I would respectfully suggest that the PPMC guide section that describes how to invite new committers and PPMC members is not adequate to the task.
This is what I think is the relevant section of https://incubator.apache.org/guides/ppmc.html : There are no ASF wide rules on how to decide when to make someone a committer, podlings need to agree an approach that works for them. Some ASF projects have a high bar requiring significant contributions before someone is considered, other projects grant it more freely to anyone who shows interest in contributing. Some projects use formal [DISCUSS] and [VOTE] threads on the private mailing list, others use a more lazy consensus approach. For more information see, commit access and the ASF How it Works document, which explains meritocracy and roles. Once the decision has been made the proposer offers committership to the nominee. If the nominee accepts the responsibility of being a committer for the project, the nominee formally becomes an Apache committer. The proposer then asks an Incubator PMC member (typically one of the mentors) to follow the documented procedures http://www.apache.org/dev/pmc.html#newcommitter to complete the process. If the nominee is already an Apache committer on another project, the Incubator PMC member simply updates the SVN authorization settings to include the nominee as a committer on the podling. I suggest that we look again at this section for these aspects: 1. We should document how we expect podlings to discuss, vote, and invite committers and PPMC members. The paragraph describing how to decide on new committers should be non-prescriptive with regard to the criteria, but prescribe the process. If a podling doesn't want to follow the process of discussing, voting, and inviting, it should explicitly document what it wants to do so that its unique process can be incorporated into the project's unique Project By-Laws. But most podlings will want to follow the processes of most TLPs: a: discuss in private the desire to invite a new committer/PPMC member b: hold a vote in private, with +1, -1, +0 and -0 c: end the vote when all PPMC members have voted, or at least 72 hours have passed; with at least three binding (IPMC members) votes in favor, and no -1 votes 2. We should document the process in the guide and *not* refer to the page that describes how PMCs invite new committers. The processes are different in the case of podlings and it is simply confusing to mix them. Podlings especially could use help with "standard" emails similar to those found here: http://community.apache.org/newcommitter.html#new-committer-process 3. It is not obvious what the policy is for a podling to invite new committers and PPMC members. I don't believe it should be the responsibility of the podling to decide in isolation the process to invite new committers, just as it is not the podlings' decision how to invite new PPMC members. If we can agree on the above, I will take responsibility to update the incubator guides. WDYT? Craig L Russell Secretary, Apache Software Foundation c...@apache.org http://db.apache.org/jdo
