Re: The organization of xml.apache.org

[Steven Noels <st...@outerthought.org>]

Ted Leung wrote:

> 1. Help any xml.apache.org project that wishes to become a top-level 
> project to do so.  Each
> top-level project will then have its own PMC which will report directly 
> to the ASF board.

-0, since it doesn't provide any 'safe harbor' for non-toplevel XML 
projects. Also, this would require (IIUC) loads of new people to be 
added as officers (http://www.apache.org/foundation/), and maybe some 
communities wouldn't warrant that (sizewise). AFAIK, Cocoon is the only 
project with the ambition of going toplevel.

Let's face it: there are several smaller XML projects, which should be 
pampered somehow by a larger community. Pampering in terms of project 
setup assistance, legal guidance (and protection), etc... So there is a 
role for a common XML PMC.

Another scenario would be topleveling the larger projects, and move the 
smaller ones towards Jakarta. I'm not sure whether people would want 
that. OTOH, XML is everywhere now :-)

> 2. Expand the xml.apache.org PMC so that every project has a representative

+1, increasing the possibility of 'being more present'. Sorry to say so, 
but even though my primary work area is XML-related, I happen to 'know' 
more PMC members on the Jakarta side, from posts and interventions on 
these mailing lists. I recall myself at least once sending an email to 
pmc@xml.a.o which remained unanswered. Maybe, if more people share the 
burden of the xml.a.o PMC, questions will not remain unanswered anymore. 
Also, I think the common pages of xml.apache.org might need a slight 
'contentual' revamp too: I transcoded them to the new xdocs format 
required by Forrest several months ago, Nicola pushed them live, but all 
this without much interventions nor questions by the xml.a.o PMC. So 
even though we now have a new website, it's still the same old content, 
and not much has happened on a general level inside xml.a.o

Revamping the community spirit on a general xml.a.o-level is something 
an expanded PMC might perhaps work on - and I know this isn't strictly 
required from a PMC. But since the birth of that new community-thing, 
since several other Apache projects have decided to go toplevel, I have 
been wondering what the goal and scope of xml.a.o are when all larger 
projects will eventually move away, and new code donations will arrive 
at incubator.a.o (still remains to be seen, however).

> 3. Alter the structure of xml.apache.org to have an "administrative" PMC 
> that takes care of legal type
> stuff, and a "technical" PMC that focuses more on techical issues and 
> oversight.

I don't see how much that would change.

Cheers,

</Steven>
-- 
Steven Noels                            http://outerthought.org/
Outerthought - Open Source, Java & XML Competence Support Center
Read my weblog at              http://radio.weblogs.com/0103539/
stevenn at outerthought.org                stevenn at apache.org


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