First, a disclaimer. This is just my personal take on things and no one else on the Apache Flex PMC was involved in writing this.
As the PMC chair of a relatively recently graduated podling, I would like to suggest that if you choose to implement "exit interviews" they should probably be optional, and I would argue that they should be requested at least 3 months after graduation, after the transition from podling to project is hopefully complete. First, there are potential nightmares in the transition, and second, after that dust settles, there is hopefully time to reflect. Regarding anonymity, I would suggest that any naming of names should happen outside the interview and on private@. Anyway, the exit interview for Apache Flex would be short. It would say: "We started with four mentors, one dropped out, the other three were great, two remain on the project PMC. When you have enough active mentors, the Incubator works just fine. Yes, documentation could be better, but we figured it out and graduated and are off an running as a TLP." Now if the interview contained an open comments section, I would say the following: I've been scanning what must be hundreds of emails in at least 3 threads trying to fix the Incubator. Personally, I think the Incubator is working as well as should be expected. Can it be better? Maybe. Because I think there really is only one "problem", and that is simply "time". In fact, "time" is the root cause of all "problems" at Apache, especially at the other main source, which is Infra, and it amazes me that it doesn't really get mentioned explicitly in these discussions. To me, it is par for the course when you have a group of volunteers running things. I haven't done much volunteering, but are there other organizations as large as Apache that is administered by volunteers? Big charities seem to have paid administrators. Infra has some paid folks, and I haven't checked Apache history, but I would imagine Infra was once all-volunteer until it was decided it was not going to scale and donation money was diverted to fund fully-dedicated people to it. And still, they are underfunded as lots of minor requests slip through the cracks. It may simply be time to try to get more donation money diverted to pay one or two folks to serve on the IPMC. You can try every new idea you want, but they will all fail if folks simply don't have the time and energy to execute them. -Alex --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
