On Oct 23, 2009, at 10:09 AM, Alasdair Nottingham wrote:
Hi, Thanks for the information. I have been trying to get my head around all this. Based on the guidelines, what has been said here and an attempt to read between the lines I think the idea is that things operate like this: Voting is important both in podlings and in top level projects. When making decisions about how the podling should operate that do not have legal implications any vote by any member of the PPMC is considered binding in making decisions. This allows the PPMC to learn the process of managing the podling. While this is not explicitly covered in the guides it seems logical to me, and consistent with the goal of the PPMC learning how to run a project.
Between http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Incubation_Policy.html#Podling+Constraints and http://incubator.apache.org/guides/ppmc.html#Voting+in+a+new+committer I think this is reasonably well covered. There's always room for improvement, but I don't see a major issue, either...
In general terms, there are two phases to a PPMC vote that has ASF implications (e.g. releases, committer membership, and PPMC membership): 1) PPMC vote, followed by (assuming the vote is successful) 2) Approval by the IPMC. The IPMC vote is legally binding to the ASF. However, in normal process, an IPMC vote/approval would always be preceded by a successful PPMC vote.
When it comes to voting in a new committer I think that while the IPMC members votes are binding the guidelines say that the PPMC is responsible for recommending new committers. To gain such a recommendation a vote is held and the PPMC members votes are binding (this is not sufficient for committer access to be granted though). If the decision is to recommend and 3 IPMC members vote then it goes to the IPMC for silent consensus. If the decision is to recommend and less than 3 IPMC members vote then it goes to the IPMC for a full vote as per the process.
PPMC votes are binding within the podling. IPMC votes do not count differently within the podling. They are only significant in that they can also be applied to the IPMC vote/approval. It's helpful to have 3 IPMC +1's in a PPMC vote -- if there are, then no more IPMC votes are required for IPMC approval. IPMC approval can then be a simple matter of 72 hour lazy concensus.
--kevan
