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Posted to general@xml.apache.org by Fotis Jannidis <fo...@lrz.uni-muenchen.de> on 2001/03/01 11:19:35 UTC
Re: Volunteers needed: Reboot of the XML 'PMC'.
From: Dirk-Willem van Gulik <di...@covalent.net>
> Care to write it down in such a way as it would appear ? I.e. see
> the web site for what is there now (xml.apache.org/misson.html
> et.al.) and see what you would come up with - possibly with > '
> footnotes' where needed to explain what is really meant.
What I had in mind would be an addition on the page
http://xml.apache.org/management.html section "Roles".
>>>
The PMC is responsible for the strategic direction and success of
the xml.apache.org Project. This governing body is expected
to ensure the project's welfare and guide its overall direction. The
PMC may not necessarily participate in the day-to-day coding but
is involved in the overall development plans, the alleviation of any
bottlenecks, the resolution of conflicts, and the overall technical
success of the project.
<<<
NEW:
In order to handle problems concerning more than one sub project
the PMC can create working groups with volunteers from all
Apache projects. [Footnote / Addition: These working
groups are task oriented and dissolved as soon as the
problem is solved or some agreement has been found.]
Fotis
Re: Volunteers needed: Reboot of the XML 'PMC'.
Posted by Arved Sandstrom <Ar...@chebucto.ns.ca>.
On Sat, 03 Mar 2001, Arnaud Le Hors wrote:
> Arved Sandstrom wrote:
> >
> > But XML Apache has another current
> > goal - "to provide feedback to standards bodies (such as IETF and W3C) from
> > an implementation perspective" - that covers this base, too; we are
> > responsible for generating quality feedback to the spec writers. Why?
> > Because we said so, ourselves. And I'm not sure we do that so well, either.
>
> I couldn't tell if it's true for all the XML projects but my guess is
> that the situation is actually better than you might think. As it
> stands, several committers of Xerces and Xalan are members of the
> various standard committees that actually produce the specs that govern
> these projects. I, for one, regularly forward Xerces users feedback to
> the W3C Working Groups I'm in (XML Core and DOM). I'm sure this is true
> for other committers involved in similar groups.
> This said, it would be nice to identify these people and figure how much
> coverage we actually have.
FOP committers have personal contacts with several members of the W3C XSL WG
(FO group), and we touch base with other implementors to help define something
of a common front. And I know that Max Froumentin regularly monitors fop-dev.
Apart from sending direct requests for clarification and comments to XSL
editors, which is infrequent at the moment, we are aware that several XSL (FO)
spec types keep an eye on certain mailing lists (Mulberry XSL, and now W3C XSL
FO), and these are useful places for raising general concerns. So we are not
doing too badly.
I don't know how much input and fedback James Tauber managed to provide to the
XSL WG back in 1999 or early 2000, say, but since then I'd guess that
implementor feedback has played a minimal part in guiding XSL 1.0 (mostly
because it was too late). The real challenge will be in seeing what we can do
better with XSL 2.0.
I'm personally hoping that the WG just declares XSL 1.0 a Recommendation and
moves on. There is enough of an implementation base and enough community
comprehension of the spec to declare victory, IMO. Right now there is something
of a delay due to unfortunate (and unrealistic) exit conditions built into the
Candidate Recommendation, which has to do with testing. I don't really want to
get into the details, but suffice it to say that some things weren't well
handled. I'm waiting to hear back as to what will happen with this. Be that as
it may, I think that FOP as a whole will be quite proactive in widening our
engagement with W3C XSL WG members, in future.
Regards,
Arved Sandstrom
Re: Volunteers needed: Reboot of the XML 'PMC'.
Posted by Arnaud Le Hors <le...@us.ibm.com>.
One thing I'd like to see happening with this reboot is a clear rule on
who can be on the PMC list. As it stands there are people on the PMC
list who are not part of the PMC per say, and I'm not aware of why
they've been granted this privilege while other people (in particular
committers) have never been offered to be on the list themselves.
I would suggest as a rule that all committers are offered to subscribe.
--
Arnaud Le Hors - IBM Cupertino, XML Strategy Group
Re: Volunteers needed: Reboot of the XML 'PMC'.
