On 12/22/14, 10:35 AM, "Louis Suárez-Potts" <lui...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 22 Dec 2014, at 11:29, Jim Jagielski <j...@jagunet.com> wrote: >> >> Aren't there loads and loads of presos, webinars, slides >> etc from various ApacheCons and other FOSS conf's which >> detailed the Apache Way? > > > >These would be where? It occurred to me that if it takes presos, webinars and slides, maybe it needs repackaging into mottos, slogans and elevator speeches. My son just joined Cub Scouts and I’ve found it interesting in that they are also trying to teach a new way of thinking but have it boiled down into something that 7-year-olds can absorb. Apache has “community over code”, but needs better messaging of what it means. Still, mottos, slogans and elevator speeches are promotional in nature. Instead of trying to tell folks not to copy past proposals and make them guess what their answers should be, it might be better to have proposers make sure they have enough folks who will sign some other commitment letter that contains the “fine print” of what is expected of them as a PMC member or project in order to become a TLP. IOW, if the “how” is non-negotiable, tell folks up front. Here’s some of what I think might go on such a document: -Apache requires a relatively low set of requirements for folks to become committers. -Apache requires that you track the ownership and licensing of every line of source code. There are customers, especially large corporations, who will not use your product without assurances that they know the licensing involved. If you don’t think any of your customers will be like this, you may not want to become an Apache project and take on the overhead of tracking this. Feel free to use the Apache License for your code anyway. -Apache requires that you create releases entirely of source code. If your customers will not want to use your product by building it up from source code, you can distribute pre-compiled versions but they are not releases. -Apache requires that you maintain a couple of legal documents as part of your releases. Each project should have at least one member interested in legal matters and folks on the mailing list willing to put up with legal-oriented discussions. -By becoming a PMC member, you are becoming an agent of a corporation with certain responsibilities and duties to the corporation. Your vote to approve a release is as an agent of the corporation approving the legal correctness of the source code, not just whether you think the code is bug-free enough to ship. -Apache requires that your project organizes itself without hierarchy. There are committers and non-committers, but all committers have equal access to all of the source code. If you don’t know the committer candidate well enough to trust them not to mess with stuff they shouldn’t, don’t accept them as a committer or make sure you have the time to work with them after. -Apache requires that no individual or corporation has undue influence over the development or decision-making of a project. -Alex
