Mailing-List: contact general-help@incubator.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: general@incubator.apache.org
Received-SPF: error (athena.apache.org: local policy)
Message-ID: <54A1B0B2.6060100@rcbowen.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 14:51:14 -0500
From: Rich Bowen <rbowen@rcbowen.com>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64;
 rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.3.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: general@incubator.apache.org
Subject: Re: Incubator report sign-off
References: <54945C1D.5050906@rcbowen.com>
 <CA+ULb+sUBNZFkJ+R3K+RJr0CW1vkH75Yx7S2A3O6hvjUEkQWbg@mail.gmail.com>
 <DM2PR03MB49529C1C96A875307E5AC2C996B0@DM2PR03MB495.namprd03.prod.outlook.com>
 <CA+ULb+sNB+mv_0gJBvWPd_0QxYT8WBm-DRQqJfsKQ0ff=AXEZg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CADmm+KepUfpQQP4N9TGAhx0YUZznQ+LbPXNFqdTYdA7bRuZUzw@mail.gmail.com>
 <D0BED66D.22500%aharui@adobe.com>
 <CAOGo0VY=8oPsF7qrNVsego9Ga=dEwLCrqUHNyvRv8anxKjtthg@mail.gmail.com>
 <54A1692C.1080704@rcbowen.com>
 <BF1D94E6-9101-483B-8FB2-E88ADC8ADA34@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <BF1D94E6-9101-483B-8FB2-E88ADC8ADA34@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit


On 12/29/2014 01:45 PM, Andrew Purtell wrote:
> There are honorary and practical reasons why a project may view the PMC Chair and the project leader as one in the same.
>
> Honorary: The community elevated one member as lead and assigned the Chair role out of respect.
>
> Practical: The PMC Chair has the power to dissolve the PMC, and is an officer of the Foundation. Nobody else on the project has such power nor indemnification. "Secretary" as a term does not adequately encompass that.
>

That's all well and good, however:

1) I'm not aware of even a single time that the PMC chair has actually 
unilaterally dissolved the PMC, and I think the board would have serious 
objections if that were to actually happen, as it would indicate pretty 
serious community failure.

2) ASF projects don't have project leads. Sure, a project may, at one 
time or another, have a person that is clearly at the forefront of 
decision making, but to designate them a project lead indicates 
dysfunction in a collaboration-based structure.

This seems a tad of a diversion from the topic, but definitely worth 
mentioning.


>
>
>> On Dec 29, 2014, at 6:46 AM, Rich Bowen <rbowen@rcbowen.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 12/23/2014 03:34 PM, sebb wrote:
>>>> Flex had three great mentors, but to expect them to be the PMC Chair on
>>>>> graduation would have been problematic.  They were great mentors because
>>>>> they had lots of experience from their work on other Apache projects, and
>>>>> thus didn’t have time to stay active on a new TLP, plus they really
>>>>> weren’t users or developers of the technology, just our coaches on the
>>>>> Apache Way, and thus wouldn’t be good Chair candidates as they weren’t as
>>>>> invested in the technology.  But they did stick around on at least the
>>>>> private@ lists and continue to do so even 2 years after graduation where
>>>>> we consult them on occasion.  To require that a mentor be an active
>>>>> contributor limits the kinds of technologies that can come to Apache to
>>>>> only those who can interest someone with a lot of spare cycles.
>>>>>
>>>>> IMO, the mentors job is to teach, not to lead.
>>> The job of the PMC chair is almost entirely administrative.
>>> They are the link between the board and the PMC and their main role is
>>> to ensure the board gets timely reports and to feed back comments from
>>> the board.
>>>
>>> If a PMC is relying on the chair to drive it forward technically, then
>>> I think something has gone wrong with the PMC.
>>>
>>
>> Indeed. Big +1 on this.
>>
>> There are some projects that I've been watching lately where the PMC chair is viewed as the project lead, and that has a number of problems that go along with it. The PMC chair is a secretary, whose job is to file the right paperwork. A *hugely* important role, but not a technical lead role.
>>
>> --
>> Rich Bowen - rbowen@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
>> http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
>> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
>>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
>


-- 
Rich Bowen - rbowen@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org