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From: "Roy T. Fielding" <fielding@gbiv.com>
Subject: Re: Finally posted: src file header and copyright policy
Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2006 16:19:48 -0700
To: Cliff Schmidt <cliffschmidt@gmail.com>

On Aug 1, 2006, at 2:01 PM, Cliff Schmidt wrote:

> On 7/23/06, robert burrell donkin <rdonkin@apache.org> wrote:
>> On Tue, 2006-07-18 at 14:28 -0700, Cliff Schmidt wrote:
>> > On 7/17/06, Roy T. Fielding <fielding@gbiv.com> wrote:
>> > > On Jul 16, 2006, at 11:39 PM, Cliff Schmidt wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > Hey legal-discuss folks,
>> > > >
>> > > > I've finally posted the "Source Header and Copyright Notice  
>> Policy":
>> > > > http://www.apache.org/legal/src-headers.html.
>> > >
>> > > The content looks good.
>> > >
>> > > I would prefer that instructions to Apache committers be located
>> > > under <http://www.apache.org/dev/>.  Linking them from legal  
>> is fine,
>> > > but this is a policy from the board that should be treated  
>> like all
>> > > the other documentation.
>>
>> IMO this is a decision that could do with some more thought.
>>
>> ATM infrastructure is charged with oversight of www.apache.org and in
>> particular http://www.apache.org/dev/ but there really isn't very  
>> much
>> content in there which isn't at least indirectly related to
>> infrastructure.
>>
>> other groups within apache (for example legal, public relations,
>> conferences) are now starting to create content for  
>> www.apache.org. so,
>> we need to think about the right organisation for this new content.
>>
>> in terms of oversight, it seems more convenient to keep all
>> documentation (whether aimed at committers or not) together at the  
>> top
>> level and make each group responsible for overseeing everything under
>> that directory.
>>
>> this strategy would create a little more work in terms of  
>> indexing. the
>> generated sitemap wouldn't pick up committer content in these other
>> areas but makes no difference to the manual links.
>
> I actually agree with you, Robert.  I was just willing to go along
> with Roy's suggestion because I personally didn't feel strongly about
> it and just wanted to get it posted in one place and be done.
> However, you are probably right to think about the big picture here.

I am a bit confused about what Robert is suggesting.  The goal should
be to make it easy for people to find the right documentation and for
us to edit the right documentation.  The documentation we are talking
about is maintained by site-dev under the auspices of infrastructure
because infrastructure is a President's committee tasked with that
responsibility.  The fact that some of the existing documentation
under dev is about creating new accounts is irrelevant.  All of it is
about instructions to committers on how to manage projects and make
releases, which is exactly what Cliff is documenting in the src header
and copyright policy.  Placing it somewhere else is not helpful.

Right now, all of the documentation for "how to develop software at
Apache" is under /dev/ except for the bits that have just recently
been put under /legal/.  All of the software licenses that Apache offers
to the world are under /licenses/ (and that is where export.html should
be as well, since it is a list of export licenses).  All of the ASF
as a Foundation information is under /foundation/ except for the bits
that have just recently been put under /legal/.

Not surprisingly, I don't agree with Cliff's individual decision to put
the stuff he authors in a different category than all prior decisions by
the site team.  Everything we do at the ASF is "legal", so it doesn't
make any sense as a means of containment even if Cliff is the only one
editing those documents.  It makes sense to have an organizational page
for our lawyers somewhere, but the "/legal/" section isn't even linked
from our other pages and the location should be under /foundation/
in any case.  In short, the docs are in the wrong place.

If someone wants to take over the entire site design and build some
new hierarchy of sensible documentation, that's fine with me.
Individual authors, OTOH, should respect the conventions that we
already have on site.

....Roy

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