releasing without 3 PMC votes

[Ted Dunning <te...@gmail.com>]

I think that

We should not be releasing without following the Apache release guidelines.

In particular, 3 votes from the PMC are absolutely required to make a
release.  This is a universal requirement for all Apache projects and
really isn't open for debate.

If we are consistently having problems getting 3 PM votes, then we need to
address that by adding active committers to the PMC, not by releasing
software without the necessary process.

Anybody think anything else on this topic?

Re: releasing without 3 PMC votes

[Andrew Musselman <an...@gmail.com>]

It took a while but we got three votes, or am I misunderstanding?

> On Jan 31, 2014, at 6:42 PM, Ted Dunning <te...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I think that
> 
> We should not be releasing without following the Apache release guidelines.
> 
> In particular, 3 votes from the PMC are absolutely required to make a
> release.  This is a universal requirement for all Apache projects and
> really isn't open for debate.
> 
> If we are consistently having problems getting 3 PM votes, then we need to
> address that by adding active committers to the PMC, not by releasing
> software without the necessary process.
> 
> Anybody think anything else on this topic?

Re: releasing without 3 PMC votes

[Ted Dunning <te...@gmail.com>]

Yes.  That is my understanding as well.

My suggestion is that we should make the time required to get the 3 votes
shorter, recognizing schedule conflicts will arise.

We have some experimental evidence about how likely it is to take a certain
amount of time to get the votes with due diligence.  My feeling is that we
need to shorten that time a bit and we have the raw materials to do so.



On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 10:21 PM, Andrew Musselman <
andrew.musselman@gmail.com> wrote:

> As I understand, there were enough votes though it did take a while to
> find them.
>
> Could be the extended voting period and the roll-backs obscured that fact..
>
> > On Feb 7, 2014, at 9:48 PM, Ted Dunning <te...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 6:36 AM, Isabel Drost-Fromm <isabel@apache.org
> >wrote:
> >
> >> However my personal take is that in case getting 3 PM votes is a
> problem,
> >> then we as a community have a problem with too few people having time to
> >> actually respond.
> >
> > I agree with the conditional, but disagree with the application to
> Mahout.
> >
> > We just had a larger than usual number of PMC members who had schedule
> > conflicts this time around.  Over time, I think we probably should
> increase
> > the number of active PMC members.
>

Re: releasing without 3 PMC votes

[Andrew Musselman <an...@gmail.com>]

As I understand, there were enough votes though it did take a while to find them.

Could be the extended voting period and the roll-backs obscured that fact..

> On Feb 7, 2014, at 9:48 PM, Ted Dunning <te...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 6:36 AM, Isabel Drost-Fromm <is...@apache.org>wrote:
> 
>> However my personal take is that in case getting 3 PM votes is a problem,
>> then we as a community have a problem with too few people having time to
>> actually respond.
> 
> I agree with the conditional, but disagree with the application to Mahout.
> 
> We just had a larger than usual number of PMC members who had schedule
> conflicts this time around.  Over time, I think we probably should increase
> the number of active PMC members.

Re: releasing without 3 PMC votes

[Ted Dunning <te...@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 6:36 AM, Isabel Drost-Fromm <is...@apache.org>wrote:

> However my personal take is that in case getting 3 PM votes is a problem,
> then we as a community have a problem with too few people having time to
> actually respond.
>

I agree with the conditional, but disagree with the application to Mahout.

We just had a larger than usual number of PMC members who had schedule
conflicts this time around.  Over time, I think we probably should increase
the number of active PMC members.

Re: releasing without 3 PMC votes

[Isabel Drost-Fromm <is...@apache.org>]

On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 06:42:09PM -0800, Ted Dunning wrote:
> We should not be releasing without following the Apache release guidelines.
> 
> In particular, 3 votes from the PMC are absolutely required to make a
> release.  This is a universal requirement for all Apache projects and
> really isn't open for debate.

+1


> If we are consistently having problems getting 3 PM votes, then we need to
> address that by adding active committers to the PMC, not by releasing
> software without the necessary process.

+1

Just to be clear - this means first putting up the release candidate, than getting the three votes, than actually doing the release - in that very order.

Unless this process is followed our releases are no longer official Apache releases potentially calling very loudly for legal trouble. There is a discussion going on over at com-dev on faster release cadence for Apache releases - if you want to change the policy I would strongly urge you to participate there. However my personal take is that in case getting 3 PM votes is a problem, then we as a community have a problem with too few people having time to actually respond.


Isabel