On 7/21/06, Dan Diephouse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Sanjiva Weerawarana wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-07-19 at 21:28 -0400, Dan Diephouse wrote:
<snip>
While I value your feedback and input, if you don't have enough time, I
>> don't understand why you should be a mentor. We have 4 mentors already,
>> and from a logistical standpoint I find it hard to keep up with. Each
>> mentor tends to have a different opinion or different input. While
more
>> input can be great, it can easily get to the point of overload and
>> impedes Getting Stuff Done. :-)
>
> The Getting Stuff Done part in the project is restricted to the
> technical part - mentoring is not about getting stuff done. I know a
> thing or two about the technical area Dan and I darned well will have
> input on it. Do you see that as a problem too?
>
As I said in the previous message, I value your input. My comment about
the mentors and lots of opinions was more in reference to non technical
things, like the art of writing an Apache Incubator proposal.
i think that's a misunderstanding about the roles and process (which is
understandable since the documentation isn't great).
during the entry process, the Champion (not the Mentors who are not even
formally appointed at this stage), the proposers and the incubator PMC are
the main protagonists. proposers have to understand that there are several
reasons why a variety of opinions are going to be presented and why there's
going to be a lot of discussion.
there is no hiding that the democratic nature of the process means lots of
talk and not much action. opinions are informed by debate.
there's no hiding that there are significant differences of opinion amongst
the membership concerning incubation. so more more discussion of each
particular case is required than if consensus had been achieved.
there's no hiding that the state of the documentation is poor. so currently
on-list explanation is necessary.
only once a proposal has been formally accepted for incubation by the PMC do
people start to being work with their Mentor hats on. sources of friction
during incubation are typically stuff like lack of quorum (too few binding
votes) and waiting for answers to questions about Apache. so more Mentors
should mean less overhead, not more.
in terms of oversight, the PMC would be happier with more mentors and
Mentors too. it's a lot of hassle all round if lots of PMCers have to jump
in and start throwing their weight around in a podling. more mentors and
Mentors should mean that the PMC can stay at arms length which means a lot
less overhead.
- robert
