Excalibur TLP Proposed Resolution

[Leo Simons <le...@apache.org>]

Dear ASF board,

NB: Aaron Farr had the plan to send in this draft resolution as well, 
but since I haven't seen confirmation that he has, I thought I'd send it 
in to make sure. If he has already sent it, disregard this e-mail!

For your consideration, the following draft resolution:

Draft Resolution
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   WHEREAS, the Board of Directors deems it to be in the best interests
   of the Foundation and consistent with the Foundation's purpose to
   establish a Project Management Committee charged with creation and
   maintenance of embeddable software libraries related to component and
   service management, for distribution at no charge to the public.

   NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that a Project Management Committee
   (PMC), to be known as the "Excalibur PMC", be and hereby is
   established pursuant to Bylaws of the Foundation; and be it further

   RESOLVED, that the Excalibur PMC be and hereby is responsible for the
   creation and maintenance of embeddable software libraries related to
   component and service management, based on software licensed to the
   Foundation; and be it further

   RESOLVED, that the office of "Vice President, Excalibur" be and
   hereby is created, the person holding such office to serve at the
   direction of the Board of Directors as the chair of the Excalibur PMC,
   and to have primary responsibility for management of the projects
   within the scope of responsibility of the Excalibur PMC; and be it
   further

   RESOLVED, that the persons listed immediately below be and hereby are
   appointed to serve as the initial members of the Excalibur PMC:

   Shash Chatterjee
   Peter Donald
   J Aaron Farr
   Alex Karasulu
   Berin Loritsch
   Michael Nash
   Leo Simons
   Hamilton Verissimo de Oliveira
   Carsten Ziegeler

   NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that Leo Simons be and hereby
   is appointed to the office of Vice President, Excalibur, to serve in
   accordance with and subject to the direction of the Board of Directors
   and the Bylaws of the Foundation until death, resignation, retirement,
   removal or disqualification, or until a successor is appointed; and be
   it further

   RESOLVED, that the initial Excalibur PMC be and hereby is tasked
   with the creation of a set of bylaws intended to encourage open
   development and increased participation in the Excalibur Project;
   and be it further

   RESOLVED, that the initial Excalibur PMC be and hereby is tasked
   with the migration and rationalization of the Avalon PMC
   Fortress and Excalibur subprojects; and be it further

   RESOLVED, that all responsibility pertaining to the Avalon PMC
   Fortress and Excalibur subprojects and encumbered upon the Avalon PMC
   are hereafter discharged.


In Readable English
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
In "readable English", there's a bunch of people, some current or 
previous Avalon PMC members and/or committers, some from "satellite" 
projects with close ties to avalon, who want to take over responsibility 
over some of the avalon project codebase. There's broad agreement in the 
avalon community (and on the Avalon PMC) that this is a good idea.

Why?
----
The rationale behind this proposal is complex, and the decision process 
that led to this resolution has been as well, and it has taken more than 
a few weeks to get to the point of me submitting this draft resolution 
on behalf of the avalon community. I have tried to write down a summary, 
and failed. I encourage everyone who wishes to understand the rationale 
leading to this proposal to check out the dev@avalon.apache.org and 
pmc@avalon.apache.org archives and by looking at the contents and change 
history of

   http://wiki.apache.org/avalon/Reorganization

Additionally, I believe Aaron Farr has been keeping the board up to date 
on the stuff happening in the avalon community, and I'm sure his reports 
will contain more background.

Since I understand that's a little vague an outline, I'll try and 
summarize the rationale a little anyway...please understand that this is 
only one person's partial view of the situation, and add a few grains of 
salt where appropriate.

Avalon is currently a bit of an "umbrella" project. It's not quite the 
size of (for example) jakarta, but even after several iterations of 
"downsizing" it still houses way too much material for its own good. 
This is one of the factors that has contributed a lot to the friction 
within the avalon community. Avalon has firmly set a direction towards a 
single unified product, as opposed to the vast array of products 
currently produced. This is a Good Thing, but it has become clear that 
this unified platform will not quite satisfy the needs of users and 
developers of existing avalon products. There's a desire among a broad 
base of developers to continue development and maintainance of what are 
called the "excalibur" and "fortress" codebases, without being hampered 
by the broader avalon direction, agenda, etc.

So creation of this TLP frees Avalon from some "legacy" constraints, 
reduces friction within that project, and addresses the needs of 
existing open source (inside and outside of the ASF) and commercial efforts.

Some miscellaneous comments
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* There's a few people who do not wish to be on the new Fortress PMC but 
who do wish to be a committer to the new project, in particular the 
following 14 people have volunteered:

    Shash Chatterjee
    Peter Donald
    J Aaron Farr
    Alex Karasulu
    Berin Loritsch
    Leif Mortenson
    Michael Nash
    Neeme Praks
    Peter Royal
    Leo Simons
    Anton Tagunov
    Mauro Talevi
    Hamilton Verissimo de Oliveira
    Carsten Ziegeler

* There has been plenty of discussion recently surrounding some 
reorganization of the avalon project and friends, and several options 
have been discussed. Ths proposal stands "on its own" and is perhaps 
related to but not directly affected by other things under 
consideration, such as the formation of a Merlin TLP that has been 
previously discussed.

-- 
regards,

- Leo Simons

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Weblog              -- http://leosimons.com/
Component Community -- http://componentplanet.org/
Component Glue      -- http://jicarilla.org/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but
  people wouldn't obey the rules."
                                                         -- Alan Bennett

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@avalon.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@avalon.apache.org