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Posted to dev@flex.apache.org by Justin Mclean <ju...@classsoftware.com> on 2014/08/21 11:45:34 UTC
The Flex PMC is broken
Hi,
I've considered carefully and so rather than resigning from the PMC I'm going to see if I can fix it. Hopefully other PMC members can help me in this. If we can't fix it I'll reconsider my options.
The PMC responsibilities are clearly spelt out here [1], first they are legal and secondary to they are to build community. We seem to be having a hard time with the second.
IMO there's a few things that are broken currently:
- Recent events where calls for votes are vetoed and the attitude that only certain types of contributions count towards committership. I'll be calling a vote to try and rectify this and stop this from occurring again. Our own guidelines spell out what we value for committership [2] - "The forms of contribution are not limited to only code. It can also include code reviews, helping out users on the mailing lists, documentation, testing, etc." this matches with the Apache Way [3], which of one of the key concepts is "communiy over code".
- Lack of openness. There been a few things done in private. If there is a good reason for it, it should be brought up on the private list first and discussed. But if possible everything should be done in the open, to build community and trust. Just because something was done in a certain way during Adobe incubation doesn't mean it should be done that way again. Openness is a key concept of the Apache Way.
- We only hear from a few voices. We are possibly in danger of falling below the 3 active PMC members required for a top level project when though we have 30+ PMC members. We need to encourage existing PMC member to speak up and be involved or try and recruit more PMC members. I'm open to ideas on how to make this happen.
Thanks,
Justin
1. http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html
2. https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FLEX/Guidelines
3. http://theapacheway.com
Re: The Flex PMC is broken
Posted by Justin Mclean <ju...@classsoftware.com>.
Hi,
> Inappropriate to start a "the sky is falling" to an entire community.
The sky issn't falling and we can fix it.
Part of the key concepts of the Apache Way is openness and that's where I've decided to go. I welcome anyones ideas and constructive feedback. You you can email privately or move it to the private list if you think it's not for public consumption.
Thanks,
Justin
RE: The Flex PMC is broken
Posted by Kessler CTR Mark J <ma...@usmc.mil>.
Inappropriate to start a "the sky is falling" to an entire community.
-Mark
Re: The Flex PMC is broken
Posted by Erik de Bruin <er...@ixsoftware.nl>.
Hi,
> Don’t you think it’s a bit extreme declaring the PMC broken because some
> people disagree with you?
> I don't see it that way - there have many issues in recent months and
> we've had one other PMC member resign.
I happen to know that PMC member (it was me ;-)) and my resignation was for
personal reasons totally unrelated to the issues Justin mentions.
Justin, please take this discussion to where it belongs (private@); what
you're doing now comes dangerously close to intentionally sabotaging the
project because you couldn't get the other PMC members to agree with you.
EdB
PS. I've rejoined the PMC just to make sure there are enough active votes
to make sure Justin doesn't do any lasting damage with this lashing out.
--
Ix Multimedia Software
Jan Luykenstraat 27
3521 VB Utrecht
T. 06-51952295
I. www.ixsoftware.nl
Re: The Flex PMC is broken
Posted by Justin Mclean <ju...@classsoftware.com>.
Hi,
> I happen to know that PMC member (it was me ;-)) and my resignation was for
> personal reasons totally unrelated to the issues Justin mentions.
I did not state the reason you left just that someone had.
> what you're doing now comes dangerously close to intentionally sabotaging the
> project because you couldn't get the other PMC members to agree with you.
That is certainly not my intention - I want the PMC to try and fix these issues. If we can't even discuss these issues openly in a civil manner then we have another issue here as well.
> PS. I've rejoined the PMC just to make sure there are enough active votes
Welcome back, good to see I've achieved one good thing already.
Thanks,
Justin
The Flex PMC is broken
Posted by Erik de Bruin <er...@ixsoftware.nl>.
Hi,
> Don’t you think it’s a bit extreme declaring the PMC broken because some
> people disagree with you?
> I don't see it that way - there have many issues in recent months and
> we've had one other PMC member resign.
