[DISCUSS] Non Coding Committers

[sharanf <sh...@apache.org>]

Hi All

I mentioned a while ago that I would start a discussion about having 
Committers on the project that can focus on non coding contributions.

Let me start by saying that I wouldn't be doing what I do at the ASF 
today if the first project I contributed to (Apache OFBiz) had not 
recognised my non coding contributions and made me a committer. My 
contributions to the project were mainly testing and documentation. One 
year when ApacheCon EU came around I helped organise an ApacheCon track 
for the project.

I must admit that I went through quite a few emotions when I received 
the committership email.. first surprise, excitement but also a little 
apprehension, because being a committer carries some responsibility. I 
really didn't want to mess up a project that I cared so much about. What 
really made the difference for me was that the email highlighted that 
the PMC trusted me. They trusted me with the codebase - or more 
importantly they trusted that I would use my judgement about whether or 
not to do any code changes. And initially it wasn't an issue - I didnt 
need to update the codebase so I even though I was a committer, I didn't 
commit anything. Why should I? I continued making sure that the blogs, 
documentation and social media promotion all kept happening - which 
really helped the project.

A little later on we started incorporating documentation into the 
codebase as asciidoc files so that was when being able to commit changes 
to the repo became a bit more important. So yes I do commit changes 
every now and then - but only in the scope of the work I am doing. I 
went on to become their first ever non coding PMC member too :-). And I 
can say that being a non coder brings another perspective.

So here in Apache Cassandra I see there is a whole lot of activity 
happening around the website, marketing, project promotion, blogs, 
social media - these activities are all contributions to the project. If 
there are contributions happening in the project that need a committer 
to action, then it could make sense to consider having committers that 
are focussed around the 'non coding' parts.

I would say that any contribution that helps a project in a positive way 
is valid contribution so recognising the people that do that work by 
making them Committers helps not only with motivation but also shows 
that you value those skills as well as coding.

We want both coding and non coding contributions to earn the same merit 
so I see it is more about trusting people to do the right thing for the 
project.

This is written from my own experience so I'm happy to get any feedback, 
comments and other viewpoints!

Thanks

Sharan

Re: [DISCUSS] Non Coding Committers

[Sharan Foga <sh...@apache.org>]

Hi All

Thanks very much to everyone who took the time to provide feedback and share their views on this topic. It seems to me like there is a general consensus around it and it's great to hear that the PMC is aware and actively working on it.

A community is an evolving thing and so adapting to change is part of the journey. I am really happy to see this open dialogue happening and even though some current problems have been highlighted - the focus is on resolving them! 

Happy to be involved and part of this community :-)

Thanks
Sharan

On 2022/02/09 09:12:56 Benjamin Lerer wrote:
> Thanks a lot Sharan, Patrick and Lorina.
> It is a perfectly valid point that the PMC members have recognized for some
> time already and are actively working on.
> 😊
> 
> Le mar. 8 févr. 2022 à 23:07, Lorina Poland <lo...@datastax.com> a écrit :
> 
> > +1 to this conversation, from a Docs wonk. :-)
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 8, 2022 at 1:40 PM Patrick McFadin <pm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Sharan has done a good job shining a spotlight on something that has
> >> created a weird bottleneck in the project. Docs and the Cassandra website
> >> are all in-tree, but it takes somebody who probably isn't even working on
> >> those things to commit any changes. Dinesh nailed it. It's silly. I'm sure
> >> the PMC can come up with a reasonable solution that can be done quickly.
> >> There are a lot of us that love this project that contribute in ways that
> >> don't get compiled into a jar file. This is something that needs to be
> >> solved for the sake of project velocity.
> >>
> >> Patrick
> >>
> >> On Sun, Feb 6, 2022 at 10:28 PM Mick Semb Wever <mc...@apache.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Thank you Sharan for sharing.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> So here in Apache Cassandra I see there is a whole lot of activity
> >>>> happening around the website, marketing, project promotion, blogs, social
> >>>> media - these activities are all contributions to the project. If there are
> >>>> contributions happening in the project that need a committer to action,
> >>>> then it could make sense to consider having committers that are focussed
> >>>> around the 'non coding' parts.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> This is so true for us. We are spending a lot of extra time getting
> >>> these non-code contributions across the finish line. The context switching
> >>> and wait time involved in just one more handover, and often across time
> >>> zones, is hurting. And regardless, totally agree we should be formally
> >>> recognising the ongoing work that goes into these non-coding contributions.
> >>>
> >>>
> 

