See comments below.
Ted Leung wrote: ...
HISTORY
=======
This project was established under the direction of the newly-formed
Apache Software Foundation in August 1999 to facilitate joint
open-source development.
I would like to see the terms 'contributor', 'developer' and 'committer' and 'subproject' briefly defined here, so that the uninitiated reader can follow the subsequent argument.
THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE
================================
The xml.apache.org project is managed by a small, core group of
contributors known as the Project Management Committee [PMC]. The PMC
must have at least one officer from the Apache Board, who will be the
Chairperson and report to the Apache Board. See
http://www.apache.org/foundation/bylaws.html for reference. The
Chairperson will serve a term of one calendar year
The PMC has the following responsibilities:
1) Accepting new subproject proposals, formally submitting these
proposals for committer vote, and creating the subproject (see
SUBPROJECTS below).
Which committers?
2) Facilitating code or other donations by individuals or companies.
3) Resolving license issues and other legal issues.
In conjunction with the Board?
4) Approving new committers.
5) Ensuring that administrative and infrastructure work is completed.
6) Facilitating relationships among projects.
7) Facilitating relationships between xml.apache.org and the external
world.
8) Overseeing xml.apache.org to ensure that the mission defined in
this document is being fulfilled.
9) Resolving conflicts within the project.
To become a member of the PMC, an individual must be nominated by a
contributor, unanimously approved by all PMC members, and approved by
a two-thirds majority of committers.
Again, which committers?
In most cases, developers will
have actively contributed to development for at least six months
before being considered for membership on the PMC.
In the unlikely event that a member of the PMC becomes disruptive to
the process or ceases to contribute for an extended period,
Nit-picking here, but possibly something like:
In the unlikely event that a PMC member becomes disruptive to the PMC, or if a PMC member ceases to make codebase contributions for an extended period, ...
said
member may be removed by unanimous vote of remaining PMC members.
The PMC is responsible for maintaining and updating this
charter. Development must follow the process outlined below, so any
change to the development process necessitates a change to the
charter. Changes must be unanimously approved by all members of the
PMC. A contributor may challenge a change to the charter at any time
and ask for a vote of all committers,
In this case, all committers to Apache XML subprojects?
in which case a two-thirds
majority must approve the change.
SUBPROJECTS
===========
xml.apache.org is comprised of subprojects; a subproject is a
Maybe, "...a subproject (develops|is responsible for)..."
component whose scope is well defined. Each subproject has its own
set of developers.
... , although developers may be active in more than one subproject.
A new subproject proposal is submitted to the PMC, accepted by majority
committer vote,
I think this one needs to be defined. I'm not sure what it means.
and then subject to final approval by the PMC.
A subproject may be removed by unanimous vote of the PMC, subject to the
approval of the ASF board. A contributor
...to the subproject... ?
may challenge the removal of a
subproject at any time and ask for a vote of all committers,
??
in which
case a two-thirds majority must approve the change.
COMMITTERS
==========
Each subproject has a set of committers. Committers are developers who
have read/write access to the source code repository. New committers
are added when a developer is nominated by a committer and approved by
at least 50 percent of the committers for that subproject with no
opposing votes. In most cases, new committers will already be
participating in the development process by submitting suggestions
and/or fixes via the bug report page or mailing lists.
CONTRIBUTORS
============
This section seems out of character. I think it should basically be a definition, so that the meritocracy comments seem unnecessary, and the technical details of contribution feel out of place. Shouldn't they be under "The Development Process"?
...
Like all Apache projects, the XML project is a meritocracy -- the more
work you do, the more you are allowed to do. Occasional contributors
will be able to report bugs and participate in the mailing lists.
Specific changes to a product proposed for discussion or voting on the
appropriate development mailing list should be presented in the form
of input to the patch command. When sent to the mailing list, the
message should contain a subject beginning with [PATCH] and including
a distinctive one-line summary that corresponds to the action item for
that patch.
Use the diff -u command from the original software file(s) to the
modified software file(s) to create the patch. Patches should be
submitted against the latest CVS versions of the software to avoid
conflicts and ensure that you are not submitting a patch for a problem
that has already been resolved.
Developers who make regular and substantial contributions may become
committers as described above.
LICENSING
=========
All contributions to the xml.apache.org project adhere to the "ASF
Source Code License." All further contributions must be made under the
same terms. All contributions must contain the following copyright
notice: [This changes now that the license is available]
I'm not subscribed to licensing, but at FOP, Jeremias has just gone through the pain of substituting the full license for the 'reference' version. Does this mean that it was unnecessary?
Copyright (c) {date} {name of contributor} and others. All rights
reserved. This program and the accompanying materials are made
available under the terms of the ASF Source Code License, as found in
the file ASF.code.license.html that is included in this distribution.
THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
=======================
The development process is intentionally lightweight; like other
Apache projects, the committers decide which changes may be committed
to the repository. Three +1 ('yes' votes) with no -1 ('no' votes or
vetoes) are needed to approve a code change. For efficiency, some code
changes from some contributors (e.g. feature additions, bug fixes) may
be approved in advance, in which case they may be committed first and
changed as needed, with conflicts resolved by majority vote of the
committers.
The above may need a reality check. Does anyone actually do this?
SUBPROJECT REQUIREMENTS
=======================
Each subproject must have a set of requirements as well as an
up-to-date release plan and design document on its dedicated web page.
It must be possible for each subproject to plug into the Gump nightly
build system (see http://jakarta.apache.org/builds/gump). It is
recommended that each subproject have a smoke-test system that works at
least as a basic integration test.
RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER APACHE PROJECTS
=====================================
The xml.apache.org project should work closely with other Apache
projects, such as Jakarta and the Apache Server, to avoid redundancy
and achieve a coherent architecture among xml.apache.org and these
projects.
-- Peter B. West [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.powerup.com.au/~pbwest/ "Lord, to whom shall we go?"
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