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Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 03:52:57 -0700
From: Leo Simons <mail@leosimons.com>
To: general@incubator.apache.org
Subject: [howto] felix fast forward (was: Re: Podling Release Requirement)
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On Thu, Sep 14, 2006 at 04:00:37AM +0100, Upayavira wrote:
> Justin Erenkrantz wrote:
> > On 9/13/06, robert burrell donkin <robertburrelldonkin@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> personally speaking, i would not support the gradudation any project
> >> that has not demonstrated that they understand the apache releases
> >> policy. doing this is much easier and quicker than creating a proper
> >> release. just nominate a release manager and post a compliant example
> >> to the people.apache.org webspace using the current code base so that
> >> it can be checked.
> > 
> > +1 - though I would strongly like to see the community *vote* on the
> > release because I see many ASF projects completely skipping that part
> > nowadays.  -- justin
> 
> So how does Felix proceed now? Accept that the rules have just changed
> on it, after spending some months under the view that a release _wasn't_
> necessary to graduation, and go back and do something it would have done
> months ago had it not been told to do otherwise?

The rules have not changed. In order to graduate you need votes by the
incubator PMC, some of whom have expressed some conditionals for a +1. You're
not likely to get the requisite amount of +1s, probably because the silent
majority of the people with votes to cast think there's merit to the
conditionals.

As this thread shows, actually having a release is not the "real"
conditional, the conditional is having done all those things properly that
are normally double-checked during a release process. And those things being
ok *is* required, and that has been the case for ages.

Basically felix doesn't quite have its legal agenda in order (Justin just
listed a few problems, others listed earlier ones before, with enough
examples to show a "legal audit" has not been done), therefore the felix
status file does not quite reflect reality (it seems to assert there are
no problems).

> Upayavira (who is expressing his frustration on behalf of all Felix folks)
>
> P.S. Though expressed with some irony and irritation, it is in fact a
> real question.

I can imagine a few ways going forward.

First, send an e-mail on the [VOTE] thread that its cancelled as you take
care of a few things.

I suggest you take a good critical look at all your source files, establish
provenance, ownership, licenses, copyright, etc, for each of them, and then
based on that information and the various legal policies we have around here
go and fix everything, including making sure your build process does the
right things to legal files. Once done, write a little report that lists all
the different things you fixed and let that bubble up somehow, eg send the
incubator PMC a little status report. Make sure to assert there's no further
problems.

If you want a detailed example of taking care of all the legal things precisely
and properly, I'd suggest looking at the harmony podling, which is probably the
one of the cleanest (legally!) open source project on the planet.

Then, send a heads-up ("[PROPOSAL]" would do) to this mailing list that
you'll be requesting graduation in a bit and whether anyone sees any
outstanding things to worry about. After taking care of those concerns, start
a new series of [VOTE]s.

"you" in the above does not mean "you, upayavira", but "you, felix community".
Being a contributor to apache means being and staying aware and on top of this
kind of legal stuff, annoying as it all is. Blame the screwed up legal systems
of the world and the IP sharks that abuse it, not the people helping you to
stay safe.

cheers,

Leo

PS: Irony and irritation is not the best way to get a useful answer. I could
find it irritating that a bunch of ASF members that are on the felix PPMC
have not paid more attention to dotting legal i's and crossing legal t's,
or that an incubator PMC member goes around venting irritation in public.
If the incubator PMC is not functioning the way you want it to, you know
exactly what to do to change it. In the meantime, I suggest a more open-minded
approach to it all.

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