Posted by Arnaud Le Hors <le...@us.ibm.com>.
Arved Sandstrom wrote:
>
> But XML Apache has another current
> goal - "to provide feedback to standards bodies (such as IETF and W3C) from
> an implementation perspective" - that covers this base, too; we are
> responsible for generating quality feedback to the spec writers. Why?
> Because we said so, ourselves. And I'm not sure we do that so well, either.
I couldn't tell if it's true for all the XML projects but my guess is
that the situation is actually better than you might think. As it
stands, several committers of Xerces and Xalan are members of the
various standard committees that actually produce the specs that govern
these projects. I, for one, regularly forward Xerces users feedback to
the W3C Working Groups I'm in (XML Core and DOM). I'm sure this is true
for other committers involved in similar groups.
This said, it would be nice to identify these people and figure how much
coverage we actually have.
--
Arnaud Le Hors - IBM Cupertino, XML Strategy Group
Re: Volunteers needed: Reboot of the XML 'PMC'.
Posted by Arved Sandstrom <Ar...@chebucto.ns.ca>.
At 02:06 PM 3/1/01 -0700, Kimbro Staken wrote:
[SNIP]
>To achieve this I suggest that you keep your PMC small, 3-4 people vs.
>the 3-9 originally called for. Task the PMC with high level strategic
>and administrative tasks and the authority to delegate operational
>issues to temp groups. By delegating operational issues you remove the
>need to have members from all sub projects on the PMC. You need to think
>about the situation as you add additional projects. If all current
>projects have representation all future projects will also expect
>representation with the likely end result that your PMC will be so large
>that it will once again be inneffective. Most of your business is done
>out in the open anyway so this shouldn't really be a problem as everyone
>will see what is going on and will still have input. You should also
>accept that your PMC is serving two masters. First the development
>community within the Apache XML project and second the target market at
>which you are aiming the technology under development. Most of the
>discussion I've seen so far has focused on the first master and ignores
>the second. I think you need to keep both in mind to continue growth of
>the organization.
Good points all (the rest of your post included). Apache prides itself on
being not just another software sweatshop, open-source or no open-source,
but in fostering a sense of community, and this is a very worthy goal. But
the main goal always has to be the end-user...after all, what is the point
of developing software otherwise?
The current goals for XML Apache includes: "to provide commercial-quality
standards-based XML solutions that are developed in an open and cooperative
fashion". Assuming that this remains a goal, I think we will all certainly
acknowledge that it is entirely impossible to do the above without
soliciting user requirements, i.e. without being responsive to the user
community. If you look at the fop-dev mailing list, which also acts as a
user list, I think you will see that FOP, at least, tries to listen. I'm not
saying that others don't - I simply don't know. But it would be nice to see
this being stressed more strongly at the overall project level.
A number of Apache XML projects have their requirements nailed down quite a
bit since they are trying to implement a spec. In such cases we have to hope
that the spec writers did the due diligence and got input from users (in
some cases I suspect that they didn't). But XML Apache has another current
goal - "to provide feedback to standards bodies (such as IETF and W3C) from
an implementation perspective" - that covers this base, too; we are
responsible for generating quality feedback to the spec writers. Why?
Because we said so, ourselves. And I'm not sure we do that so well, either.
I like the direction this discussion is headed. You're absolutely right,
IMO. To quote your above: "...your PMC is serving two masters. First the
development community within the Apache XML project and second the target
market..." Yes, I agree. And there is also the legalistic third aspect -
being answerable to the board. I tend to agree that perhaps a smallish PMC
with high-level tasks and an oversight mandate (QA, effectively: "did you do
what you said that you were going to do? No? Why not?"), and operational
groups on a contingency basis, as has been proposed here, sounds like a
workable solution to address all 3 concerns.
Regards,
Arved Sandstrom
Fairly Senior Software Type
e-plicity (http://www.e-plicity.com)
Wireless * B2B * J2EE * XML --- Halifax, Nova Scotia
Re: Volunteers needed: Reboot of the XML 'PMC'.
