Roy wrote:
> Noel J. Bergman wrote:
>> I wholeheartedly agree that Mentors have no right to make decisions
>> as if they owned the project. They are there to help and be part of
>> the community decision making process. However, Mentors have the only
>> binding votes. You have many times decried giving binding votes to
>> people who are not on a PMC.
> That's why we created the PPMC == the entire set of committers of the
> podling and the Mentors. They do have binding votes on everything
> *except* releases because we delegated that to them, right?
I have no problem if we agree to codify the former for the Incubator,
although I remain of the belief that Committer -> PMC Member progression is
normally a progression not concurrent. But since we're talking about a
PPMC, I'm fine with it.
Oh, and by the way, the PPMC == the Incubator PMC + the Committers, but
let's not split hairs on that point.
HOWEVER ... with respect to your latter comment, no, only PMC members have
binding votes. That's not an Incubator issue, that's an ASF issue. We
might act as if others' votes matter, but since they are not PMC Members,
they are not covered under the Bylaws, and therefore fall into that
unprotected area that you've often warned people about. I can even find the
e-mail you wrote on that subject, which launched a number of Jakarta and XML
projects into seeking TLP status.
So I'm being picky in my terms. Binding votes belong ONLY to PMC members,
and that's on the legal grounds, not community basis. You want to correct
me, go ahead. But that has implications far outside of the Incubator, so
let's make sure that we're talking about the same thing.
>>> Fools may call it bureaucratic and too much overhead for "open
>>> source", but it is that adherence to basic principles of cooperative
>>> self-governance that allows an Apache project to survive the passing
>>> of fools. We exchange the efficiencies of individual dictatorship
>>> for a less efficient process that requires more people to be involved
>>> (and thus buy into) whatever decisions need to be made. We cannot
>>> short-circuit that process while trying to instill it.
>> I entirely agree, which is why you should re-read the proposed
>> bootstrapping
>> process. It is entirely about what you just wrote, above. It is
>> entirely about a bootstrapping process so that the project can be
>> more self-governing.
> No, your proposed bootstrapping process is nothing more than a
> "bait-and-switch" process with fancy clothing.
It is most certainly not intended to be so.
> You are assuming that the mentors will do the right thing once they
> have the right to make arbitrary decisions on behalf of the podling.
Considering that you argue that Mentors should be ASF Members, are you now
going to argue that they would do the wrong thing? And IF THEY DO, is the
entire Incubator PMC going to stand around and accept it? I THINK NOT! We
need to make sure that if the Mentors are acting improperly, that (a)
everyone has a good idea of what PROPER means, and (b) that EVERYONE has a
means to protest actions that appear to be improper.
The ASF is all about Community, which means PEOPLE. PEOPLE make decisions.
Rules make decisions FOR people. I'm happy to empower people to make
decisions --- and where the adjective arbitrary comes from, well that
certainly requires justification --- and to provide a means to correct them
as necessary.
> That isn't why we have these processes. If we could all just assume
> that everyone is going to do what everyone else expects, then we
> wouldn't need these processes at all.
Everyone isn't ASF Members. Everyone isn't a Mentor, and responsible to the
rest of the ASF for their conduct. Is it really the case that I'm the only
one around here with faith in my fellow ASF Members, and our collective
ability to oversee and correct our actions?
> The process exists both to set the proper expectation (committers == PPMC)
That's conflating two separate issues (but see above).
> and to enable the Mentors to help without making decisions *for* the
project.
It still remains that they have the only binding votes, unless you're
changing your views on the legal status of non-PMC members.
> The Incubator PMC (or any sponsoring PMC) should vote on a podling
> based on the contents of that proposal.
> The podling-proposal has a list of people that are going to be
> governing the project and that list is the committers, not just
> the list of mentors. That is the only bootstrap process that
> has ever been documented.
Agreed, and then we have problems (and I've taken the phone calls) from
people complaining about piling onto the initial committer list. And a
variety of complaints from ASF Members about free passages to Committership
for total unknowns.
But aside from that, if we want to do it this way, that means voting on each
named person, not just the entire project. This might mean that we finally
have a real job for the Champion: review every person named on the proposal,
making sure that only the "right" people are on it, and letting the
Incubator PMC know why each of them should be there.
--- Noel
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