Re: What is a healthy community? WAS: log4net 1.2.9 beta release

[Ceki Gülcü <ce...@qos.ch>]

At 07:53 PM 3/12/2005, Roy T.Fielding wrote:
>On the contrary, the rule is that you must have at least three
>binding +1 votes from the PMC in order to make a release of anything.

Roy,

For me, the accepting responsibility over a project, say X, translates into 
an engagement to take over  project X if and when the existing committers 
stop working on it. When PMC members cast a binding vote on a given release 
of project X, they are approving the release, in the sense that the release 
is "OK". Their binding vote does *not* mean that they are able to take over 
the project in terms of development resources. Thus, accepting 
responsibility and casting binding votes do not have exactly the same 
meaning. Would you agree?

If taking responsibility means exercising oversight over the sub-projects 
in Logging Services, then I think the LS PMC can only accede to your and 
Noel's request. That much seems pretty obvious.

However, if taking responsibility means providing the development resources 
in case a sub-project  lacks development resources, we cannot collectively 
make such a pledge. I also have to say that insisting on such a pledge 
strikes me as unreasonable. How can a PMC pledge resources it does not have 
or control? The only development resource the PMC "controls" are the 
individuals composing the PMC. To be precise, each voting PMC member 
controls one resource: himself.

>I don't believe in umbrella projects, so from my perspective log4net
>is just one subdirectory in logging.  If logging wants to take
>responsibility for it and logging has at least 3 people willing
>to +1 its releases, then I don't see how keeping it in incubator
>will help.  If logging later loses interest in the project, then
>there won't be 3 +1s to do a release, the code will remain static,
>and we are no worse off than if that code had died within incubator.
>In any case, it is far more likely to gain community once it
>leaves incubator, so making "community" a requirement for graduating
>a subdirectory of an existing project is self-defeating.
>
>....Roy

-- 
Ceki Gülcü

   The complete log4j manual: http://www.qos.ch/log4j/



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Re: What is a healthy community? WAS: log4net 1.2.9 beta release

["Roy T. Fielding" <fi...@gbiv.com>]

On Mar 14, 2005, at 3:08 AM, Ceki Gülcü wrote:

> At 07:53 PM 3/12/2005, Roy T.Fielding wrote:
>> On the contrary, the rule is that you must have at least three
>> binding +1 votes from the PMC in order to make a release of anything.
>
> Roy,
>
> For me, the accepting responsibility over a project, say X, translates 
> into an engagement to take over  project X if and when the existing 
> committers stop working on it.

No, that is not what accepting responsibility means.  What it means is
that the PMC is responsible for ensuring that it is either run as an
Apache project (open to new contributors, advancing people to greater
responsibility, etc.) or shut down as soon as that proves not to be
the case.  A one-person project must be encouraged to be a three-plus
person project or it simply does not belong at Apache, period.  That
is a minimum.

> When PMC members cast a binding vote on a given release of project X, 
> they are approving the release, in the sense that the release is "OK". 
> Their binding vote does *not* mean that they are able to take over the 
> project in terms of development resources. Thus, accepting 
> responsibility and casting binding votes do not have exactly the same 
> meaning. Would you agree?

No.  Binding votes are binding because they have been given 
responsibility
by the ASF to determine whether it is safe to release the software.

> If taking responsibility means exercising oversight over the 
> sub-projects in Logging Services, then I think the LS PMC can only 
> accede to your and Noel's request. That much seems pretty obvious.
>
> However, if taking responsibility means providing the development 
> resources in case a sub-project  lacks development resources, we 
> cannot collectively make such a pledge. I also have to say that 
> insisting on such a pledge strikes me as unreasonable. How can a PMC 
> pledge resources it does not have or control? The only development 
> resource the PMC "controls" are the individuals composing the PMC. To 
> be precise, each voting PMC member controls one resource: himself.

Exactly, which is why umbrella projects never work and thus it is
better for a project to be forced into growing their own community.
Designers are resistant to give up personal control over a project,
and the veto allows them to retain enough technical control while
still opening up participation.  When a subproject only has one or
two developers active, we require that the PMC be involved in all
release decisions until such time as it successfully encourages
additional people to get involved.  The only difference between my
and Noel's opinion is that I think the logging PMC can take over
the community-building role from the incubator PMC once the legal
obstacles have been cleared, whereas he seems to believe that the
incubator should not graduate a podling until it is ready to be
independent.

I would agree with Noel if it weren't for the fact that the
incubator PMC does not build communities either -- that role has
been entirely left to the mentors, who are typically from the
destination PMC.  Graduating subprojects earlier would let us
focus on the podlings that are destined to be TLPs.

....Roy

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