I happen to know that PMC member (it was me ;-)) and my resignation was for
personal reasons totally unrelated to the issues Justin mentions.
Justin, please take this discussion to where it belongs (private@); what
you're doing now comes dangerously close to intentionally sabotaging the
project because you couldn't get the other PMC members to agree with you.
EdB
PS. I've rejoined the PMC just to make sure there are enough active votes
to prevent Justin from doing any lasting damage with his lashing out.
--
Ix Multimedia Software
Jan Luykenstraat 27
3521 VB Utrecht
T. 06-51952295
I. www.ixsoftware.nl
Re: AW: The Flex PMC is broken
Posted by Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com>.
That's true, but Chris does bring up an excellent point.
Before you hit send, consider whether your email is going to cause folks
to stop following the project. The temptation is always there to think
that if you choose your words well enough it will convince the other
person to change his mind, but maybe we just have to be quicker to agree
to disagree.
-Alex
On 8/22/14 6:13 AM, "Jeffry Houser" <je...@dot-com-it.com> wrote:
>
> That is the Apache recommend way; though.
>
> To 'quote' only the passages of the original email that need
>responding to [not the whole email] and do your responses in-line so
>that your words have context.
>
> I believe part of the intended reason is that so email archiving makes
>sense.
>
> in-line replies used to be the way everything was done on the
>Internet, BTW, I find 'top-heavy responses' make a thread very hard to
>follow personally even though that is the 'common' approach now. [I
>blame Outlook]
>
>On 8/22/2014 8:30 AM, Christofer Dutz wrote:
>> PS: Please don't start commenting every line of this post :*)
>>
>
>--
>Jeffry Houser
>Technical Entrepreneur
>http://www.jeffryhouser.com
>203-379-0773
>
Re: AW: The Flex PMC is broken
Posted by Jeffry Houser <je...@dot-com-it.com>.
That is the Apache recommend way; though.
To 'quote' only the passages of the original email that need
responding to [not the whole email] and do your responses in-line so
that your words have context.
I believe part of the intended reason is that so email archiving makes
sense.
in-line replies used to be the way everything was done on the
Internet, BTW, I find 'top-heavy responses' make a thread very hard to
follow personally even though that is the 'common' approach now. [I
blame Outlook]
On 8/22/2014 8:30 AM, Christofer Dutz wrote:
> PS: Please don't start commenting every line of this post :*)
>
--
Jeffry Houser
Technical Entrepreneur
http://www.jeffryhouser.com
203-379-0773
AW: The Flex PMC is broken
Posted by Christofer Dutz <ch...@c-ware.de>.
What is currently making me more and more silent is the growing habit of people writing a post, and a lot of people commenting every sentence in-line(Making it extremely hard to actually read) causing the next person to comment every line of that post an so on. Not monitoring the list for one day and finding 61 Posts in one thread is insane. I finally gave up following a lot of threads here, dev and private cause I don't want to invest my time in reading and writing of mails but getting stuff done.
We seem to be discussing more than we are doing. So why not concentrate on doing things again?
My (Flex related) todo list currently has the following stuff on it:
- Helping Tom finish JBurg2 (outside of flex but I need that for Falcon ... still some small issues, but it seems to be working quite well)
- Implement a JBurg2 maven plugin so we can use that to build Falcon (Actually that's already done ;-) )
- Finishing the streamlining of Falcon (Throwing out Antlr2, Antlr3 and JFlex and replacing all with Antlr4, Switching to JBurg2) (Making it easy for people to contribute ... the current state is really difficult to understand)
- Getting BlazeDS ready so we could actually release it (Would make the installer a lot simpler and 4.0 seems to be the last Maven available version we are now at 4.8 ... so releasing a 4.9 would make a difference)
- Setting up our project/sub project so we can finally start publishing SNAPSHOT versions (Would make it a lot easier for people to be early adopters and beta-testers)
- Finishing the Mavenizer so we can release it and eventually start publishing Flex as Maven artifacts
- Finishing Flexmojos to it will be able to auto download missing Adobe artifacts (Need to have the Mavenizer released before being able to finish this)
What's not on my list:
- Using 90% of my free time to read and write emails ;-)
Chris
PS: Please don't start commenting every line of this post :*)
________________________________________
Von: Justin Mclean <ju...@classsoftware.com>
Gesendet: Freitag, 22. August 2014 01:36
An: dev@flex.apache.org
Betreff: Re: The Flex PMC is broken
Hi,
Obviously there a few things I can't say here re what has gone on on the private list.
