On Sun, Nov 23, 2003 at 08:08:54PM +1100, Berin Lautenbach wrote: > Greg Stein wrote: > > The Board *would* prefer to see more TLPs rather than complicated > > structures under one large PMC. The problem here is based on one PMC > > trying to oversee way too many projects. Partitioning should help. > > So, (after much thought and rumination), can we just turn XML into a > federation of TLPs with a common web site, e-mail etc?
That would certainly work. It has even been suggested for Jakarta at one time or another. > Most of the > projects in XML would stand on their own, with one or two exceptions > that we could look at gathering together to create a single TLP. > > For those that don't particularly want to set up their own web site, > change e-mail lists etc. leave everything as it currently is and have a > group of vulunteers from each member project of the group who take care > of those issues. Sure. This would continue to work. > Means a few more TLPs = more PMCs for the board to look after, but might > fit more with the spirit of what you are looking for. At the moment, the Board isn't concerned at all by growing the number of PMCs. I think we could easily double, possibly triple, the count before the Board will need to take any particular action. Remember: the reports already contain information about all the codebases. We'll get more information at the general/legal level from each project (which is great!), but that won't grow the size of the total monthly reports *that* much. Mostly, the Directors simply need to start reading them *before* the monthly Board meeting conference call :-) > At the same time, > it prevents an explosion of web-sites and all the stuff that comes with > a TLP. There have been many discussions about better ways to index and cross-ref projects at the ASF. You could look at xml.apache.org as a topic-focused reference for various codebases maintained by multiple PMCs. To some extent, visitors to the ASF don't even need to understand or be concerned with the oversight structure that backs the codebases. > Any current sub-project preferring their own web site etc. could head > down that path. But keeping everything together gives the grouping of > projects (I believe) a greater focus and wider community. Sure. Take a look at Jakarta. Ant, Maven, James, and others, all moved to their own TLPs. The index page still points over to them under a "Related" heading in the left-hand nav. Since each project will become self-governed, that project can determine what is best for itself. > Also, we could leave the current smaller sub-projects in XML, but have > the XML PMC reduced to members in those sub-projects and require they be > accross all of them (i.e. an active part of -dev in each). I would certainly think so. Doing a *complete* shift into new TLPs might be much more problematic than a gentle migration. If you take a look at the Jakarta project migrations, we had one or two each month for several months. I would expect the same kind of thing from the XML projects. Each of the codebases' development communities would discuss and vote on moving to a new TLP. If the vote passes, then they would craft a resolution to that effect and submit it to the board. (examples are in the Board minutes) Thus, each project is moving at the pace appropriate for them, and with the planning that each one needs. I believe a simple way to get the ball rolling is for the PMC to review what TLPs might make sense for the existing set of codebases. Some might move to Cocoon, some to DB, some would get new TLPs, and some would stay with the XML Project. Cheers, -g -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ... ASF Chairman ... http://www.apache.org/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