Re: [DISCUSS] Non Coding Committers

[Benjamin Lerer <bl...@apache.org>]

Thanks a lot Sharan, Patrick and Lorina.
It is a perfectly valid point that the PMC members have recognized for some
time already and are actively working on.
😊

Le mar. 8 févr. 2022 à 23:07, Lorina Poland <lo...@datastax.com> a écrit :

> +1 to this conversation, from a Docs wonk. :-)
>
> On Tue, Feb 8, 2022 at 1:40 PM Patrick McFadin <pm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Sharan has done a good job shining a spotlight on something that has
>> created a weird bottleneck in the project. Docs and the Cassandra website
>> are all in-tree, but it takes somebody who probably isn't even working on
>> those things to commit any changes. Dinesh nailed it. It's silly. I'm sure
>> the PMC can come up with a reasonable solution that can be done quickly.
>> There are a lot of us that love this project that contribute in ways that
>> don't get compiled into a jar file. This is something that needs to be
>> solved for the sake of project velocity.
>>
>> Patrick
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 6, 2022 at 10:28 PM Mick Semb Wever <mc...@apache.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Thank you Sharan for sharing.
>>>
>>>
>>>> So here in Apache Cassandra I see there is a whole lot of activity
>>>> happening around the website, marketing, project promotion, blogs, social
>>>> media - these activities are all contributions to the project. If there are
>>>> contributions happening in the project that need a committer to action,
>>>> then it could make sense to consider having committers that are focussed
>>>> around the 'non coding' parts.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> This is so true for us. We are spending a lot of extra time getting
>>> these non-code contributions across the finish line. The context switching
>>> and wait time involved in just one more handover, and often across time
>>> zones, is hurting. And regardless, totally agree we should be formally
>>> recognising the ongoing work that goes into these non-coding contributions.
>>>
>>>

Re: [DISCUSS] Non Coding Committers

[Lorina Poland <lo...@datastax.com>]

+1 to this conversation, from a Docs wonk. :-)

On Tue, Feb 8, 2022 at 1:40 PM Patrick McFadin <pm...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Sharan has done a good job shining a spotlight on something that has
> created a weird bottleneck in the project. Docs and the Cassandra website
> are all in-tree, but it takes somebody who probably isn't even working on
> those things to commit any changes. Dinesh nailed it. It's silly. I'm sure
> the PMC can come up with a reasonable solution that can be done quickly.
> There are a lot of us that love this project that contribute in ways that
> don't get compiled into a jar file. This is something that needs to be
> solved for the sake of project velocity.
>
> Patrick
>
> On Sun, Feb 6, 2022 at 10:28 PM Mick Semb Wever <mc...@apache.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> Thank you Sharan for sharing.
>>
>>
>>> So here in Apache Cassandra I see there is a whole lot of activity
>>> happening around the website, marketing, project promotion, blogs, social
>>> media - these activities are all contributions to the project. If there are
>>> contributions happening in the project that need a committer to action,
>>> then it could make sense to consider having committers that are focussed
>>> around the 'non coding' parts.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> This is so true for us. We are spending a lot of extra time getting these
>> non-code contributions across the finish line. The context switching and
>> wait time involved in just one more handover, and often across time zones,
>> is hurting. And regardless, totally agree we should be formally recognising
>> the ongoing work that goes into these non-coding contributions.
>>
>>

Re: [DISCUSS] Non Coding Committers

[Patrick McFadin <pm...@gmail.com>]

Sharan has done a good job shining a spotlight on something that has
created a weird bottleneck in the project. Docs and the Cassandra website
are all in-tree, but it takes somebody who probably isn't even working on
those things to commit any changes. Dinesh nailed it. It's silly. I'm sure
the PMC can come up with a reasonable solution that can be done quickly.
There are a lot of us that love this project that contribute in ways that
don't get compiled into a jar file. This is something that needs to be
solved for the sake of project velocity.