> Your actions seem to indicate otherwise.
Quite the opposite - please see the number and diversity of committers that I have put forward to vote on. Several of which have become productive members of the Apache Team. Good work people!
> Declaring the PMC broken and it needs to be fixed doesn’t leave room for an opinion that it’s not broken to start with.
If that your opinion you are free to state it, IMO discussions of the private list seem to indicate otherwise.
> I’m not going into the details of a private discussion here
This is not an isolated incident and that the call to vote has been vetoed 3 times. Issues about the PMC have also come up on the list before. Please check the mail archives.
> no one stated that specific types of contributions do not count.
Yes they actually have.
> Openness has more than one meaning. While openness does mean visible, it also means freedom. If doing something “by the book” is too restrictive for a specific task, I think it’s ridiculous to say “my way or the highway”.
There are many favours of open source, if Apache doesn't fit your style, you can always put something up on github under a different OS license or similar.
> Instead of saying “if possible everything should be done in the open”, a more reasonable approach is “as much as practical should be done in the open”.
The second of which IMO hasn't been done.
> Sometimes doing things privately for a period of time is the best way to actually get it done,
It may look that way but it the long run it's more effort, which of these would be easier:
- Work on software in Apache, adding a files and fixes as required
- Work in private, then have to go though a software grant and IP clearance process
If you not a committer then the first may seem daunting, but it should be relatively easy for a motivated person to become a committer in a short amount of time and it's less work and pain than the second option.
Of course quite often stuff is done in private and then comes to Apache via a software grant and that fine - as long as the PMC is involved in that process.
> I know I’ve hesitated to speak up because you’ve had very strong opinions and I’m not interested in making waves.
There no need to make waves, discussion around these issue can be constructive or even insightful. Alternative viewpoints are welcome.
> I was not privy to the discussions prior to the member resigning
You are if you look at the email archives.
Thanks for your input,
Justin
Re: The Flex PMC is broken
Posted by Justin Mclean <ju...@classsoftware.com>.
Hi,
Obviously there a few things I can't say here re what has gone on on the private list.
> Your actions seem to indicate otherwise.
Quite the opposite - please see the number and diversity of committers that I have put forward to vote on. Several of which have become productive members of the Apache Team. Good work people!
> Declaring the PMC broken and it needs to be fixed doesn’t leave room for an opinion that it’s not broken to start with.
If that your opinion you are free to state it, IMO discussions of the private list seem to indicate otherwise.
> I’m not going into the details of a private discussion here
This is not an isolated incident and that the call to vote has been vetoed 3 times. Issues about the PMC have also come up on the list before. Please check the mail archives.
> no one stated that specific types of contributions do not count.
Yes they actually have.
> Openness has more than one meaning. While openness does mean visible, it also means freedom. If doing something “by the book” is too restrictive for a specific task, I think it’s ridiculous to say “my way or the highway”.
There are many favours of open source, if Apache doesn't fit your style, you can always put something up on github under a different OS license or similar.
> Instead of saying “if possible everything should be done in the open”, a more reasonable approach is “as much as practical should be done in the open”.
The second of which IMO hasn't been done.
> Sometimes doing things privately for a period of time is the best way to actually get it done,
It may look that way but it the long run it's more effort, which of these would be easier:
- Work on software in Apache, adding a files and fixes as required
- Work in private, then have to go though a software grant and IP clearance process
If you not a committer then the first may seem daunting, but it should be relatively easy for a motivated person to become a committer in a short amount of time and it's less work and pain than the second option.
Of course quite often stuff is done in private and then comes to Apache via a software grant and that fine - as long as the PMC is involved in that process.
> I know I’ve hesitated to speak up because you’ve had very strong opinions and I’m not interested in making waves.
