On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 11:12 PM, Ross Gardler <[email protected]> wrote: > As some here may know, the ASF has been preparing to roll Git out to all > projects that want it. This work had been non-trivial, the infrastructure > team have been working on the technical issues since committing to it at > ApacheCon in 2010 (and before that they had to figure out what the real > issues were). > > This work has led to the trial in CouchDB. This trial is designed to a) > test the technical solutions in a working project and b) educate people > like me who have no experience of working with Git in a community project. > > Since becoming aware of this projects desire to "wait it out" before moving > to the ASF I have been seeing if there is any way of making this happen > sooner rather than later. > > For example, on the infrastructure list I said: > > "They (PhoneGap/Callback) have an existing GitHub based community and are a > well respected project in their own right. The nature of their project > means that SVN is sub-optimal for reasons we don't hear in the typical Git Vs > SVN arguments (in short they have lots of platform specific forks of their > core code but seek to ensure a strong community around the core and each of > those forks). > From my limited engagement with them so far I find them respectful of the > ASFs position and willing to work with us on addressing our concerns. I'm > not yet sure of how "Apache like" their existing community is, but I do > find myself saying one thing as a mentor ("you are not allowed to do this") > whilst feeling another ("you should be allowed to help educate us here"). I > think we are missing an opportunity. > > With strong mentorship I believe this particular project could help us > accelerate > the evaluation of Git within ASF communities. I am a mentor and I'm willing > to commit to safeguarding the experiment." > > As you can see, I have some significant concerns. Git, as a tool, can be > useful to a community managed project. However, it was designed for an > entirely different management model (the Benevolent Dictator). I'm not > currently sure of where on this spectrum PhoneGap/Callbac sits. However, > you asked to come to the ASF, your champion is well respected by more than > just myself and you have some great mentors (not including me of course). I > assume we are on fairly safe ground here. > > The response to my enquiries has been very positive (it's amazing how > ill-informed bloggers can be). As a result (and because another mentor has > stepped up to support my position) I'm willing to make a case to > infrastructure for you to move to Git ASAP, but I have two conditions > before I make that request. > > The first is that all mentors on this project support my proposal. > > The second condition is that the team ensure that the documentation over on > the CouchDB project reflects the process that this project will follow in > managing the canonical repository here at the ASF. I want it to describe > how you will manage committer contributions, non-committer contributions, > IP review, releases and whatever else is important to your project. > > I'm not really interested in the nitty gritty of the processes, we'll work > that out in practice. What I want is a document that convinces me that > there will be a single canonical repository for the community to engage > with. If I am confident you can use Git in an Apache Way style process then > I'm willing to make the case to infrastructure, and if necessary, the > board. I'm reasonably sure that if you can convince me and the other > mentors here then we can convince the infrastructure team. > > Since you are in the incubator and I know nothing of your current > governance and I don't know if it is close or distant from the Apache Way. > On the CouchDB list I have posted some comments from an ASF project member > which defines the process they use in a git-svn environment (they came from > Git when they came to the ASF). This mail will, hopefully, be a useful > starting point (or maybe its all covered in the wiki page already). See > http://markmail.org/thread/q43mto5emnhpej2k > > Taking off my mentor hat for a moment and putting on my VP Community > Development hat I will use this document, and what I learn from this > incubation project, to help ensure that Git can be used successfully > alongside SVN in Apache projects. > > However, please understand that even after all this I cannot guarantee that > infrastructure will agree to allow you to move to Git. However, I am > confident enough to be willing to spend some of my time on it, hopefully > you will be too. > > Are mentors OK with this?
Ross, as usual your proposal reads excellent. I would love to see it happen that way. But I am afraid that I can't help with it. I will write another mail in a few minutes and step down as a mentor, because of time/energy issues. Anyway, I think it is in good mentor hands! Cheers -- http://www.grobmeier.de https://www.timeandbill.de
