On Fri, Nov 15, 2013, at 06:07 PM, Alex Harui wrote: > > > On 11/14/13 9:07 PM, "Marvin Humphrey" <mar...@rectangular.com> wrote: > > >On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 10:47 AM, Alex Harui <aha...@adobe.com> wrote: > >> I still think that having a "Release Auditor" role provides backup for > >> getting incubator releases out without having folks have to be on the > >>IPMC > >> to approve the legal aspects of a release. Just like any ASF Member can > >> backup busy PMC Chairs for some actions, any TLP PMC member should be > >>able > >> to backup a busy IPMC member for release auditing. > > > >Speaking as someone who would presumably be suitable for this "Release > >Auditor" role, I'm opposed to the idea -- and not just because I don't > >want to > >get stuck doing all the dirty work. > > > >People who sign up to Mentor a podling should expect to vote on releases > >-- > >especially the first. The Incubator PMC tasks Mentors with overseeing > >the IP > >clearance processes. A Mentor who votes +1 on the first incubating > >release is > >implicitly affirming that IP clearance was done properly -- because that > >was > >their assignment, and if something had gone awry they would surely not > >vote to > >release. > Well, sure, clearly a highly-engaged mentor can better manage IP > clearance. But is release voting really an approval of IP clearance? I > thought it was more about IP "maintenance": making sure that everything > in > the package has a header. Usually there is a significant amount of time > between the incubating IP hitting the repo and it being offered for > release and I thought the clearance had to happen when it hit the repo, > not at release voting time. > > > > >A +1 vote from a "Release Auditor" who did not participate in IP > >clearance is > >much less meaningful: all it tells you is that whatever superficial > >inspection > >they performed on the finished product did not reveal any defects. If > >some > >committer mistakenly attaches an ALv2 header to a file that shouldn't have > >one, a "Release Auditor" won't find that. To catch such problems, you > >need > >someone monitoring the the dev and commits lists: possibly a Mentor, > >ideally a > >project contributor. > > I thought the main point of this thread was to find a way to unblock > podlings looking to release but their mentors dis-engaged, even > temporarily. Are you saying that the IPMC members who step in to help > (like the ones who recently stepped in for VXQuery) must do the forensics > of IP clearance by scanning the commit emails? Seems like folks doing > "release auditing" can do that as well if that's really required. We > might even make a tool that searches through repo history for add/remove > of copyrights. > > > > > >The most meaningful +1 votes are those cast by enlightened core > >contributors, > >because they speak from deep knowledge of the code base and its history. > >IP > >stewardship is a continuous process, and the Incubator's goal should be to > >graduate communities with the motivation and expertise to attend to it > >over > >the long term -- not to certify code. > Agreed. The only purpose of having a Release Auditor role is to expand > the pool of folks who can vote on a release without requiring them to > become full-fledged IPMC members. Now if you're saying that having > backup > voters is not going to meet some requirement of IP safety, it seems like > it can just be made a requirement of a backup vote to do whatever that > work is. If you're saying that will never work because the only folks > who > can validate a release are folks who are engaged in the podling, then > even > having other IPMC folks backup them isn't going to work either, and > solutions need to be found to somehow get those mentors to find the time > to meet their obligations.
Alex, I'm not sure I see the difference between a release auditor and an IPMC member. If someone is sufficiently clued up to audit a release, then they're surely ready to join the Incubator PMC. Am I missing something? My interest is in a lesser level of involvement, where someone has shown merit within their own PPMC and can get a binding vote there, but no-where else. That feels to me like a very useful intermediate step to have. Upayavira --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