There no need to make waves, discussion around these issue can be constructive or even insightful. Alternative viewpoints are welcome.
> I was not privy to the discussions prior to the member resigning
You are if you look at the email archives.
Thanks for your input,
Justin
Re: The Flex PMC is broken
Posted by Harbs <ha...@gmail.com>.
Okay. I don’t think this is the place for this, but if you want the discussion here, I’ll respond.
>> Part of building community is allowing for the fact that there are different points of view
> I'm all for that.
Your actions seem to indicate otherwise. Declaring the PMC broken and it needs to be fixed doesn’t leave room for an opinion that it’s not broken to start with. "I think there are problems” or similar is much more productive than saying "things are broken and if we don’t fix them I’m resigning”.
> - Recent events where calls for votes are vetoed and the attitude that only certain types of contributions count towards committership. I'll be calling a vote to try and rectify this and stop this from occurring again. Our own guidelines spell out what we value for committership [2] - "The forms of contribution are not limited to only code. It can also include code reviews, helping out users on the mailing lists, documentation, testing, etc." this matches with the Apache Way [3], which of one of the key concepts is "communiy over code”.
I’m not going into the details of a private discussion here, but nothing was vetoed (the fact that someone wrote “-1” to express displeasure over a suggestion and clearly stated afterwards that it was not meant as a veto is not a veto), and no one stated that specific types of contributions do not count. There was a discussion regarding whether a specific someone is “engaged in the community” which is an entirely subjective topic.
> - Lack of openness. There been a few things done in private. If there is a good reason for it, it should be brought up on the private list first and discussed. But if possible everything should be done in the open, to build community and trust. Just because something was done in a certain way during Adobe incubation doesn't mean it should be done that way again. Openness is a key concept of the Apache Way.
Openness has more than one meaning. While openness does mean visible, it also means freedom. If doing something “by the book” is too restrictive for a specific task, I think it’s ridiculous to say “my way or the highway”. Instead of saying “if possible everything should be done in the open”, a more reasonable approach is “as much as practical should be done in the open”. Also, work done on Github is in the open — especially when there’s notifications to commit@ every time there’s a commit.
Sometimes doing things privately for a period of time is the best way to actually get it done, and it’s in the best interests of the project to do it that way. As long as things are opened up and/or explained. That’s not a contradiction to openness.
You talk about building community. Well, allowing flexibility in how things are done and making things easier on people goes a very long way in building community. Being too concerned with rules is stifling to a community. Yes. There are certain rules that need to be upheld, but we need to do what we can fro keeping rules from being painful and counterproductive.
> - We only hear from a few voices. We are possibly in danger of falling below the 3 active PMC members required for a top level project when though we have 30+ PMC members. We need to encourage existing PMC member to speak up and be involved or try and recruit more PMC members. I'm open to ideas on how to make this happen.
>> Don’t you think it’s a bit extreme declaring the PMC broken because some people disagree with you?
> I don't see it that way - there have many issues in recent months and we've had one other PMC member resign.
I know I’ve hesitated to speak up because you’ve had very strong opinions and I’m not interested in making waves. I was not privy to the discussions prior to the member resigning, but maybe it had something to do with being told "you have to do things my way or you’re wrong”? Even if someone IS wrong about something, there are times when it’s better to let someone do something “wrong” for the sake of the greater “right”. Again, this goes back to the point of allowing for different points of view.
Just some food for thought...
Harbs
P.S. I do value your viewpoint. It’s very valuable for a project to have someone who’s a stickler for the details and the rules. But, sometimes that does need to be tempered to allow for others who cannot work like that. (like me) ;-) Also, certain things CANNOT have rules by their very nature.
On Aug 21, 2014, at 2:06 PM, Justin Mclean <ju...@classsoftware.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>> Don’t you think it’s a bit extreme declaring the PMC broken because some people disagree with you?
> I don't see it that way - there have many issues in recent months and we've had one other PMC member resign.
>
>> Part of building community is allowing for the fact that there are different points of view
> I'm all for that.
>
>> Anyone who’s not subscribed to private will have no idea what you’re referring to, so I think the private list is a better place for this discussion.