Posted by Kimbro Staken <ks...@dbxmlgroup.com>.
I think you're on the right track with this. As I've been observing you
clearly have two different levels of problems to address. First the
management problems that were outlined in the orignal email from Dirk
and second the operational problems as raised by members of the various
projects. It seems you have a conflict between the roles of the PMC and
the type of people who are interested and capable of filling those
roles. Maybe this is why in the past the PMC has been ineffective.
Having the PMC tasked with both strategic management and tactical
operations is a lot to ask and those are roles typically fulfilled by
different types of people. I'm going to use a few naughty words here but
I think you need to treat the organization as a business. It isn't a
traditional business as your goal is not to make money but it is a
business just the same as any non-profit is a business. To this end you
need to insure that your management role is doing many of the things
that managers in traditional businesses are doing. This includes setting
direction, resolving disputes and yes even marketing(brrr. I can feel
the chill) :-). Ultimately you need to decide why does the PMC exist at
all. Does it exist to guide the Apache XML organization on a path of
growth and prosperity or does it exist to solve cross project technical
problems? Having it attempt to directly tackle both will make it
ineffective.
In the case of "Temporary Working Groups" the role of the PMC might be
to guide their formation, provide oversight and insure momentum is
maintained during the effort and then disolve the effort when the
working group has determined the problem is solved.
Right now you're placing people who are primarilly developers into a
role of stategic management. This will work for small organizations but
as you grow it will become more of a problem. It seems the ASF overall
has succeeded in making this transition, now might be the time for the
XML group to do the same.
To achieve this I suggest that you keep your PMC small, 3-4 people vs.
the 3-9 originally called for. Task the PMC with high level strategic
and administrative tasks and the authority to delegate operational
issues to temp groups. By delegating operational issues you remove the
need to have members from all sub projects on the PMC. You need to think
about the situation as you add additional projects. If all current
projects have representation all future projects will also expect
representation with the likely end result that your PMC will be so large
that it will once again be inneffective. Most of your business is done
out in the open anyway so this shouldn't really be a problem as everyone
will see what is going on and will still have input. You should also
accept that your PMC is serving two masters. First the development
community within the Apache XML project and second the target market at
which you are aiming the technology under development. Most of the
discussion I've seen so far has focused on the first master and ignores
the second. I think you need to keep both in mind to continue growth of
the organization.
This is just my 2 pennies. Keep in mind, I'm looking at the Apache XML
project as a consumer of the technology that you are developing not as a
person developing that technology. From that perspective I'm seeing
struggling on strategic direction and management, which is why I
volunteered to help out. Because of my work on dbXML my programming
mental bandwidth is used up so I can't contribute on a code level but I
think I can contribute on other levels. Especially if you guys really
want to add an XML database. If I can help I'd love to do so but if you
consider me unqualified because of lack of code contributions it's all
good to me too. :-) BTW, just so you know I really do work on projects
you can take a look at the list archives for dbXML
http://www.geocrawler.com/archives/3/4793/2001/ and XML:DB
http://archive.xmldb.org/xmldb/threads.html.
James Melton wrote:
>
> It seems from reading the existing bylaws that there is nothing to
> prevent the PMC from doing as you suggested. Rather than actually
> changing the bylaws, perhaps another category under "Roles and
> Responsibilities" (http://xml.apache.org/roles.html) could include
> "Temporary Working Groups":
>
> "Temporary Working Groups are created by the PMC to resolve issues that
> require more attention than the PMC can provide directly. Typically
> these are issues that affect multiple subprojects. Members are drawn
> from the Open Source community and are appointed by the PMC. The Working
> Group acts in place of the PMC to resolve an issue, and upon resolution
> the group dissolves."
>
> Jim.
>
> Fotis Jannidis wrote:
> >
> > From: Dirk-Willem van Gulik <di...@covalent.net>
> >
> > > Care to write it down in such a way as it would appear ? I.e. see
> > > the web site for what is there now (xml.apache.org/misson.html
> > > et.al.) and see what you would come up with - possibly with > '
> > > footnotes' where needed to explain what is really meant.
> >
> > What I had in mind would be an addition on the page
> > http://xml.apache.org/management.html section "Roles".
