From general-return-11380-apmail-incubator-general-archive=incubator.apache.org@incubator.apache.org Sun Oct 08 06:10:31 2006 Return-Path: Delivered-To: apmail-incubator-general-archive@www.apache.org Received: (qmail 24511 invoked from network); 8 Oct 2006 06:10:28 -0000 Received: from hermes.apache.org (HELO mail.apache.org) (209.237.227.199) by minotaur.apache.org with SMTP; 8 Oct 2006 06:10:28 -0000 Received: (qmail 27097 invoked by uid 500); 8 Oct 2006 06:10:11 -0000 Delivered-To: apmail-incubator-general-archive@incubator.apache.org Received: (qmail 26862 invoked by uid 500); 8 Oct 2006 06:10:10 -0000 Mailing-List: contact general-help@incubator.apache.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Post: List-Id: Reply-To: general@incubator.apache.org Delivered-To: mailing list general@incubator.apache.org Received: (qmail 26831 invoked by uid 99); 8 Oct 2006 06:10:10 -0000 Received: from idunn.apache.osuosl.org (HELO idunn.apache.osuosl.org) (140.211.166.84) by apache.org (qpsmtpd/0.29) with ESMTP; Sat, 07 Oct 2006 23:10:10 -0700 X-ASF-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.0 required=5.0 tests= Received: from [66.112.202.2] ([66.112.202.2:54942] helo=mail.devtech.com) by idunn.apache.osuosl.org (ecelerity 2.1.1.8 r(12930)) with ESMTP id 14/BA-11753-D3698254 for ; Sat, 07 Oct 2006 23:10:06 -0700 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]) by mail.devtech.com (JAMES SMTP Server 2.3.0rc3) with SMTP ID 306 for ; Sun, 8 Oct 2006 02:10:02 -0400 (EDT) From: "Noel J. Bergman" To: Subject: RE: Outside view on incubator policy to initial committer list Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2006 02:09:51 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.6604 (9.0.2911.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2962 In-Reply-To: Importance: Normal X-Spam-Rating: minotaur.apache.org 1.6.2 0/1000/N Robert Burrell Donkin wrote: > Martijn Dashorst wrote: > > From the documents I have read on the policy for entering, being > > inside and graduating from the incubator there is a lot of talk on > > process, but not a lot of explanation on *why* the process is in > > place, nor on how things are done. It is fairly common to separate process from policy and justification. You can see this in the Bible (the Written Law of the Torah and the Oral Law explaining how to apply the Written Law), the US Constitution and the papers written by the Framers, etc. I personally favor a small set of processes that allow trusted people to make decisions based upon their understanding of ASF philosophy over a more elaborate and complex set of rules that govern people. > > The first 'gripe' is the uncertainty for existing open source projects > > that want to join the ASF that their current contributors will be > > allowed to work on the project at Apache. That should not be the case, and anyone who says otherwise is misunderstanding policy. > > The second gripe is the fact that only the Incubator PMC members of > > the PPMC have binding votes. I think I understand the reasoning for > > this, but it is not clear how the PMC members will excercise their > > binding votes. I expect them to exercise their oversight for the benefit of the community. And I would also like to emphasize that vote counting is the absolute worst form of decision making. Decisions should be a consensus. If there are disagreements, work out a synthesis that makes everyone happy. If you cannot, in the end, then the community can make the best available choice, but whenever you cannot reach a true consensus, the community loses. > the incubator PMC is almost entirely composed of apache members. And the Apache Software Foundation Members are the owners (shareholders), which means that they have the ultimate decision making authority in the end. > if a community does not trust the apache membership then it cannot trust > apache and needs to create it's own organisation. +1 > i estimate that the incubator PMC collectively has well over 200 years > of collective open source experience. I suspect that you're off by a significant upside multiplier. > if the process is getting in the way and results in a community having > to put itself on hold, then it needs to be improved. if anyone has any > specific ideas, pull together a proposal to change the process. Absolutely! --- Noel --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org