> If you feel it should be moved there start a thread, but some of the committers will not be able to see it.
>
> Thanks,
> Justin
Re: The Flex PMC is broken
Posted by Justin Mclean <ju...@classsoftware.com>.
Hi,
> Don’t you think it’s a bit extreme declaring the PMC broken because some people disagree with you?
I don't see it that way - there have many issues in recent months and we've had one other PMC member resign.
> Part of building community is allowing for the fact that there are different points of view
I'm all for that.
> Anyone who’s not subscribed to private will have no idea what you’re referring to, so I think the private list is a better place for this discussion.
If you feel it should be moved there start a thread, but some of the committers will not be able to see it.
Thanks,
Justin
Re: The Flex PMC is broken
Posted by Harbs <ha...@gmail.com>.
Justin,
Don’t you think it’s a bit extreme declaring the PMC broken because some people disagree with you?
Part of building community is allowing for the fact that there are different points of view and just because there’s disagreement does not mean things are broken. In fact, a community without disagreement isn’t much of a community… ;-)
Anyone who’s not subscribed to private will have no idea what you’re referring to, so I think the private list is a better place for this discussion.
There are flaws and misrepresentation in each of your points, and I’d be happy to address them on the private list where the discussion has more context.
Harbs
On Aug 21, 2014, at 12:45 PM, Justin Mclean <ju...@classsoftware.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've considered carefully and so rather than resigning from the PMC I'm going to see if I can fix it. Hopefully other PMC members can help me in this. If we can't fix it I'll reconsider my options.
>
> The PMC responsibilities are clearly spelt out here [1], first they are legal and secondary to they are to build community. We seem to be having a hard time with the second.
>
> IMO there's a few things that are broken currently:
> - Recent events where calls for votes are vetoed and the attitude that only certain types of contributions count towards committership. I'll be calling a vote to try and rectify this and stop this from occurring again. Our own guidelines spell out what we value for committership [2] - "The forms of contribution are not limited to only code. It can also include code reviews, helping out users on the mailing lists, documentation, testing, etc." this matches with the Apache Way [3], which of one of the key concepts is "communiy over code".
> - Lack of openness. There been a few things done in private. If there is a good reason for it, it should be brought up on the private list first and discussed. But if possible everything should be done in the open, to build community and trust. Just because something was done in a certain way during Adobe incubation doesn't mean it should be done that way again. Openness is a key concept of the Apache Way.
> - We only hear from a few voices. We are possibly in danger of falling below the 3 active PMC members required for a top level project when though we have 30+ PMC members. We need to encourage existing PMC member to speak up and be involved or try and recruit more PMC members. I'm open to ideas on how to make this happen.
>
> Thanks,
> Justin
>
> 1. http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html
> 2. https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FLEX/Guidelines
> 3. http://theapacheway.com
Re: The Flex PMC is broken
Posted by Chris Martin <wi...@gmail.com>.
I was not sure how I'd give feedback on this, but I'd have to say Mihai hit
the nail on the head for how I felt too reading these emails.
After reading his email some thoughts came to mind which probably also
parrot a little of what Alex said.
This project is a labor of love. We all are here because we deeply care
about the project, and when you care a lot about something, emotions can
run high. Those emotions can get in the way of communication. This can
happen at both ends. Both for the person making a statement and for
someone who reads it. I think it's important to remember we all want this
to grow and be the best it can be. And with that thought in mind, do our
best to not only temper our emotion when we speak up, but also temper our
emotion before we reply. I chose the word temper specifically. Temper in
the sense that one would then make sure it would have the best effect and
forethought before making use of it.
Chris
On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 6:33 PM, Justin Mclean <ju...@classsoftware.com>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Thanks Mihai for your considered thoughts on this subject.
>
> Justin
>
Re: The Flex PMC is broken
Posted by Justin Mclean <ju...@classsoftware.com>.
Hi,
Thanks Mihai for your considered thoughts on this subject.
Justin
Re: The Flex PMC is broken
Posted by Mihai Chira <mi...@gmail.com>.
