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Posted to dev@community.apache.org by Dave Fisher <wa...@apache.org> on 2022/02/04 16:03:03 UTC
The projects.apache.org site confuses basic principles
As I understand the ASF governance there are:
1. Project Management Committees -> Projects. For example: Apache Logging.
2. Products which are named artifacts from projects. For example: Apache Log4J
3. Releases which are released artifacts of a project’s product. For example: Apache Log4J 2.17.1
But on the https://projects.apache.org website the corresponding three items are called:
1. Committees.
2. Projects.
3. Releases.
I suspect that this “confusion” is due to a combination of the split of the PRC committee and the former time of supper projects like Apache Jakarta.
This ought to be adjusted somehow because it leads to misunderstanding about responsibility.
All The Best,
Dave
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Re: The projects.apache.org site confuses basic principles
Posted by Christopher <ct...@apache.org>.
(Dropped press@ from reply)
I don't find the wording there too confusing if you know that "Projects"
includes both top-level and sub-projects. This seems obvious to me when the
site says "199 committees managing 351 projects", but that could be
clarified further by having it say "199 project management committees
(PMCs) managing 351 top-level projects and their sub-projects".
The part of the site that says "Committees evolution (also called PMCs or
Top Level Projects)" makes it clear that there's a 1-to-1 mapping of PMCs
and top-level projects. But that could be further clarified as "PMC
evolution (one for each top-level project)".
This is the breakdown I understand:
1. PMCs (project management 'committees' - committees that each manage one
or more projects)
2. Projects (includes top-level projects and their sub-projects)
3. Releases (individual artifacts distributed from each project)
I actually find the use of the word "product" to be more confusing because
the "P" in "PMC" stands for "Project", not "Product". PMCs are neither
projects themselves nor committees that manage products. Rather, they are
committees that manage projects: one top-level each and any number of
sub-projects. So, the main confusing point I find in the page is the use of
the phrase "also called" to equate "Committee" with "Top Level Projects". A
PMC is not "also called" a "Top Level Project". Rather, it *manages* a top
level project.
On Fri, Feb 4, 2022 at 11:03 AM Dave Fisher <wa...@apache.org> wrote:
> As I understand the ASF governance there are:
>
> 1. Project Management Committees -> Projects. For example: Apache Logging.
> 2. Products which are named artifacts from projects. For example: Apache
> Log4J
> 3. Releases which are released artifacts of a project’s product. For
> example: Apache Log4J 2.17.1
>
> But on the https://projects.apache.org website the corresponding three
> items are called:
>
> 1. Committees.
> 2. Projects.
> 3. Releases.
>
> I suspect that this “confusion” is due to a combination of the split of
> the PRC committee and the former time of supper projects like Apache
> Jakarta.
>
> This ought to be adjusted somehow because it leads to misunderstanding
> about responsibility.
>
> All The Best,
> Dave
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@community.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@community.apache.org
>
>
Re: The projects.apache.org site confuses basic principles
Posted by Hervé BOUTEMY <he...@free.fr>.
> > I seem to remember struggling with this specific naming decision when the
> > projects.a.o site was first put up.
> This was setup in the PRC, correct? (IIRC - PRC was split into comdev,
> conference, trademark, and press about 12 years ago)
I did that naming research and implementation in projects.a.o 5 years ago, and
shared with Comdev member the issues during ApacheCon Sevilla
Yes, we have naming issues particularly on
Committee ~ PMC ~ TLP ~ sometimes "project" [1]
vs
project ~ sub-project
see the "Projects by Committee" page to see which TLPs declare many sub-
projects [2]
I won't dig into the "product" semantics (some TLPs have much more Git
repositories than they have declared sub-projects: what is effective product
granularity?).
Nor dig into the question of how TLPs declare (or not) their TLP data (with
RDF files) and their sub-projects (with DOAP files).
To me, TLP and sub-projects are the words that clarify things internally when
we speak at Apache level, but these words were not well accepted during
discussons.
I did a main naming choice on projects.a.o: Committee vs Project
And I tried to use it consistently in the site, while making explicit in the
main page "Committees evolution (also called PMCs or Top Level Projects)"
If someone wants to take a new pass at it, I'm open: but experience shows that
it's hard to have a simple wording that works in any case with every project
(TLPs with single project and single Git repo, vs TLPs with a few sub-projects
and many Git repositories, and I don't name Subversion because it's harder to
count Subversion "roots"...)
At least, I'm happy that after 5 years, projects.a.o is now a reference list
that people are interested to improve :)
Regards,
Hervé
[1] https://www.apache.org/index.html#projects-list
[2] https://projects.apache.org/projects.html?committee
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Re: The projects.apache.org site confuses basic principles
Posted by Dave Fisher <wa...@apache.org>.
> On Feb 4, 2022, at 8:51 AM, Rich Bowen <rb...@rcbowen.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2/4/22 11:03, Dave Fisher wrote:
>> As I understand the ASF governance there are:
>> 1. Project Management Committees -> Projects. For example: Apache Logging.
>> 2. Products which are named artifacts from projects. For example: Apache Log4J
>> 3. Releases which are released artifacts of a project’s product. For example: Apache Log4J 2.17.1
>
> The word "Product" means something different to many consumers of software. We don't have products in that sense. We have projects and sub-projects.
(I came into Apache committership through Apache Jakarta POI. A project with too many sub-projects. I think that there is an important distinction between PMC and responsibility for Product vs. Project and sub-Project, but that’s an orthogonal issue.)
We do have products. The Brand committee makes the distinction between projects and products. See https://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/list/ for example.
>
> I seem to remember struggling with this specific naming decision when the projects.a.o site was first put up.
This was setup in the PRC, correct? (IIRC - PRC was split into comdev, conference, trademark, and press about 12 years ago)
>
> That said ... patches welcome.
Sure - I included press@ because this site is an important reference for them.
>
>> But on the https://projects.apache.org website the corresponding three items are called:
>> 1. Committees.
>> 2. Projects.
>> 3. Releases.
>> I suspect that this “confusion” is due to a combination of the split of the PRC committee and the former time of supper projects like Apache Jakarta.
>> This ought to be adjusted somehow because it leads to misunderstanding about responsibility.
>> All The Best,
>> Dave
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Re: The projects.apache.org site confuses basic principles
Posted by Rich Bowen <rb...@rcbowen.com>.
On 2/4/22 11:03, Dave Fisher wrote:
> As I understand the ASF governance there are:
>
> 1. Project Management Committees -> Projects. For example: Apache Logging.
> 2. Products which are named artifacts from projects. For example: Apache Log4J
> 3. Releases which are released artifacts of a project’s product. For example: Apache Log4J 2.17.1
The word "Product" means something different to many consumers of
software. We don't have products in that sense. We have projects and
sub-projects.
I seem to remember struggling with this specific naming decision when
the projects.a.o site was first put up.
That said ... patches welcome.
> But on the https://projects.apache.org website the corresponding three items are called:
>
> 1. Committees.
> 2. Projects.
> 3. Releases.
>
> I suspect that this “confusion” is due to a combination of the split of the PRC committee and the former time of supper projects like Apache Jakarta.
>
> This ought to be adjusted somehow because it leads to misunderstanding about responsibility.
>
> All The Best,
> Dave
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