On 7/19/06, Noel J. Bergman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Robert Burrell Donkin wrote: > i've run into a problem. [Roles_and_Responsibilities.html] is not > consistent with [Incubation_Policy.html] > roles states champions can be officers or members whereas policy > implies only members. From my perspective, these are all vestiges of early Incubator policy discussions with an overemphasis on P&P language and concern over whom could bring a project into the Incubator. What is a Champion? Let's see what the docs say: roles: A candidate project shall be sponsored by an Officer or Member of the Foundation the Champion has no formal responsibility within the Incubation process policy: A Member of the Apache Software Foundation who supports a Candidate's application for Incubation and who supports and assists the Podling through the Incubation process In other words, the Champion is someone who helps support a project's entry into the Incubator. But what is the reality? How does a project get accepted? A PMC votes to accept it. So is there really any need for a Champion to be either a Member or an Officer? If so, what? And who supports and assists the project through the Incubation Process? Mentors. All of which begs the question of whether we should simply discard the Champion role entirely.
it's common to have some sort of threashold for proposals to prevent electorial overload. the champion role provides a barrier for potential proposals: it prevents proposals being formally submitted without at least some support from ASFers. viewed in this way, we should have this sequence of events leading up to acceptance: 1 pre-proposal discussions 2 a champion agrees to support the proposal 3 formal proposal 4 discussions on formal proposal 5 acceptance vote which seems about right to me. Let's tie this into more of the project lifecycle. My view is that the
project startup would be: - acceptance - bootstrap the PPMC from the PMC (assigning Mentors) - election by the PPMC of project contributors to the PPMC - election by the PPMC of Committers We have the outstanding thread on Mentors still to complete, but if the current proposal is adopted to clarify matters, each PPMC would have at least one ASF Member plus any number of other interested Incubator PMC members (all equally known as Mentors and having binding votes by virtue of being PMC members), and such others as the PPMC elects (having non-binding votes). So let us continue to simplify, clean out anachronisms, and align our processes with ASF ideals. We're years into the Incubator now, and we have ways of both delegating and controlling the process without over-specifying in response to FUD. When it comes down to it, the Incubator PMC holds all of the binding votes.
i agree with the strategy but not necessarily the tactics. my tactic is to try to spend the next few weeks tidying up the policy document and removing the cruft. if you prefer to draft a replacement policy document, let me know. - robert
