On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 11:47 AM, Robert Burrell Donkin <robertburrelldon...@gmail.com> wrote: > <snip> > > On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 9:38 AM, ant elder <ant.el...@gmail.com> wrote: >> I do acknowledge that it can be really >> hard to get some things changed and you may need a thick skin and lots >> of perseverance. But lets try to demonstrate its possible - Christian >> tell us three things you'd like changed and we'll pick one and try to >> fix it right here right now just to show it can be done. > > +1 > > Robert (wondering about an Incubator F2F meetup for rules stomping)
Thanks to both to you for your kind words. Actually I feel a bit exhausted. I had several heavy discussions recently on the ASF and now I feel tired. Actually I can't say I have a thick skin. Speaking of the incubator changes, I have commented on the various threads about the new "Champion". Anyway, I actually think the Incubator needs a complete refactoring. So I can't speak of three items I would like to change, it is one big thing. I have not proposed it, because: no energy. Anyway... The Incubator has more than 100 IPMCs members. Constantly we are discussing about inactive mentors and overall lack of energy. Now the proposal is to extend the Champion term and to change the reporting to the board. I have asked: what do we expect to be on that reports? I even doubt, having an extended Champion role will cause people to be more active. We will still have missing reports and inactive mentors. Is it a surprise? No. We are 100. And we are not really a community. In fact, we are not even having a Meritocracy, as the other projects have. On other projects you need to earn merit and then you are elected as a committer and after earning more merit, you can become a PMC. At the incubator you earn merit somewhere, and once you are a Member, you can request membership on the IPMC. This is a huge exception to my knowledge. The incubator has many exceptions to standard procedures. That being said, we are a few active people here and many inactive. We are bloated and we cannot grow together as a group, because you can walk in and step out as you please. Question is, are we already unable to do incubators work? When there are not the mentioned, few active people on the projects, sometimes there is no mentoring at all. no actually we don't do a good job in my eyes (as said, a few exceptions of course). Or we don't have a clue if we do. I think we need to change our thinking and finally make up a community. Not only a list of loose coupled names. What if we would completely reboot the Incubator? Lets assume: 1) Every ASF committer on a non-podling project can serve as a mentor. The phrase "Search for a mentor" should be rephrased to: "search for an ASF committer who is willing to mentor your project". 2) Every ASF committer, who is mentoring a project and shows an interest in the Incubator, can be elected into the IPMC 3) A podling must have a Champion who helps to get the podling into the incubator. The champion can be every ASF committer. After the project has been accepted, the Champion is the one who needs to take care on reporting. The champion can be elected among ASF committers (which includes the podling committers). 4) Every podling must have an IPMC member reading the lists 5) Every mentor must sign the report. Mentors who do not sign the reports three times in a row are not to be considered active 6) Reporting schedule is at it is now. Podlings which fail to report three times in a row will be terminated, except they have good reasons 7) The IPMC makes up an report. As a community it is easier to report: who joined, who left, which podling was accepted, which one was not. 8) 3 IPMC votes are necessary to get a release out of the door. 3 Mentor votes are necessary. 9) New Podlings need to bring in their code within 3 months and CLAs/Grants, or incubation ends, except they good reasons. 10) Podlings in incubation for > 1 year need to be discussed quarterly by the IPMC. If there is no community, the IPMC might decide to terminate this podling, because: Community over Code. No Community, no Code. Now with just 10 rules we have a small IPMC taking care on the oversight. We do not need to let every mentor join the IPMC. In fact, we can get rid of the terms "Mentor" as this is the same as an ASF committer. The only exception is the "Champion", which in fact is serving as some kind of podling chair. We could even remove this term and call it "Podling Chair" which is more similar to what we have in other projects. How can we achieve this? Drop everybody from the IPMC list except our chair. Let him decide 5 people he knows who are active and they elect everybody else in who is active or has merit to join the IPMC. Probably there are some flaws in my thinking. But I think it is more efficient to make tabula rasa and try to be as near to a "standard apache project" as possible. Cheers, Christian --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
