Proposal: annual chair election

[Christian Grobmeier <gr...@gmail.com>]

Hello all,

I recently thought about the role of the Chair in an ASF project.

Basically the Chair is the connection between project and the team. In
well working projects it means the chair writes reports and has
basically little to do. Still it seems that the chair gets some extra
attention when it is about decision making and performing new ideas. I
recently could observe this at the Apache Incubator. The Incubator has
(had) some problems and there were heated discussion how to solve it.
Finally Jukka Zitting arrived and somehow everybody trusted him
immediately. Jukka was elected as a chair and started to change things
in the Incubator. I must say he really does a great job and the
Incubator has become a better place now.

One could say, Jukka could have done this job as PMC and there is no
need to be chair. But in fact, I feel this is wrong and just gray
theory. I am pretty sure electing him as a chair was a wise decision
and gave him the chance to influence the project more.

That being said I think we need to do an annual election for this chair role.

If there are no other chair volunteers, the election is easy: just
confirm the current chair. If others want to take this role, let's
elect.

Why should one become a chair?

I guess, sometimes it is just interesting and exciting to look more
into the details of the ASF. I am not sure what my reasons are
exactly, but it's some combination of interest and fun. And I like
this community and want to help.

With an annual election we would have the chance to get a yearly fresh
breath into this project. In addition, the weight of this role is not
so heavy as with an unlimited period.

Thoughts?

Cheers
Christian

Re: Proposal: annual chair election

[Scott Deboy <sc...@gmail.com>]

Sounds great, Christian.

+1

Scott

On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 9:57 PM, Christian Grobmeier <gr...@gmail.com>wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I recently thought about the role of the Chair in an ASF project.
>
> Basically the Chair is the connection between project and the team. In
> well working projects it means the chair writes reports and has
> basically little to do. Still it seems that the chair gets some extra
> attention when it is about decision making and performing new ideas. I
> recently could observe this at the Apache Incubator. The Incubator has
> (had) some problems and there were heated discussion how to solve it.
> Finally Jukka Zitting arrived and somehow everybody trusted him
> immediately. Jukka was elected as a chair and started to change things
> in the Incubator. I must say he really does a great job and the
> Incubator has become a better place now.
>
> One could say, Jukka could have done this job as PMC and there is no
> need to be chair. But in fact, I feel this is wrong and just gray
> theory. I am pretty sure electing him as a chair was a wise decision
> and gave him the chance to influence the project more.
>
> That being said I think we need to do an annual election for this chair
> role.
>
> If there are no other chair volunteers, the election is easy: just
> confirm the current chair. If others want to take this role, let's
> elect.
>
> Why should one become a chair?
>
> I guess, sometimes it is just interesting and exciting to look more
> into the details of the ASF. I am not sure what my reasons are
> exactly, but it's some combination of interest and fun. And I like
> this community and want to help.
>
> With an annual election we would have the chance to get a yearly fresh
> breath into this project. In addition, the weight of this role is not
> so heavy as with an unlimited period.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Cheers
> Christian
>

Re: Proposal: annual chair election

[Christian Grobmeier <gr...@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 8:10 AM, Ralph Goers <rg...@apache.org> wrote:
> I am in favor of this and frankly wish it was ASF policy. IMO doing this annually is good for the project and and should make the existing chair feel like it isn't happening because people are unhappy with them.  If we do this I would suggest adding it to the Logging project guidelines page  with a fixed date.

+1

I propose the week after the annual members meeting for the election
date. It is easy to remember imho


>
> Ralph
>
> On Jun 20, 2012, at 9:57 PM, Christian Grobmeier <gr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I recently thought about the role of the Chair in an ASF project.
>>
>> Basically the Chair is the connection between project and the team. In
>> well working projects it means the chair writes reports and has
>> basically little to do. Still it seems that the chair gets some extra
>> attention when it is about decision making and performing new ideas. I
>> recently could observe this at the Apache Incubator. The Incubator has
>> (had) some problems and there were heated discussion how to solve it.
>> Finally Jukka Zitting arrived and somehow everybody trusted him
>> immediately. Jukka was elected as a chair and started to change things
>> in the Incubator. I must say he really does a great job and the
>> Incubator has become a better place now.
>>
>> One could say, Jukka could have done this job as PMC and there is no
>> need to be chair. But in fact, I feel this is wrong and just gray
>> theory. I am pretty sure electing him as a chair was a wise decision
>> and gave him the chance to influence the project more.
>>
>> That being said I think we need to do an annual election for this chair role.
>>
>> If there are no other chair volunteers, the election is easy: just
>> confirm the current chair. If others want to take this role, let's
>> elect.
>>
>> Why should one become a chair?
>>
>> I guess, sometimes it is just interesting and exciting to look more
>> into the details of the ASF. I am not sure what my reasons are
>> exactly, but it's some combination of interest and fun. And I like
>> this community and want to help.
>>
>> With an annual election we would have the chance to get a yearly fresh
>> breath into this project. In addition, the weight of this role is not
>> so heavy as with an unlimited period.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> Cheers
>> Christian



-- 
http://www.grobmeier.de
https://www.timeandbill.de

Re: Proposal: annual chair election

[Ralph Goers <rg...@apache.org>]

I am in favor of this and frankly wish it was ASF policy. IMO doing this annually is good for the project and and should make the existing chair feel like it isn't happening because people are unhappy with them.  If we do this I would suggest adding it to the Logging project guidelines page  with a fixed date.

Ralph

On Jun 20, 2012, at 9:57 PM, Christian Grobmeier <gr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello all,
> 
> I recently thought about the role of the Chair in an ASF project.
> 
> Basically the Chair is the connection between project and the team. In
> well working projects it means the chair writes reports and has
> basically little to do. Still it seems that the chair gets some extra
> attention when it is about decision making and performing new ideas. I
> recently could observe this at the Apache Incubator. The Incubator has
> (had) some problems and there were heated discussion how to solve it.
> Finally Jukka Zitting arrived and somehow everybody trusted him
> immediately. Jukka was elected as a chair and started to change things
> in the Incubator. I must say he really does a great job and the
> Incubator has become a better place now.
> 
> One could say, Jukka could have done this job as PMC and there is no
> need to be chair. But in fact, I feel this is wrong and just gray
> theory. I am pretty sure electing him as a chair was a wise decision
> and gave him the chance to influence the project more.
> 
> That being said I think we need to do an annual election for this chair role.
> 
> If there are no other chair volunteers, the election is easy: just
> confirm the current chair. If others want to take this role, let's
> elect.
> 
> Why should one become a chair?
> 
> I guess, sometimes it is just interesting and exciting to look more
> into the details of the ASF. I am not sure what my reasons are
> exactly, but it's some combination of interest and fun. And I like
> this community and want to help.
> 
> With an annual election we would have the chance to get a yearly fresh
> breath into this project. In addition, the weight of this role is not
> so heavy as with an unlimited period.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Cheers
> Christian