Kip Hampton wrote:
1) Gather volunteers for the proposed Project Management Committee
(PMC). and vote on a PMC Chair from among those volunteers.
It's been a while since I've been able to contribute to AxKit with code,
and is likely to be a while still before I can do so again. However, I'm
usually if not good at least ok with boring admin reports and politics
(so long as it's tech related) so I'd be happy to help.
This is just an offer to help a project I love with what's left of what
I can contribute. Feel free to turn it down by pointing me to the
following page:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/5091
;)
2) Draw up the official resolution for the ASF Board's review (99% of
this can probably be extracted from the proposed Mission Statement we
agreed to here previously [1] ).
That looks like a good charter, with minor editorial changes:
* in some instances there are references made to "the AxKit Group" or
even simply "the group". Monkeying around in the MS would lead me to
believe that it equates to the Committers, but it did require
monkeying around. I don't know that we expect heated voting (I'd
hope not, but you never know) but since that influences who has the
right to vote it might be clarified (using "the Committers" when
that's what's meant mostly).
* It is also unclear whether PMC members must be committers or not,
and whether if they're active in the PMC but inactive as Committers
their votes are binding or not. Again, I sure hope that nothing ever
requires us to care for the difference, but if we're making rules to
protect the project, we might as well make them clear as well :)
* Voting to declare someone inactive is not something that people want
to do, even when there is a conflict. It feels too much like a mob
beating someone up for disagreeing (the typical case in which this
might happen is when there's a tight vote, or a veto, that would be
swinged by one or more members being declared inactive). I propose
that we make it part of the PMC Chair's responsibilities that in
case of a conflictual vote he MUST provide both the results of the
vote as is, and the results of the vote if people that *could* be
considered inactive (haven't done anything in 6 months) hadn't
voted. Since this is something that he is obligated to do, people
cannot resent him doing so (a definite plus in conflictual
situations). A show of the difference in votes is usually enough to
resolve the issue.
* I also see nothing that states that consensus primes at all times
and that voting should be considered formal only when the problem
cannot be solved in any other way. I believe that's a good thing to
state.
I know going into the details of these things looks a bit grim, like
writing a will or something, but either we keep winging things like
we've done before, or we come up with a set of rules that work, but
half-baked rules are more dangerous than no rules at all.
I hereby volunteer myself.
I propose Kip as Chair, and should he accept vote for him.
--
Robin Berjon
