Overall I agree that decisions should be made in the devlist. One improvement that I'd like to suggest, though, is to have a dedicated page on cwiki that summarizes all recent and upcoming decisions (votes + lazy consensus) in a table, including links to their respective devlist threads. We could have a page for important discussions as well. By doing it, we'll gain: 1. Better transparency - instead of searching within many emails for past decisions in client/Apache mail archives, we'll just look them up at the table. 2. Better noticeability - people would be more easily aware of upcoming votes. Personally I often miss emails as I redirect them to a subdirectory, and I get disappointed if I miss important votes.
We already attach links to threads for AIPs in their wiki page, but I think that having a more generalized page would benefit us all. That's my two ₪ anyway :) Shahar On Sat, Mar 22, 2025 at 12:09 AM Jarek Potiuk <ja...@potiuk.com> wrote: > I also would like to start another thread regarding decision making in our > projects. We had some discussions about decision making in our project. > > As an ASF project we are supposed to make important decisions on the > devlist. Full stop. "If it did not happen at the devlist, it did not > happen" is something that you can hear often in the ASF - even if the only > place you can actually see it written this way is > https://www.apache.org/press/highlights.html#2017 > > The Apache Software Foundation has a very clear notion of important > decision making: > > * official voting rules https://www.apache.org/foundation/voting.html > * community development guidelines > https://community.apache.org/committers/decisionMaking.html > > Both of those refer to decision making at the devlist. > > We had a few - unnecessarily heated - discussions on how decisions are made > in the project. I personally think that our decision making should be done > at the devlist - where anyone can participate. Things like versioning rules > for API (hinted by Ash at the last dev call) or how our repo is structured > (a new proposal raised today by TP) should - IMHO - be discussed here, at > the devlist. > > Not in a slack thread, not in private discussion, not when two or more > people talk to each other in a call. It's fine to discuss things outside - > of course, but then any proposals for a change of things that we already > discussed for weeks and either implicitly (by non-objection) or explicitly > (by not responding to [LAZY CONSENSUS] or [VOTE] thread in the devlist) are > just discussions. If someone wants a change, starting a thread in devlist > is the right way of proposing a change. Especially for things that were > discussed before - sometimes for weeks, and no concerns were raised. > > IMHO - it's very simple - want a change - start and lead a [DISCUSS]. [LAZY > CONSENSUS]. or [VOTE] (depending on the level of disagreement and number of > different opinions). Not very complex - it just requires to start and lead > a discussion mailing list thread. Super inclusive and follows the archiving > and all other requirements of the ASF (for example you do not have to agree > TOC of Slack to participate) > > I would love to hear if others disagree with it and think that this process > is overly complex or problematic. I think it's quite clear, reasonable and > great to keep community decision making in check and follow all the rules > and expectations of the ASF, but maybe there are some concerns with the > process and we would like to improve it. > > I would love to hear what others think about it. > > J. >
