Thoughts about reporting (was: Re: [RT] Community over policy...)
On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 6:42 PM, Sam Ruby ru...@intertwingly.net wrote: snip/ We may also have semantic gaps. Leo's [RT] may be presuming that a podling's board report[sic] is merely a bureaucratic requirement. snip/ Hmm :-) And so the threads collide... ...I guess I'll allow it. But since we're in my thoughts now, I'll go ahead and say something :-) I would say that you need to provide a quarterly report using this template and add it to that wiki page and then get it signed off by a mentor [1] is a somewhat bureaucratic expression of your community needs to be self-reflective and periodically tell us how things are going, because of [X] and [Y] [1] and that the expression of the latter is perhaps more important than the expression of the former. It's definitely more interesting! I think as far as requirements go, submitting written reports to be collated and read and then discussed in a conference call is not the best way of overseeing stuff. If I chaired a group of people that had to oversee something like apache I'd probably try and change how to go about that. Something involving green flags in checkboxes I think. Similarly, if I had to report into those people I would make a point of changing the style of the report every so often, to keep them on their toes, and make their oversight job as pleasant as possible. Fortunately, I don't hold any furniture-related titles. Having said that, I think incubator reports are good practice for board reports so as long as board reports function the way they do, podling reports should function similarly. Which is why I've been happy enough for current, former and future board members to present their opinions [2] on the subject and stay silent myself :). Fail. In fact, my personal plan [3] was to stay out of this discussion, and continue to do as little reading of reports as I can possibly get away with. My talents lie elsewhere. Benson can be the deals-with-reporting mentor, I can be the deals-with-license-headers mentor, and yet someone else can be the I-critically-review-30-incubating-projects-including-the-report-Benson-already-signed-off-on [4] PMC member. I will thank you for your reviewing and signing-off-ing efforts, and I will ensure my mentorees all buy you beverages. Come to think of it, I guess a good plan for the future is to co-mentor with at least 2 people that are on the board, since they read all the reports anyway eventually for their meeting, and if they don't, there'll be people frowning at them over the conference call, so they'll be much more motivated than me to do it well. Even better, I could try and make my co-mentors into board members, and I guess one of them should be the incubator PMC chair, too. Yes, that sounds like a plan. Mwuhahah. Hah? In any case, I hope somebody beats me to a thorough review of next month's podling reports, but if not, I intend to repeat the the process where I provide feedback here before providing feedback that will ultimately be published on the ASF web site as a part of the ASF board meetings. Thank you, Sam. I doubt I will beat you, though I may have a go :) cheers, Leo [1] these are imaginary quotes, no one said these things! I'm inventing them and/or paraphrasing from memory. [2] yes yes yes, not necessarily acting in their board member capacity. Still, people doing the work (reading the reports, doing the oversight), that know a lot about doing the work, they get to have a say. [3] Warning: I'm perhaps partly joking. I do read a lot of reports, but I don't quite do 'critical review' most of the time. [4] the last report I read for the podling I mentored was signed off by either Benson or Ross, I forget. But the example is stronger if I stick with Benson. Sorry Ross, I'll buy you an extra beverage. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Thoughts about reporting (was: Re: [RT] Community over policy...)
On 17 January 2012 01:06, Leo Simons m...@leosimons.com wrote: On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 6:42 PM, Sam Ruby ru...@intertwingly.net wrote: snip/ We may also have semantic gaps. Leo's [RT] may be presuming that a podling's board report[sic] is merely a bureaucratic requirement. snip/ Hmm :-) And so the threads collide... ...I guess I'll allow it. But since we're in my thoughts now, I'll go ahead and say something :-) I would say that you need to provide a quarterly report using this template and add it to that wiki page and then get it signed off by a mentor [1] is a somewhat bureaucratic expression of your community needs to be self-reflective and periodically tell us how things are going, because of [X] and [Y] [1] and that the expression of the latter is perhaps more important than the expression of the former. It's definitely more interesting! And it's more useful. I think a lot of the arguments about rules stem from the fact that the assumptions and reasoning behind the rules is rarely made explicit. This has several consequences: - people don't like the rules because their purpose is not understood - if the rules are unclear (e.g. edge cases), it's not obvious how they need to be interpreted - it's very difficult to adapt the rules if the underlying assumptions change - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
Re: Thoughts about reporting (was: Re: [RT] Community over policy...)
