All, Just to pose an outsider view, being new to the ASF and not to hijack the discussion on the CFX/CeltiXFire, I would like to share my views on the policy of the incubator.
From the documents I have read on the policy for entering, being
inside and graduating from the incubator there is a lot of talk on process, but not a lot of explanation on *why* the process is in place, nor on how things are done. The first 'gripe' is the uncertainty for existing open source projects that want to join the ASF that their current contributors will be allowed to work on the project at Apache. The documents clearly state that such karma needs to be earned based on merit. It never states that merit earned in the past for the project can and *WILL* be used. This can only be found in heated discussions on this list. You will find in such discussions a variety of views, but the most restrictive, and in my opinion negative for existing projects is the one that wants only the mentors being on the initial PPMC/committers list, and have the incubating community earn their merit on apache ground using patches, mailinglist activity and whatnot, without giving the originating developers the karma to commit directly in Apache incubator SVN for the project. This is very damaging for a project that is already active outside the ASF and will grind it to a halt. If the prevailing opinion is that previously gained merit outside the ASF is taken into account, the policy should note that explicitly. The second gripe is the fact that only the Incubator PMC members of the PPMC have binding votes. I think I understand the reasoning for this, but it is not clear how the PMC members will excercise their binding votes. Will they affect the average day-to-day affairs within a community where the mentors have no direct affiliation with? Or is this only a guiding vote, for things such as: - withholding a release when the podling is not considered ready - not granting karma (with good backing reasoning) - not taking in external code bases without the correct grant - etc. The policy should make it clear that the PPMC chairs with the binding votes, only have that executive power to vote on such things regarding process. The third gripe is that graduation has two components: a measurable component (active community, diverse, all legal matters resolved, no violating code, etc) and a non-measurable component (mature enough to be an 'apache' project). Given the sometimes extreme views expressed here (a nice read though :-), it is for an existing project really hard to trust such a process when you already have a healthy community which is basically put on hold whilst incubating, if you follow the incubator policy (and some egos) to the letter. Note that I understand the opposite views presented in the CFX case and I sympathize with all of them. I just wanted to express a view of someone coming from the outside, and looking at the process as it takes place. For existing projects it is a very hard decision to enter the incubator and the uncertain process until graduation. As the ASF you (we I should say) really have to put yourself into the shoes and clothes of the small community that is about to join a rollercoaster with unknown process, procedures, laws and above all, unwritten rules of conduct. It is quite something when a team has worked for 2 years two or three jobs worth of free time on a project and it 'hands it over to the incubator'. Scary poo indeed. Martijn -- <a href="http://www.thebeststuffintheworld.com/vote_for/wicket";>Vote</a> for <a href="http://www.thebeststuffintheworld.com/stuff/wicket";>Wicket</a> at the <a href="http://www.thebeststuffintheworld.com/";>Best Stuff in the World!</a> --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
