet.
6. The Apache PRC SHALL affirmatively and publicly respond to any such > inaccurate publicity surrounding podlings. I'm not quite comfortable with the word inaccurate here. What exactly does it refer to? (Assuming it's bullet 5, there doesn't seem anything inaccurate about putting out a press release announcing the proposal of a project, ill-advised though it may be.)
announcing that a proposal has been submitted is accurate (and fine by me) but it's not accurate to say that a codebase has moved to apache at this stage. these announcements have proved a sensitive issue for the community and so this distinction is important. the incubator has a open and democractic process. it's not good for voters to read in the press announcements of the result before the election has happened. This also seems like a catch 22. Until a proposal has been accepted
there is no podling to speak of, so the proposer can do whatever they want (including put out a press release announcing it).
And I don't see anything wrong with doing that (although I suspect
that most companies will want to avoid any press until their proposal has been accepted). I guess I'm missing the point of this bullet (the ASF PRC can respond to any PR in any case).
the document is just a means to an end. too many corporate PR teams really don't understand this space. they keep doing stupid things that annoy us and rebound badly on themselves. there are people here that understand the open source space. we need organisations considering a proposal who are likely to garner press interest to work with the public relations committee here. it'd be great if they could also avoid the known pitfalls without having to contact the apache public relations team. if this document doesn't work in it's current form, please post your proposed improvements so we can all take a look (that goes for everyone BTW :-) - robert