So far I worked in 7 different closed-source (and 'closed' in many
other ways) companies. There I've seen just how much backlash there
can be when someone speaks up about what's not working. Over time
people learn to stay silent. It saddens me to see this happening in an
open-source project. I think as a community we could do a better job
of appreciating those who reflect on what we do and find ways we can
improve, even if we don't agree with their assessment.
In that vein, I think Justin is doing a great job speaking out,
despite the frequently dismissive and negative replies to his views.
A community is defined not only by what it does, but also by how it
does it. I share the interest in the processes we adopt, what they
imply and what they say about us.
I agree that it would probably have been beneficial if the Radii8 code
donation happened on the dev mailing list. We would have all seen 1)
that donations to apache flex are possible (I didn't know, or hadn't
realised that before), and 2) what work they imply. Plus, they would
have helped make visible this otherwise hidden work that the PMC
members and donors do for the project. That's very important for
recognition of contributions and, thus, for community building. So I
think we should do it next time there's a donation.
(And when the details of the donation process become uninteresting we
can simply stop following that conversation thread, just like any
other.)
However, in terms of the importance of the problems outlined by Justin
I think the last one is crucial. It definitely relates to the health
of the community for more members to take responsibilities and help
spread the workload and knowledge rather than having it concentrated
in a small number of (thus precious) members. It's just as relevant
for open-source projects to have a small Bus factor[1].
And I don't know when, how, or even if this happened, but if other
contributions than code are not valued, this certainly reduces the
likelihood that some people will spend time on the project.
The current situation is that we are faced with a member of the
community (Justin) considering to step down because he does not think
we are doing some things right. As a result, he has provoked a
discussion on those things, which I think is great. I suggest we
should (as some have) talk about them and define for ourselves, as a
community, whether we want to do things differently or not, instead of
being defensive by accusing him of "lashing out" or blackmailing us
into doing things "his way". The point, for me, is to figure out how
we move forward, as opposed to placing blame for what happened in the
past. And if Justin then steps down because he doesn't agree with our
way, it's perfectly fine. But if he steps down also because of the
hostility against him, we're doing something wrong.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor
On 22 Aug 2014 00:41, "Justin Mclean" <ju...@classsoftware.com> wrote:
Hi,
> If I have a vision or idea for something and go ahead and build it [and/or try to donate it];
That is certainly one valid path to take, but it then it may need to
go through a software grant and IP clearance. That's a cost you may
need to incur if you want to bring software to Apache in that manner.
> Presumably, discussion can be had at the time of donation or sharing.
Yep that should be the process.
Thanks,
Justin
Re: The Flex PMC is broken
Posted by Justin Mclean <ju...@classsoftware.com>.
Hi,
> If I have a vision or idea for something and go ahead and build it [and/or try to donate it];
That is certainly one valid path to take, but it then it may need to go through a software grant and IP clearance. That's a cost you may need to incur if you want to bring software to Apache in that manner.
> Presumably, discussion can be had at the time of donation or sharing.
Yep that should be the process.
Thanks,
Justin
Re: The Flex PMC is broken
Posted by Jeffry Houser <je...@dot-com-it.com>.
I, personally, don't understand the "openness" complaint here but I've
seen similar sentiments before.
If I have a vision or idea for something and go ahead and build it
[and/or try to donate it]; I should not be discriminated against because
I didn't discuss it on the list first. The complaint makes it sound
like people need permission before doing anything and I believe that
'ideal' is not conducive to an effective open source project.
It is 'my vision' and it does not need discussion in committee.
Presumably, discussion can be had at the time of donation or sharing.
But, I grow frustrated by constant complaints of "it wasn't discussed
with us first".
On 8/21/2014 5:45 AM, Justin Mclean wrote:
> - Lack of openness. There been a few things done in private. If there is a good reason for it, it should be brought up on the private list first and discussed. But if possible everything should be done in the open, to build community and trust. Just because something was done in a certain way during Adobe incubation doesn't mean it should be done that way again. Openness is a key concept of the Apache Way.
--
Jeffry Houser
Technical Entrepreneur
http://www.jeffryhouser.com
203-379-0773