Incubation status check

[David Nalley <da...@gnsa.us>]

Hi folks,

Daniel, Rich and I were having a discussion elsewhere and the topic of
Tinkerpop came up. I wanted to bring that discussion back to the list,
and a wider audience, and hopefully stimulate a larger conversation.

>From my perspective, I think a lot of the process things like getting
in the habit of filing reports and kicking out releases are relatively
well understood.

There are some paperwork items that aren't up to date. (And for better
or worse, there is paperwork involved. The ASF is a legal entity, and
we need to ensure accurate records are kept.) For instance, the
projects status page is woefully out of date. [1] This is analogous to
the documentation that we keep on top level projects to document who
is a committer with commit access, and who is a PMC member with
binding votes on the direction of a project.

There's been some addition of folks to the project, and thats good,
but in some ways the existing folks are too efficient, in my opinion.
That's great for responsiveness to the user community, but potentially
problematic for giving folks a chance and excuse to get involved.
Provide a bit of a vacuum. As one of the folks who mentored me once
told me: 'Hold on loosely, but don't let go. If you cling too tightly,
you're gonna lose control' [2]

But the above is just my opinion, and should be part of a discussion,
not just me talking - so, where do other people think we stand? What
do we need to work on to line up for graduation? How do we tackle
those items?

--David


[1] http://incubator.apache.org/projects/tinkerpop.html
[2] Yes, it's 38 Special, and no they weren't my mentor, just quoted
by my mentor.

Re: Incubation status check

[David Nalley <da...@gnsa.us>]

On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 6:38 AM, Stephen Mallette <sp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>  I think a lot of the process things like getting in the habit of filing
> reports and kicking out releases are relatively well understood.
>
> Cool - that is feeling "normal" now to me too.
>

That's a good sign.

>> There are some paperwork items that aren't up to date.
>
> You mentioned the project status page.  Are you saying that committers
> update that?  Also, is there a list of paperwork we need to keep fresh?  I
> searched around the incubator pages a bit but didn't turn up anything.
>

The status page is the big one for the incubator. It's analogue in a
TLP is committee-info.txt which lists the date each person joins a
project management committee, etc. Also analogous is LDAP, which the
project chair is tasked with keeping in sync.


>> thats good, but in some ways the existing folks are too
> efficient....Provide a bit of a vacuum.
>
> Could you talk about how you have seen "vacuum creation" work in other
> projects?
>

Vacuum creation is a fancy term for not jumping on work as fast, and
in example, asking if anyone wants to take care of issues. I.e. "We
need to get the new $foo functionality documented, is anyone willing
to do that? I'm happy to help new folks work through the first
patch..."


> On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 5:30 PM, David Nalley <da...@gnsa.us> wrote:
>
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> Daniel, Rich and I were having a discussion elsewhere and the topic of
>> Tinkerpop came up. I wanted to bring that discussion back to the list,
>> and a wider audience, and hopefully stimulate a larger conversation.
>>
>> From my perspective, I think a lot of the process things like getting
>> in the habit of filing reports and kicking out releases are relatively
>> well understood.
>>
>> There are some paperwork items that aren't up to date. (And for better
>> or worse, there is paperwork involved. The ASF is a legal entity, and
>> we need to ensure accurate records are kept.) For instance, the
>> projects status page is woefully out of date. [1] This is analogous to
>> the documentation that we keep on top level projects to document who
>> is a committer with commit access, and who is a PMC member with
>> binding votes on the direction of a project.
>>
>> There's been some addition of folks to the project, and thats good,
>> but in some ways the existing folks are too efficient, in my opinion.
>> That's great for responsiveness to the user community, but potentially
>> problematic for giving folks a chance and excuse to get involved.
>> Provide a bit of a vacuum. As one of the folks who mentored me once
>> told me: 'Hold on loosely, but don't let go. If you cling too tightly,
>> you're gonna lose control' [2]
>>
>> But the above is just my opinion, and should be part of a discussion,
>> not just me talking - so, where do other people think we stand? What
>> do we need to work on to line up for graduation? How do we tackle
>> those items?
>>
>> --David
>>
>>
>> [1] http://incubator.apache.org/projects/tinkerpop.html
>> [2] Yes, it's 38 Special, and no they weren't my mentor, just quoted
>> by my mentor.
>>

Re: Incubation status check

[Stephen Mallette <sp...@gmail.com>]

>  I think a lot of the process things like getting in the habit of filing
reports and kicking out releases are relatively well understood.

Cool - that is feeling "normal" now to me too.

> There are some paperwork items that aren't up to date.

You mentioned the project status page.  Are you saying that committers
update that?  Also, is there a list of paperwork we need to keep fresh?  I
searched around the incubator pages a bit but didn't turn up anything.

> thats good, but in some ways the existing folks are too
efficient....Provide a bit of a vacuum.

Could you talk about how you have seen "vacuum creation" work in other
projects?

On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 5:30 PM, David Nalley <da...@gnsa.us> wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> Daniel, Rich and I were having a discussion elsewhere and the topic of
> Tinkerpop came up. I wanted to bring that discussion back to the list,
> and a wider audience, and hopefully stimulate a larger conversation.
>
> From my perspective, I think a lot of the process things like getting
> in the habit of filing reports and kicking out releases are relatively
> well understood.
>
> There are some paperwork items that aren't up to date. (And for better
> or worse, there is paperwork involved. The ASF is a legal entity, and
> we need to ensure accurate records are kept.) For instance, the
> projects status page is woefully out of date. [1] This is analogous to
> the documentation that we keep on top level projects to document who
> is a committer with commit access, and who is a PMC member with
> binding votes on the direction of a project.
>
> There's been some addition of folks to the project, and thats good,
> but in some ways the existing folks are too efficient, in my opinion.
> That's great for responsiveness to the user community, but potentially
> problematic for giving folks a chance and excuse to get involved.
> Provide a bit of a vacuum. As one of the folks who mentored me once
> told me: 'Hold on loosely, but don't let go. If you cling too tightly,
> you're gonna lose control' [2]
>
> But the above is just my opinion, and should be part of a discussion,
> not just me talking - so, where do other people think we stand? What
> do we need to work on to line up for graduation? How do we tackle
> those items?
>
> --David
>
>
> [1] http://incubator.apache.org/projects/tinkerpop.html
> [2] Yes, it's 38 Special, and no they weren't my mentor, just quoted
> by my mentor.
>