grr, wrong address :) sorry -- Stefano Mazzocchi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------
--- Begin Message --- Dear Apache Committer,
you received this email because you appear listed as a committer for the Apache Cocoon project.
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NOTE: if you feel that you should not be in this list for *any reason whatsoever* or you want to indicate *explicitly* that you want to become an emeritus committer, please, let me know. TIA!
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As discussed on [EMAIL PROTECTED], the Apache Cocoon development community wants to submit the ASF board a proposal to create a new top-level Apache project for Cocoon.
AS for the ASF bylaws [http://www.apache.org/foundation/bylaws.html], any ASF project requires a "project management committee" that will guarantee legal oversight over the work done by that project.
But how that PMC is composed is suggested by the development community, if one already exists. The HTTPd and APR projects have shown that a PMC focused on a specific code and composed by the very same committerst hat work on that code is the best tradeoff and for this reason, I'm asking each one of you Cocoon committers to indicate if you would like to partecipate in that committee.
The PMC is described in section 6.3 of the ASF bylaws which I copied right here:
<quote from="ASF bylaws">
Section 6.3. Project Management Committees. In addition to the officers of the corporation, the Board of Directors may, by resolution, establish one or more Project Management Committees consisting of at least one officer of the corporation, who shall be designated chairman of such committee, and may include one or more other members of the corporation. Unless elected or appointed as an officer in accordance with Sections 6.1 and 6.4 of these Bylaws, a member of a Project Management Committee shall not be deemed an officer of the corporation.
Each Project Management Committee shall be responsible for the active management of one or more projects identified by resolution of the Board of Directors which may include, without limitation, the creation or maintenance of "open-source" software for distribution to the public at no charge. Subject to the direction of the Board of Directors, the chairman of each Project Management Committee shall be primarily responsible for project(s) managed by such committee, and he or she shall establish rules and procedures for the day to day management of project(s) for which the committee is responsible.
The Board of Directors of the corporation may, by resolution, terminate a Project Management Committee at any time.
</quote>
As you see, the ASF bylaws where designed to leave the best possible freedom of operation to the various projects. This was done to allow different communities to express their own ways of day to day rules and procedures.
Before we proceed, some questions you might have:
1) how a PMC is established?
when the ASF board approuves a project, the PMC is appointed and a mail list is created. All communication between PMC members about PMC-related discussions will happen there. This mail list will be private and only PMC members will be able to subscribe.
As a general rule, however, every ASF member that wishes to do so can be subscribed to that mail list.
How the PMC is composed, elected and maintained over time will be up to the PMC itself to decide. The ASF board has the final say over the procedures adopted by the PMC. This guarantees that the communities follow the basic ASF guidelines of open and consensus-driven development.
The PMC will have a chairman that will make sure that the PMC procedures are followed and will have the responsibility to talk to the ASF board if something that requires their attention happens.
2) what does it mean to be a PMC member?
from a legal point of view, you are responsible for the legal oversight of that project. In short, you should be watching for stuff that would get the ASF in trouble, like code copyright abuse, illegal licensing bindings, known patent infringment and the like.
from a technical point of view, the private PMC mail list will be used only when it's *vital* that information must be kept private before a resolution is created. An example of such an event is major security holes that must find a solution *before* the information is spread to the public.
from a day to day point of view, the PMC chairman will make sure that the PMC is used *only* when expressively required and will direct anything else to the public discussion lists.
3) how much time/energy will my potential involvement in the PMC consume?
It depends on what happens, but after a bootstrap period wher rules and procedures must be defined and written down, the PMC remains mostly idle (means "no activity whatsoever"!) until something that require its attention happens (both happening from the botton (the community) or the top (the ASF board)).
4) will I be able to resign from it?
sure, at any time.
5) will that remove my committer status as well?
absolutely not. PMC membership and project committership are two separate things. There have been cases where PMC members didn't even have commit access (for example Tim Bray, the XML spec editor, has been member of the first xml.apache.org PMC without ever contributing a single line of code to the ASF).
At the same time, I'll personally suggest to the newly appointed PMC that only project committers be eligible for PMC membership, but this will be up to the PMC to decide.
Anyway, leaving the PMC will *not* affect your committer status or any other ASF status that you might previously have.
6) why would you want to be on the PMC?
the Cocoon PMC will have the power to act on behalf of the foundation for everything that is contained into its own domain. This means that the PCM will be able to create new supprojects, or accept donations, have its own top-level domain (cocoon.apache.org), etc.
being part of this PMC means that you get to decide and propose those things. (although, as a general rule, proposals will be discussed on a public mail list first to get community consensus)
7) what is the role of the PMC chair?
mostly the role of a secretary, not one of a dictator, even if benevolent. the PMC will be like a round table where everybody counts as one. the chair is required by the bylaws and will be in charge of communication with the board to avoid the board having to deal with tons of people they might not even know. It's mostly an organization detail but should *not* impact how the PMC is run.
8) what if shit happens?
the PMC will try to resolve it as good and as fast as it can. If not possible, the PMC will ask the board for advice. But in general, the PMC should try to be as self-sufficient as possible.
9) will the PMC *hide* things from the community and make the community look less open and more bureaucratic?
It greatly depends on how the PMC is run, but as the appointed chair, I'll make *any* possible effort to make the PMC look like a "last resort" tool that can be used instead of CC-ing a bunch of people and maybe forget a few.
So, the PMC will be no more than the private communications that happen *already* in between committers.
The chair might, after any discussion and decision, decide to copy the notes of the discussions over to the public lists so that they are made public and can be publically archived and searched.
- o -
Ok, this should have given you enough information.
Now, please, answer this question:
- would you like to partecipate in the Cocoon PMC?
[ ] yes
[ ] no
Please send your vote to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that it can be pubblically reviewed.
if you have further questions, please, feel free to ask them again on the public mail list.
Thank you.
--
Stefano Mazzocchi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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