This is a fantastic thread; great to clarify if there are doubts and
great opportunity to learn how various projects at Apache operate. We
can definitely put this up in the wiki.
Q. Do the terms of http://www.apache.org/dev/pmc.html forbid projects
from discussing "nominees for project, project committee or Foundation
membership" in public?
Not according to Ant, WebServices, Cocoon, Tapestry, Tomcat, and a
handful of other Apache projects that discuss and vote on committers
on dev@ and have been doing so with ASF Board knowledge for years. It
seems that particular section is more about giving projects a list of
things that are OK to be discussed privately as many projects have had
a problems being too closed and discussing too many things on private
lists that should not be there.
We're likely the first project to take it to the level of "project
committee", but hopefully not the last :)
Q. Whose votes count?
Apache requires a minimum of three +1 PMC votes which have legal
significance to Apache as a corporation. That said, all votes from
the community are significant to the project and decision making and
any -1 is cause for pause and discussion. We frequently encourage and
welcome votes from anyone in the community regardless of status.
Q. Voting on people: Is it hard to vote -1 in public / Can someone get
their feelings hurt ?
Yes and yes. Voting in public requires greater care and sensitivity
on behalf of everyone; the vote proposer, the voters, and the votee.
Prior to voting the proposer should create several opportunities for
feedback, hopefully positive and constructive. Community members with
concerns should get involved early and actively mentor potential
committers, taking opportunities for feedback as queues to get
involved, encourage, and work through areas where they see said person
needs more help. The contributor should actively solicit and welcome
all help and feedback and encouragement and feel welcome to give it in
return. Do not rush; all parties (proposer, voters, and votee) have
work to do in grooming contributors, etc., and that work takes time.
Votes that result in one or more -1s should not be seen as a failure
of any one individual and instead be seen as an opportunity for all
parties (proposer, voters, and votee) to make improvements, be more
active, and give the process more time.
Ok, so I *think* that's all the open topics. If it isn't missing
anything major and generally captures the ideas of the group, I'll
throw it into the wiki and people can go in and make any wording
tweaks they like as well as any other cleanup. I'll give it a while
for lazy consensus before doing so.
-David
On Jul 12, 2009, at 9:03 AM, Jeff Genender wrote:
> Changing the topic, so the vote is not polluted by this discussion.
>
> David J, thanks for your response, and I am also very interested in
> David B's response. I am certainly not trying to stir the pot (so
> to speak), just concrete clarification which I think needs to be on
> the OpenEJB wiki. This question had come up before on the mailing
> lists and it seems nebulous as to the rules for the project.
>
> Comments in-line below...
>
>
> On Jul 11, 2009, at 3:10 PM, David Jencks wrote:
>
>>
>> On Jul 11, 2009, at 4:38 AM, Jeff Genender wrote:
>>
>>> David,
>>>
>>> Voting as a committer, Jon certainly gets my +1 to be a PMC
>>> individual. But this vote seems strange whereby committers are
>>> voting on PMC membership.
>>>
>>> Can you be a bit more specific on the voting of people into the
>>> PMC? OpenEJB seems to have a different set of rules and it would
>>> be good to clarify the position... perhaps on the wiki somewhere?
>>> Most PMC's vote for entry to PMC. Here I see a vote on dev and
>>> there has not been clarification as to who gets to vote and
>>> whether it be private/public, so its a bit confusing to me.
>>>
>>> According to this link, it has a set of rules as to how things are
>>> done:
>>>
>>> http://www.apache.org/dev/pmc.html
>>>
>>> It is clear it says the PMC should be the ones to privately
>>> discuss and vote on nominees for project, project committee, etc.
>>> How do you propose to handle sensitive topics like discussion of a
>>> committer out in the open? 99/100 times the discussion and vote
>>> will be clean, but that 1/100 time where -1s and heavy sensitive
>>> discussion ensues, bad feelings can become a issue.
>>
>> I read that as saying that as little as possible should be on the
>> private list and that some possible allowed topics are XYZ but that
>> if the project wants to discuss them in public it is free to do so.
>>
>> We certainly run a risk of bad feelings if acrimonious debate
>> erupts over someones PMC membership. Personally I feel that the
>> openejb community is so amazingly open and friendly that the risks
>> are negligible.
>>
>
>
> I read the part about little as possible (and something I heavily
> agree with). But I am not convinced completely that it says that if
> you want to discuss the *private* matters in public to feel free to
> do so. Perhaps the policy is confusing.... I read it like this:
>
> "Policies
> --------
> Terms in this section as used as per RFC 2119"
>
>
> RFC 2119 defines "SHALL" as :
>
> "1. MUST This word, or the terms "REQUIRED" or "SHALL", mean that
> the definition is an absolute requirement of the specification."
>
> The PMC document goes on to say:
>
> "All Project Management Committees SHALL restrict their
> communication on private mailing lists to issues that cannot be
> discussed in public such as:
> * nominees for project, project committee or Foundation membership"
>
> I think the potential confusion lies heavily at the bottom of the
> document which states:
>
> "Where Should Project Business Be Discussed?
> Read the *policy*."
>
>
> and it ends with:
>
> "Some projects use the main development list for discussing these
> matters. Others have a dedicated list (traditionally general) for
> the discussion of pmc and project-wide topics which do not need to
> be confidential."
>
>
> So it seems it is most certainly confusing (The SHALL (must) as
> policy and you must follow the policy, then ending with "do whatever
> you want"). However, the clarifying part, IMHO, states "for the
> discussion of PMC and project-wide topics which do not need to be
> confidential".
>
> What is "confidential"? I read confidential means "discussion of
> candidates for committership and PMC". But maybe that is just me
> and I really don't know ;-)
>
> I am really bringing this up because, just like you, I have very
> serious doubts anyone brought up for committer/PMC would be -1'd,
> but it can still be a sensitive topic since being open will quash
> anybody's ability to be open/honest about someone due to possible
> hurt feelings (although I believe your using the adjective of
> "acrimonious" is a bit strong since bitterness is not a requirement
> for wanting to discuss contribution openly without retribution). I
> guess its a risk a project can take, but its nice to know it as
> project policy, and hopefully written somewhere. I personally would
> like to know the rules since it clearly departs from the norm at
> Apache.
>
>> clearing up whose votes count for pmc membership might be good
>> though :-)
>>
>
>
> +1!!! ;-)
>
> Jeff
>
>
>
>> thanks
>> david jencks
>>
>>>
>>> Do you have thoughts on how this will be handled as well as a good
>>> clarification for OpenEJB's rules regarding voting, etc that seem
>>> to move itself away from the way things are normally done at Apache?
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance for the clarification,
>>>
>>> Jeff
>>>
>>> On Jul 10, 2009, at 7:28 PM, David Blevins wrote:
>>>
>>>> Per the "Adding Jon to the PMC" discussion:
>>>>
>>>> http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/openejb-dev/200907.mbox/%3cD3673749-367F-45E0-93B6-F74164BC5334@visi.com%3e
>>>>
>>>> Here's the vote for adding Jonathan Gallimore to the PMC so he
>>>> can assist in providing legal oversight for the project in
>>>> general, but more specifically the Eclipse plugin which needs
>>>> more oversight.
>>>>
>>>> Vote will be open for at least 72 hours -- likely far beyond that
>>>> as we tend to be a 4-5 days kind of group :)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Here's my +1
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> David
>>>>
>>>
>
>
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