It's not just the quarterly reports that aren't being well-utilized, it's releases too. Some of these podlings still don't get how essential it is to a healthy functioning Apache community to produce and maintain releases. There are projects like Tashi who just noodle around in the source code without ever releasing anything. Tashi even has a user list without any user serviceable software. Reading their reports leaves one with the impression that they'll check off that box once they're satisfied with the quality of the codebase, but that's not how Apache projects should be operating. Projects that never release really belong on github, not here. From: Leo Simons m...@leosimons.com To: general@incubator.apache.org Sent: Monday, January 16, 2012 8:06 PM Subject: Thoughts about reporting (was: Re: [RT] Community over policy...) On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 6:42 PM, Sam Ruby ru...@intertwingly.net wrote: snip/ We may also have semantic gaps. Leo's [RT] may be presuming that a podling's board report[sic] is merely a bureaucratic requirement. snip/ Hmm :-) And so the threads collide... ...I guess I'll allow it. But since we're in my thoughts now, I'll go ahead and say something :-) I would say that you need to provide a quarterly report using this template and add it to that wiki page and then get it signed off by a mentor [1] is a somewhat bureaucratic expression of your community needs to be self-reflective and periodically tell us how things are going, because of [X] and [Y] [1] and that the expression of the latter is perhaps more important than the expression of the former. It's definitely more interesting! I think as far as requirements go, submitting written reports to be collated and read and then discussed in a conference call is not the best way of overseeing stuff. If I chaired a group of people that had to oversee something like apache I'd probably try and change how to go about that. Something involving green flags in checkboxes I think. Similarly, if I had to report into those people I would make a point of changing the style of the report every so often, to keep them on their toes, and make their oversight job as pleasant as possible. Fortunately, I don't hold any furniture-related titles. Having said that, I think incubator reports are good practice for board reports so as long as board reports function the way they do, podling reports should function similarly. Which is why I've been happy enough for current, former and future board members to present their opinions [2] on the subject and stay silent myself :). Fail. In fact, my personal plan [3] was to stay out of this discussion, and continue to do as little reading of reports as I can possibly get away with. My talents lie elsewhere. Benson can be the deals-with-reporting mentor, I can be the deals-with-license-headers mentor, and yet someone else can be the I-critically-review-30-incubating-projects-including-the-report-Benson-already-signed-off-on [4] PMC member. I will thank you for your reviewing and signing-off-ing efforts, and I will ensure my mentorees all buy you beverages. Come to think of it, I guess a good plan for the future is to co-mentor with at least 2 people that are on the board, since they read all the reports anyway eventually for their meeting, and if they don't, there'll be people frowning at them over the conference call, so they'll be much more motivated than me to do it well. Even better, I could try and make my co-mentors into board members, and I guess one of them should be the incubator PMC chair, too. Yes, that sounds like a plan. Mwuhahah. Hah? In any case, I hope somebody beats me to a thorough review of next month's podling reports, but if not, I intend to repeat the the process where I provide feedback here before providing feedback that will ultimately be published on the ASF web site as a part of the ASF board meetings. Thank you, Sam. I doubt I will beat you, though I may have a go :) cheers, Leo [1] these are imaginary quotes, no one said these things! I'm inventing them and/or paraphrasing from memory. [2] yes yes yes, not necessarily acting in their board member capacity. Still, people doing the work (reading the reports, doing the oversight), that know a lot about doing the work, they get to have a say. [3] Warning: I'm perhaps partly joking. I do read a lot of reports, but I don't quite do 'critical review' most of the time. [4] the last report I read for the podling I mentored was signed off by either Benson or Ross, I forget. But the example is stronger if I stick with Benson. Sorry Ross, I'll buy you an extra beverage. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
