[PMC] change the procedure for new committers

[David Crossley <cr...@apache.org>]

At the moment we do everything on the PMC private list
and only announce the new PMC member at the very end.
We do this ...

1) Vote and frank discussion in private.

2) If successful, then invite them.
after they accept, then do:

3) Advise them about next steps, ask for Contributor
License Agreement (CLA), usernames, etc..

4) Wait until PMC chair sees that receipt of CLA is recorded.

5) Ask root to create the account. Then wait.
ASF is a volunteer organisation, root is busy.

6) After the account is created, tell the new committer
which SVN repositories they have access to and what the
next steps are.

7) After the account is created, chair send email to board@
asking for acknowledgement of new PMC member. We need to
know their username, so we need to wait for item 5.

8) A board member will acknowledge the email receipt.
Wait for 72 hours to allow any board member to reply.
It is a procedural requirement.

8) Ask them to subscribe to the private pmc@ list.

10) Announce them to the dev list.

11) Add them to the forrest-developers group in Jira.

               --oOo---

Now all that waiting causes problems, e.g. Cyriaque's case
had successful vote, but we cannot yet announce it to the
dev list.

Ooops, someone just let the cat out of the bag :-)

It would be better if we could announce them to dev@ list
at step 3 and just say that there are more procedural steps
which will take some time.

However there are two potential problems there:

What if the new person refused to submit the CLA?
I cannot see why - it doesn't take away any of
their rights.

What if the board denied them being a PMC member?
I cannot see why they would, but that procedural step
still needs to happen.

In those cases we would need to retract our statements
to the dev list. I am happy to live with the consequences
of that, so i propose to change our procedural docs to
do the dev announcement after step 3. If anyone has
issues then speak up, otherwise i will just do it.

-David

Re: [PMC] change the procedure for new committers

[David Crossley <cr...@apache.org>]

Ferdinand Soethe wrote:
> David Crossley wrote:
> 
> > Now all that waiting causes problems, e.g. Cyriaque's case
> > had successful vote, but we cannot yet announce it to the
> > dev list.
> 
> I didn't follow Cyriaque's case closely so I'm not sure what problem
> this creates, could you explain this please.

It takes such a long time before the procedure
is finished and all PMC members need to keep quiet
about it until the end. In this case two of us
accidently talked about Cyriaque becoming a committer.
We still have not announced to the dev list that he
is a new committer/PMC member.

I am on a constant drive to talk as little as possible
on the private PMC mailing list. This gives the impression
that we talk a lot in private, and we don't want that
false impression.

Thoughout that whole procedure, the new committer needs
to send email to the PMC list about any queries.
That should all happen in the open.

> > It would be better if we could announce them to dev@ list
> > at step 3 and just say that there are more procedural steps
> > which will take some time.
> 
> [...]
> 
> > What if the board denied them being a PMC member?
> > I cannot see why they would, but that procedural step
> > still needs to happen.
> 
> If this does not happen, why is this part of the procedure still in
> place. As it is I'd not (0) be in favour of just jumping it because of
> the complications involved if they choose to exercise their right to
> deny them membership.

I gather that it is an official requirement for a corporation
(the ASF is a non-profit corporation) that the board needs
to acknowledge the addition/removal of committee members.
I use dthe wrong words above. I don't think that it is
anything to do with denying a person to become a member,
though i could be wrong.

> How about starting a motion to do away with this step or else
> simplify procedure (why does it need to wait for step 5 so that it
> doesn't get delayed).

As above, we cannot delete that board acknowledgement step.

It needs to wait for step 5 because we need to know the
committer username to tell the board and add to
svn:committers/board/committe-info.txt

-David

Re: [PMC] change the procedure for new committers

[Ferdinand Soethe <fe...@apache.org>]

David Crossley wrote:

> Now all that waiting causes problems, e.g. Cyriaque's case
> had successful vote, but we cannot yet announce it to the
> dev list.

I didn't follow Cyriaque's case closely so I'm not sure what problem
this creates, could you explain this please.

> It would be better if we could announce them to dev@ list
> at step 3 and just say that there are more procedural steps
> which will take some time.

[...]

> What if the board denied them being a PMC member?
> I cannot see why they would, but that procedural step
> still needs to happen.

If this does not happen, why is this part of the procedure still in
place. As it is I'd not (0) be in favour of just jumping it because of
the complications involved if they choose to exercise their right to
deny them membership.

How about starting a motion to do away with this step or else
simplify procedure (why does it need to wait for step 5 so that it
doesn't get delayed).

--
Ferdinand Soethe

Re: [PMC] change the procedure for new committers

[Tim Williams <wi...@gmail.com>]

On 8/17/05, David Crossley <cr...@apache.org> wrote:
> Tim Williams wrote:
> > Ross Gardler wrote:
> > > David Crossley wrote:
> > > >
> > > > However there are two potential problems there:
> > > >
> > > > What if the new person refused to submit the CLA?
> > > > I cannot see why - it doesn't take away any of
> > > > their rights.
> > >
> > > If someone does refuse then that would lead to an interesting and
> > > valuable onlist discussion. Although I agree, I don't think anyone ever
> > > would.
> >
> > One reason I could see is that they may not be their rights to assign
> > and they may not look into it until after they accept the
> > committer/pmc offer.  For example, I had my corporate legal review the
> > CLA *after* I accepted the offer to become a committer.  In my case,
> > the way contracts are written, both my customer and company jointly
> > own the IP for my work on contract so both have to agree to it.  Since
> > I've yet to get anyone to pay me to do Forrest-related work;) it's not
> > yet an issue for me.  One could argue that this should be looked into
> > before accepting and that sounds reasonable, it just didn't happen in
> > my case.
> 
> Great stuff Tim, exactly the discussion that we need.
> 
> So it would be best to wait until a CLA is recorded.
> That step can take some time, but it is worth the wait.
> 
> Any issues about the CLA should probably be discussed
> in private. Sure it would be good for the community
> to understand the issues via an open discussion,
> however i imagine that the person and their employer
> would not want this. So that would be done on our
> pmc@ list if that is what the person wants. We can
> also generalise the issues and take them to the
> legal-discuss list.
> 
> Please all committers remember that you need to
> continually re-assess your situation. You might need
> to submit a Corporate CLA as well as an Individual CLA
> if you contribute changes that are done with work-related
> resources.
> 
> -David

