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Posted to general@jakarta.apache.org by Geir Magnusson Jr <ge...@4quarters.com> on 2003/12/20 14:16:50 UTC
PMC membership : "I fear additional responsibility"
I want to share a conversation that I hope sheds some light on what it
means to be on the PMC.
I was talking to a friend yesterday who said
"I fear additional responsibility".
I told him that he should have nothing to fear, as what's being asked
for is that the committers simply continue to pay attention. His
response was
"paying attention is a _big_ responsibility"
"That's true", I thought. So I told him
"but if you are interested in the project you are going to do that
anyway. IOW, most committers are paying attention to what's coming in"
"jakarta is just so big though"
Aha!
Being on the PMC doesn't mean you have to watch *every* commit in
*every* project. The requirement of the PMC is that it, as a committee
delegated oversight authority by the board, is responsible as a *group*
for that oversight. If we can organize ourselves so that there is
coverage that to an outside observer would be deemed reasonable and
effective, then we satisfy the needs of the ASF. (The board could void
this interpretation, but so far has indicated that it wouldn't).
So this person, who participates in <foo> and some components of
Jakarta Commons, would just continue to do what he normally does -
participate as he does already.
The only difference is that we would do our job and ensure that he
understands the rules about contributions, CLAs, and what code
contributions require the Incubator for IP accountability. ( Incubator
=> Largish contributions from outside of the ASF. Largish is loosely
defined : Small patch- and file-sized commits and contributions don't
need Incubator, an entire database project from Oracle does. The line
is somewhere in the middle :)
Anyway, I hope this example helps. It certainly gave me insight into
what this individual was struggling with, and I assume that he isn't
the only one...
geir
--
Geir Magnusson Jr 203-247-1713(m)
geir@4quarters.com
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Re: PMC membership : "I fear additional responsibility"
Posted by "Andrew C. Oliver" <ac...@apache.org>.
> Yep :) That's the interesting part here, and breaking the Jakarta up
> doesn't solve it - it just pushes the problem upwards to the board.
+1
--
Andrew C. Oliver
http://www.superlinksoftware.com/poi.jsp
Custom enhancements and Commercial Implementation for Jakarta POI
http://jakarta.apache.org/poi
For Java and Excel, Got POI?
The views expressed in this email are those of the author and are almost
definitely not shared by the Apache Software Foundation, its board or its
general membership. In fact they probably most definitively disagree with
everything espoused in the above email.
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Re: PMC membership : "I fear additional responsibility"
Posted by "Geir Magnusson Jr." <ge...@optonline.net>.
On Dec 20, 2003, at 5:01 PM, Martin Cooper wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Dec 2003, Geir Magnusson Jr wrote:
>
>> I want to share a conversation that I hope sheds some light on what it
>> means to be on the PMC.
>>
>> I was talking to a friend yesterday who said
>>
>> "I fear additional responsibility".
>>
>> I told him that he should have nothing to fear, as what's being asked
>> for is that the committers simply continue to pay attention. His
>> response was
>>
>> "paying attention is a _big_ responsibility"
>>
>> "That's true", I thought. So I told him
>>
>> "but if you are interested in the project you are going to do that
>> anyway. IOW, most committers are paying attention to what's coming
>> in"
>>
>> "jakarta is just so big though"
>>
>> Aha!
>>
>> Being on the PMC doesn't mean you have to watch *every* commit in
>> *every* project. The requirement of the PMC is that it, as a
>> committee
>> delegated oversight authority by the board, is responsible as a
>> *group*
>> for that oversight. If we can organize ourselves so that there is
>> coverage that to an outside observer would be deemed reasonable and
>> effective, then we satisfy the needs of the ASF. (The board could void
>> this interpretation, but so far has indicated that it wouldn't).
>
> If a PMC member doesn't watch every commit in every project - as surely
> few, if any, do - s/he needs to at least have trust in enough other PMC
> members to cover the projects s/he is not involved with. Because, as a
> PMC
> member, s/he is still responsible for decisions made by the PMC.
> That's a
> good deal of trust to place in others s/he might not encounter anywhere
> other than on the pmc@j list.
Yep :) That's the interesting part here, and breaking the Jakarta up
doesn't solve it - it just pushes the problem upwards to the board.
By having more than one person representing the project on the PMC (for
example, having all committers on the PMC), we have a much better
chance of ensuring that one individual doesn't make a mistake and put
us all at fault.
geir
--
Geir Magnusson Jr 203-247-1713(m)
geir@4quarters.com
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Re: PMC membership : "I fear additional responsibility"
Posted by Martin Cooper <ma...@apache.org>.
On Sat, 20 Dec 2003, Geir Magnusson Jr wrote:
> I want to share a conversation that I hope sheds some light on what it
> means to be on the PMC.
>
> I was talking to a friend yesterday who said
>
> "I fear additional responsibility".
>
> I told him that he should have nothing to fear, as what's being asked
> for is that the committers simply continue to pay attention. His
> response was
>
> "paying attention is a _big_ responsibility"
>
> "That's true", I thought. So I told him
>
> "but if you are interested in the project you are going to do that
> anyway. IOW, most committers are paying attention to what's coming in"
>
> "jakarta is just so big though"
>
> Aha!
>
> Being on the PMC doesn't mean you have to watch *every* commit in
> *every* project. The requirement of the PMC is that it, as a committee
> delegated oversight authority by the board, is responsible as a *group*
> for that oversight. If we can organize ourselves so that there is
> coverage that to an outside observer would be deemed reasonable and
> effective, then we satisfy the needs of the ASF. (The board could void
> this interpretation, but so far has indicated that it wouldn't).
If a PMC member doesn't watch every commit in every project - as surely
few, if any, do - s/he needs to at least have trust in enough other PMC
members to cover the projects s/he is not involved with. Because, as a PMC
member, s/he is still responsible for decisions made by the PMC. That's a
good deal of trust to place in others s/he might not encounter anywhere
other than on the pmc@j list.
--
Martin Cooper
>
> So this person, who participates in <foo> and some components of
> Jakarta Commons, would just continue to do what he normally does -
> participate as he does already.
>
> The only difference is that we would do our job and ensure that he
> understands the rules about contributions, CLAs, and what code
> contributions require the Incubator for IP accountability. ( Incubator
> => Largish contributions from outside of the ASF. Largish is loosely
> defined : Small patch- and file-sized commits and contributions don't
> need Incubator, an entire database project from Oracle does. The line
> is somewhere in the middle :)
>
> Anyway, I hope this example helps. It certainly gave me insight into
> what this individual was struggling with, and I assume that he isn't
> the only one...
>
> geir
>
>
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