An SPIP is technically a Jira ticket with a special label <https://github.com/apache/spark-website/blob/d3ce43b45104eab170b0c383ed5b74f365ec6c28/improvement-proposals.md?plain=1#L18-L22>. The SPIP proposal and associated discussion are sometimes on the ticket itself, but more often they are in a linked Google Doc.
I think the main reason SPIP authors like using Google Docs is because it enables line-level comments and threaded discussions, which Jira does not support. But we already have a mechanism for this: the pull request. Python enhancement proposals (PEPs) are hashed out on PRs and ultimately stored in git <https://github.com/python/peps/tree/main/peps>. (For consensus, they use a Discourse forum. This would be analogous to our dev list. I am not proposing changing this aspect of the SPIP process.) Why don’t we do something similar for SPIPs? I don’t see why we should accept the mix of Jira ticket descriptions, Jira comments, and Google Doc comments, when an SPIP can simply be a Markdown document submitted via PR. When an SPIP is accepted via the usual vote process, the associated PR is merged. All accepted SPIPs would live in one place as a folder of Markdown documents. I suggest a new `spips/` folder in `apache/spark-website`. They would still be associated with Jira tickets. They don’t have to be rendered on the website. And we don’t have to migrate prior SPIPs. What do you think? Nick