I think changing the procedure also clears up another small point of
confusion.  When to have the first commit.  The new committer gets
there credentials and permissions and are told that there is a three
day wait for board acknowledgement.  Even though they can technically
committ at that point it would make the news publicly available before
the official announcement.  I waited three days or for the official
announcement not know exactly what to do, but these new procedures
will make this a non-issue.   Just one more reason for the
documentation I suppose.
--tim

Re: [PMC] change the procedure for new committers

[David Crossley <cr...@apache.org>]

Tim Williams wrote:
> Ross Gardler wrote:
> > David Crossley wrote:
> > >
> > > However there are two potential problems there:
> > >
> > > What if the new person refused to submit the CLA?
> > > I cannot see why - it doesn't take away any of
> > > their rights.
> > 
> > If someone does refuse then that would lead to an interesting and
> > valuable onlist discussion. Although I agree, I don't think anyone ever
> > would.
> 
> One reason I could see is that they may not be their rights to assign
> and they may not look into it until after they accept the
> committer/pmc offer.  For example, I had my corporate legal review the
> CLA *after* I accepted the offer to become a committer.  In my case,
> the way contracts are written, both my customer and company jointly
> own the IP for my work on contract so both have to agree to it.  Since
> I've yet to get anyone to pay me to do Forrest-related work;) it's not
> yet an issue for me.  One could argue that this should be looked into
> before accepting and that sounds reasonable, it just didn't happen in
> my case.

Great stuff Tim, exactly the discussion that we need.

So it would be best to wait until a CLA is recorded.
That step can take some time, but it is worth the wait.

Any issues about the CLA should probably be discussed
in private. Sure it would be good for the community
to understand the issues via an open discussion,
however i imagine that the person and their employer
would not want this. So that would be done on our
pmc@ list if that is what the person wants. We can
also generalise the issues and take them to the
legal-discuss list.

Please all committers remember that you need to
continually re-assess your situation. You might need
to submit a Corporate CLA as well as an Individual CLA
if you contribute changes that are done with work-related
resources.

-David

Re: [PMC] change the procedure for new committers

[Tim Williams <wi...@gmail.com>]

On 8/17/05, Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org> wrote:
> David Crossley wrote:
> 
> > It would be better if we could announce them to dev@ list
> > at step 3 and just say that there are more procedural steps
> > which will take some time.
> 
> +1
> 
> >
> > However there are two potential problems there:
> >
> > What if the new person refused to submit the CLA?
> > I cannot see why - it doesn't take away any of
> > their rights.
> 
> If someone does refuse then that would lead to an interesting and
> valuable onlist discussion. Although I agree, I don't think anyone ever
> would.

One reason I could see is that they may not be their rights to assign
and they may not look into it until after they accept the
committer/pmc offer.  For example, I had my corporate legal review the
CLA *after* I accepted the offer to become a committer.  In my case,
the way contracts are written, both my customer and company jointly
own the IP for my work on contract so both have to agree to it.  Since
I've yet to get anyone to pay me to do Forrest-related work;) it's not
yet an issue for me.  One could argue that this should be looked into
before accepting and that sounds reasonable, it just didn't happen in
my case.

> > What if the board denied them being a PMC member?
> > I cannot see why they would, but that procedural step
> > still needs to happen.
> 
> As I understand it (based on a later mail of yours in this thread) this
> is a legal step. I suppose there may be a situation in which the board
> "now something we don't" about an individual and deny them membership.
> Again, if this were ever to happen (I doubt it would) it would be for an
> extremely good reason. Having the denial in public would probably be an
> advantage in this instance too (although I doubt we would discuss the
> reasons for it, simply make a statement).
> 
> > In those cases we would need to retract our statements
> > to the dev list. I am happy to live with the consequences
> > of that, so i propose to change our procedural docs to
> > do the dev announcement after step 3. If anyone has
> > issues then speak up, otherwise i will just do it.
> 
> +1
> 
> Ross
>

Re: [PMC] change the procedure for new committers

[Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org>]

David Crossley wrote:

> It would be better if we could announce them to dev@ list
> at step 3 and just say that there are more procedural steps
> which will take some time.

+1

> 
> However there are two potential problems there:
> 
> What if the new person refused to submit the CLA?
> I cannot see why - it doesn't take away any of
> their rights.

If someone does refuse then that would lead to an interesting and 
valuable onlist discussion. Although I agree, I don't think anyone ever 
would.

> What if the board denied them being a PMC member?
> I cannot see why they would, but that procedural step
> still needs to happen.

As I understand it (based on a later mail of yours in this thread) this 
is a legal step. I suppose there may be a situation in which the board 
"now something we don't" about an individual and deny them membership. 
Again, if this were ever to happen (I doubt it would) it would be for an 
extremely good reason. Having the denial in public would probably be an 
advantage in this instance too (although I doubt we would discuss the 
reasons for it, simply make a statement).

> In those cases we would need to retract our statements
> to the dev list. I am happy to live with the consequences
> of that, so i propose to change our procedural docs to
> do the dev announcement after step 3. If anyone has
> issues then speak up, otherwise i will just do it.

+1

Ross