Hi Bill, On Feb 1, 2012, at 3:26 PM, William A. Rowe Jr. wrote:
> On 2/1/2012 5:11 PM, Mattmann, Chris A (388J) wrote: >> >> On Feb 1, 2012, at 2:25 PM, William A. Rowe Jr. wrote: >>> >>> I'd modify your proposal just a smidge. Keep an Incubator VP with a very >>> small >>> operational committee just to help move the podling through the entire >>> process >>> of wrangling the necessary proposal, votes and board resolutions. Some >>> amount >>> of process documentation would remain under that VP and their committee. >> >> I think this modification adds overhead that I think we have already. ComDev >> can provide this guidance and I think that's what the natural purpose for it >> is. > > Simply, there needs to be someone (backed by a committee with specific > individual > responsibilities, if that person likes) to shepherd state changes into a board > resolutions, ensure they hit the board agenda, maintain what we call the > 'incubation web site' today, and answer inquiries about 'how do we go about > X?' > You can suggest that the directors, members and site-dev people take on all of > those tasks, but we know that randomly distributed responsibilities don't work > out so well. That's why there is now a collection of these VP roles at the > ASF. But I didn't suggest those set of people. You did. And I purposefully didn't suggest them just as you purposefully threw them up as people you wouldn't think were right for the role to illustrate your point. As you hint at below (and that's where I'll respond), my proposal suggests empowering the actual chairs of the committees of podlings as those responsible. That's the role of the Champion and it's no different than the role of a VP, let's be done with it and say the Champion is the initial Podling VP, subject to the same rigamarole and replaceability, rotation, whatever that any chair is. The point is: podlings can start acting like projects from day 1, that's what we encourage. They *are* projects. And if they aren't, we'll find out soon enough. > >>> Take "VP, Project Incubation" out of the role of judging incoming or >>> graduating >>> projects. Leave general@ for the process of submitting a proposal to come >>> in >>> as an incubating podling or leave by way of graduation, the attic, or >>> graveyard >>> (full purge in the rare case of questionable IP provenience). >>> >>> Make every podling a proper PMC to include its mentors. Make a choice >>> between >>> including all listed initial contributors, or instead, have the mentors >>> promote >>> the actual contributors given time and merit, based on a well thought out >>> and >>> somewhat predictable flowchart. >>> >>> Have ComDev drive the effort to ensure all projects are nurtured by finding >>> new >>> mentorship of old, graduated projects as well as incubating projects who >>> had lost >>> their mentors. This might avoid some cases of the board imposing a full >>> PMC reset >>> on established projects. >>> >>> Most importantly, have the voting by the full membership on general@ to >>> recommend >>> to the board accepting a podling or graduating a podling to a TLP. >> >> If the full membership is making the recommendation then i see no need for a >> VP >> Incubator and I think it should be disbanded. However, I agree with your >> statements >> above and think they jive with my proposal. > > I view this more as giving the members the opportunity to raise questions and > issues > of how a particular project proposal would fit here, which is what they do > anyways. > This only makes it more formal. You keep the VP simply as the record keeper > and > executor of the decisions on general@. I agree with your sentiments towards the membership's role. However, I maintain, I still don't think you need the VP of the Incubator; it's just extra overhead that's not needed. > >>> Why? Given >>> the example of the hotly contested AOO podling, if the membership >>> (represented >>> by Incubator PMC members) did not ultimately have the discussion that was >>> held, >>> and if the board had 'imposed' accepting AOO on the foundation, it would >>> have >>> done internal harm. Now maybe only 50 of the members care to review >>> proposals >>> and cast such votes. That's OK, they are still representative of the >>> membership. >>> If a member wants to gripe on the member's private list, they can be gently >>> but >>> emphatically nudged to take their concerns to the general@ discussion of the >>> proposed project. >> >> Yes yes yes. Perfect. That's right. Let the membership VOTE for the proposal >> and then recommend to the board. That's a great idea. And I guess that would >> mean that general@ stays around. I could live with that so long as the VP >> Incubator and the IPMC is discharged. As I said, I think they have more than >> served their purpose. > > Well, the scope of general@ shrinks dramatically, although it can continue to > be > a place for a recently approved project to holler "help, we need more help!". +1. Super +1. Yes, I agree. > > You might view the VP as overlapping the Champion. Yep, I do. > But do we want every one > of the Champions to have to be intimately familiar with the form of the board > resolutions, or consolidate some of the book-keeping? Sure, we do. That's what a VP does, and what a Champion should do too. I propose that a Champion is just the VP, while the podling is in the Incubation "stage". > VP Project Incubation > works with those Champions. Much like the foundation-wide security@a.o team > works with all the individual projects as a resource, but isn't responsible > for the oversight of individual project security defects. Yeah, I get what you're saying. You say the VP Incubator is a resource, but to me the role is the head of a committee that just adds extra burden and overhead to what should inherently be distributed and decentralized. > > I don't see this working without an appointed coordinator. I do :) just with the coordinating living within the project, just like TLPs, and that's the Champion/VP of the podling. Cheers, Chris ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Chris Mattmann, Ph.D. Senior Computer Scientist NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena, CA 91109 USA Office: 171-266B, Mailstop: 171-246 Email: chris.a.mattm...@nasa.gov WWW: http://sunset.usc.edu/~mattmann/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Adjunct Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
