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Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 07:57:04 -0800
From: Justin Erenkrantz <justin@erenkrantz.com>
To: general@incubator.apache.org
Subject: Re: Is the incubator out of control?
Message-ID: <20051223155704.GI820@scotch.ics.uci.edu>
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On Fri, Dec 23, 2005 at 09:11:55AM -0500, Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote:
> I am no longer convinced of this.  Having the Incubator PMC there as  
> a "check and balance" is a good thing as it requires engagement from  
> others interested in this aspect of ASF life.  It prevents one  
> individual or one PMC from being able to make significant social or  
> technological change, or at least ensure that there is a  
> theoretically impartial observer keeping track.  It allows interested  
> members and other community members to "put their money where their  
> mouth is" on this topic, and join the Incubator PMC to help out.

I don't think that can scale appropriately.

Why would the Incubator PMC know more about whether mod_ftp is a good fit
for the Foundation than the entire HTTP Server PMC?

> I think that there's little downside to this.  A check on the  
> Incubator PMC is the board - any member or PMC could appeal to the  
> board in the event that they believed their proposals were not being  
> treated fairly, or if the Incubator PMC was behaving in general in a  
> way they disagreed with.
> 
> And the board has to answer to the membership.

I believe that there is *major* downside to having the Incubator PMC
second-guess the decisions of other PMCs.

If someone doesn't like the decision of a PMC, they shouldn't be able to
use the Inucbator PMC as cover for their attacks.  People who don't like
what's going on in that PMC should confront that PMC directly.  If they
don't like what's going on in that PMC and have tried to redress their
grievances directly, they can go to the Board.

Although, the Board is rightly wary of interposing itself in technical
decisions.  We have no idea what makes technical sense or not either.

> >Cynics like me are the *worst* possible judges of what's cool and  
> >what's
> >not.  That's the fundamental problem I have with this entire  
> >thread: people
> >are trying to limit the growth or exclude projects.  How?  On what  
> >basis?
> 
> I agree here - I would never want to exclude based on technology.  I  
> do the thought experiment from time to time and ask myself which  
> projects I would have excluded if ordered to limit growth at the ASF,  
> and I never have a good answer. Maybe not let those "toaster language  
> bytecode people" in?  I think our current java communities are a  
> *huge* asset.  How about the pointy-bracket folks?
> 
> We need to actually increase our technical diversity here - we have  
> no real Ruby-oriented communities, nor any coherent .NET identity,  
> and I think that's going to hurt us in the long run.

That's why this talk about limiting growth is so dangerous.  The foundation
should go where our PMCs and our members want.  -- justin

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