> >
> > >>>
> > The PMC is responsible for the strategic direction and success of
> > the xml.apache.org Project. This governing body is expected
> > to ensure the project's welfare and guide its overall direction. The
> > PMC may not necessarily participate in the day-to-day coding but
> > is involved in the overall development plans, the alleviation of any
> > bottlenecks, the resolution of conflicts, and the overall technical
> > success of the project.
> > <<<
> >
> > NEW:
> > In order to handle problems concerning more than one sub project
> > the PMC can create working groups with volunteers from all
> > Apache projects. [Footnote / Addition: These working
> > groups are task oriented and dissolved as soon as the
> > problem is solved or some agreement has been found.]
> >
> > Fotis
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > In case of troubles, e-mail: webmaster@xml.apache.org
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@xml.apache.org
> > For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@xml.apache.org
>
> --
>
> ____________________________________________________________
> James Melton CyLogix
> 609.750.5190 609.750.5100
> james.melton@cylogix.com www.cylogix.com
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> In case of troubles, e-mail: webmaster@xml.apache.org
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@xml.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@xml.apache.org
--
Kimbro Staken
Chief Technology Officer
dbXML Group L.L.C
http://www.dbxmlgroup.com
Re: Volunteers needed: Reboot of the XML 'PMC'.
Posted by Dirk-Willem van Gulik <di...@covalent.net>.
On Thu, 1 Mar 2001, James Melton wrote:
> It seems from reading the existing bylaws that there is nothing to
> prevent the PMC from doing as you suggested. Rather than actually
> changing the bylaws, perhaps another category under "Roles and
> Responsibilities" (http://xml.apache.org/roles.html) could include
> "Temporary Working Groups":
Absolutely correct.
> "Temporary Working Groups are created by the PMC to resolve issues that
> require more attention than the PMC can provide directly. Typically
> these are issues that affect multiple subprojects. Members are drawn
> from the Open Source community and are appointed by the PMC. The Working
> Group acts in place of the PMC to resolve an issue, and upon resolution
> the group dissolves."
Nice.
Dw
Re: Volunteers needed: Reboot of the XML 'PMC'.
Posted by James Melton <ja...@cylogix.com>.
It seems from reading the existing bylaws that there is nothing to
prevent the PMC from doing as you suggested. Rather than actually
changing the bylaws, perhaps another category under "Roles and
Responsibilities" (http://xml.apache.org/roles.html) could include
"Temporary Working Groups":
"Temporary Working Groups are created by the PMC to resolve issues that
require more attention than the PMC can provide directly. Typically
these are issues that affect multiple subprojects. Members are drawn
from the Open Source community and are appointed by the PMC. The Working
Group acts in place of the PMC to resolve an issue, and upon resolution
the group dissolves."
Jim.
Fotis Jannidis wrote:
>
> From: Dirk-Willem van Gulik <di...@covalent.net>
>
> > Care to write it down in such a way as it would appear ? I.e. see
> > the web site for what is there now (xml.apache.org/misson.html
> > et.al.) and see what you would come up with - possibly with > '
> > footnotes' where needed to explain what is really meant.
>
> What I had in mind would be an addition on the page
> http://xml.apache.org/management.html section "Roles".
>
> >>>
> The PMC is responsible for the strategic direction and success of
> the xml.apache.org Project. This governing body is expected
> to ensure the project's welfare and guide its overall direction. The
> PMC may not necessarily participate in the day-to-day coding but
> is involved in the overall development plans, the alleviation of any
> bottlenecks, the resolution of conflicts, and the overall technical
> success of the project.
> <<<
>
> NEW:
> In order to handle problems concerning more than one sub project
> the PMC can create working groups with volunteers from all
> Apache projects. [Footnote / Addition: These working
> groups are task oriented and dissolved as soon as the
> problem is solved or some agreement has been found.]
>
> Fotis
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> In case of troubles, e-mail: webmaster@xml.apache.org
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@xml.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@xml.apache.org
--
____________________________________________________________
James Melton CyLogix
609.750.5190 609.750.5100
james.melton@cylogix.com www.cylogix.com