Volunteers needed: Reboot of the XML 'PMC'.

[Dirk-Willem van Gulik <di...@covalent.net>]

Folks,

As most of you know, the XML project is part of the Apache Software
Foundation (ASF) which has a Board of Director's. Guiding the XML projects
is delegated to a 'PMC/XML' - a project management committee specific to
the XML projects. Which guides and helps (new and current) XML projects
with things like the initial bootstrapping, licenses and so on - as well
as trying to coordinate between projects. All groups are volunteers - just
like all of us here on the mailing lists.

The task of the PMC is primarily oversight on behalf of the board from a
more legal and organizational perspective. It deals primarily with fairly
dry things things such as questions about licenses, new projects and so on.

During the last 6 months or so; the current PMC (which largely was
responsible for creating the XML project originally) has not been as
active as it should have been. And this is a problem -as small though the
role of a PMC is; it is essential for the foundation and essential if we
want to make sure there is synergy.

Both the PMC as well as the Board now consider it essential to get a new
PMC on the road again - and I am left with the task to do this.

Now this official talk might sound grave and worrysome; but in all
honestly, such things are a common reality in any volunteer organization
and are possible to fix. I'd like to stress that since there is a lot of
good coding being done; we do see the XML projects as a healthy bunch.

So during the next weeks I am asking your help -as you folks are
essentially the 'core' of what the apache XML project is- to define the
future of the XML projects.

The discussion will take place on the

		general@xml.apache.org

mailing list. Subscribe, if you have not already done so, by sending 
mail to:

		general-subscribe@xml.apache.org

Plan of action:

What the ASF board wants us to do in the next few weeks is the following:

1.	Propose a new PMC to the board which has a good 
	overview of all active XML projects and wants to work
	on the bigger picture.

	In other words - we need volunteers.

We need to have 3 to 9 people. The exact number and composure can be done
by consensus - or we can have a vote using the usual committer vote. This
new PMC can either be an interim PMC or one for a longer period. Whichever
is felt as most appropriate. We intentionally break here with the system
where the old PMC nominates the new. We want the broadest committer driven
representation possible.

The first task for the PMC will be:

2.	Work with the ASF board to re-define it's current charter.
	Right now it is too narrow and only covers XML parsers!

And following this we need to work on where the XML project should
go; what good metric's are to measure and accept new projects; how and
when to phase out inactive projects and how we might want to work with the
Jakarta folks. As right now one of our bigger puzzles is version-ing and
release management; we have a lot of dependencies.

Please be so kind to follow up on

	general@xml.apache.org

In order to keep things moving forward; these are the questions we
need to discuss at a minimum:

1.	Who wants to volunteer for the next PMC - and how
	do we make sure there is a good cross representation
	of all projects within the XML project.

2.	Where do we want the XML projects to go; what is our
	scope ? Right now we say:

	o to provide commercial-quality standards-based XML 
	solutions that are developed in an open and cooperative 
	fashion, 

	o to provide feedback to standards bodies (such as 
	IETF and W3C) from an implementation perspective, and	

	o to be a focus for XML-related activities within 
	Apache projects

	Is this still appropriate ? Can we narrow it down, is
	this enough guidance ? Are all projects positioned
	right ? How do we deal with new projects ? 

3.	Think of synergy; how can we make all this work better
	when used together. How could we improve version-ing,
	should we work with the Jakarta folks more closely ?

So again; follow up on general@xml.apache.org - and come with an open mind
- focused on the future; 

	Thanks everyone !

Dw
-- 
Dirk-Willem van Gulik, ASF board member and PMC/XML.