Patrick

On Sun, Feb 6, 2022 at 10:28 PM Mick Semb Wever <mc...@apache.org> wrote:

>
> Thank you Sharan for sharing.
>
>
>> So here in Apache Cassandra I see there is a whole lot of activity
>> happening around the website, marketing, project promotion, blogs, social
>> media - these activities are all contributions to the project. If there are
>> contributions happening in the project that need a committer to action,
>> then it could make sense to consider having committers that are focussed
>> around the 'non coding' parts.
>>
>>
>>
>
> This is so true for us. We are spending a lot of extra time getting these
> non-code contributions across the finish line. The context switching and
> wait time involved in just one more handover, and often across time zones,
> is hurting. And regardless, totally agree we should be formally recognising
> the ongoing work that goes into these non-coding contributions.
>
>

Re: [DISCUSS] Non Coding Committers

[Mick Semb Wever <mc...@apache.org>]

Thank you Sharan for sharing.


> So here in Apache Cassandra I see there is a whole lot of activity
> happening around the website, marketing, project promotion, blogs, social
> media - these activities are all contributions to the project. If there are
> contributions happening in the project that need a committer to action,
> then it could make sense to consider having committers that are focussed
> around the 'non coding' parts.
>
>
>

This is so true for us. We are spending a lot of extra time getting these
non-code contributions across the finish line. The context switching and
wait time involved in just one more handover, and often across time zones,
is hurting. And regardless, totally agree we should be formally recognising
the ongoing work that goes into these non-coding contributions.

Re: [DISCUSS] Non Coding Committers

[Dinesh Joshi <dj...@apache.org>]

Hi Sharan,

Thank you for the feedback. Couple points that immediately struck me was the use of the word 'committer'. This term is closely associated with code contributions and therefore causes confusion. I understand that ASF defines it differently but it is unfortunately overloaded. Perhaps the ASF can consider using a different term that is not strongly associated with code contributions?

I am very supportive of recognizing non-code contributions. They are valuable for the community and need to be appropriately recognized by the project.

Over the years, one of the repeated concerns I have heard is that a non-coding committer may make changes to the code causing issues. I find this concern silly. As you described with your experience, people with commit bits are aware of their role and responsibilities. They will rarely commit code in an area that they don't understand. In the worst case we can always revert it ;)

Dinesh

> On Feb 5, 2022, at 7:37 AM, sharanf <sh...@apache.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi All
> I mentioned a while ago that I would start a discussion about having Committers on the project that can focus on non coding contributions.
> Let me start by saying that I wouldn't be doing what I do at the ASF today if the first project I contributed to (Apache OFBiz) had not recognised my non coding contributions and made me a committer. My contributions to the project were mainly testing and documentation. One year when ApacheCon EU came around I helped organise an ApacheCon track for the project. 
> I must admit that I went through quite a few emotions when I received the committership email.. first surprise, excitement but also a little apprehension, because being a committer carries some responsibility. I really didn't want to mess up a project that I cared so much about. What really made the difference for me was that the email highlighted that the PMC trusted me. They trusted me with the codebase - or more importantly they trusted that I would use my judgement about whether or not to do any code changes. And initially it wasn't an issue - I didnt need to update the codebase so I even though I was a committer, I didn't commit anything. Why should I? I continued making sure that the blogs, documentation and social media promotion all kept happening - which really helped the project.
> A little later on we started incorporating documentation into the codebase as asciidoc files so that was when being able to commit changes to the repo became a bit more important. So yes I do commit changes every now and then - but only in the scope of the work I am doing. I went on to become their first ever non coding PMC member too :-). And I can say that being a non coder brings another perspective.
> So here in Apache Cassandra I see there is a whole lot of activity happening around the website, marketing, project promotion, blogs, social media - these activities are all contributions to the project. If there are contributions happening in the project that need a committer to action, then it could make sense to consider having committers that are focussed around the 'non coding' parts.
> I would say that any contribution that helps a project in a positive way is valid contribution so recognising the people that do that work by making them Committers helps not only with motivation but also shows that you value those skills as well as coding.
> We want both coding and non coding contributions to earn the same merit so I see it is more about trusting people to do the right thing for the project. 
> This is written from my own experience so I'm happy to get any feedback, comments and other viewpoints!
> Thanks
> Sharan