>From the list I had gathered that the PMC wields a significant amount of clout. What the PMC was, I did not have a clue, until Aaron filled me in. Thanks!
-----Original Message----- From: Aaron Bannert [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2003 4:49 PM To: Cabrera, Alan Subject: Re: [vote] Aaron Mulder as committer [I don't think that's a dumb question. Feel free to forward this message to the [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list if you wish.] Each Apache project has a PMC (Project Management Committee). The PMC has a Chairperson who is an officer of the ASF (Apache Software Foundation, a Non-Profit Corporation registered in Delaware). The Chair makes reports to the Board at some of the board meetings about the progress and state of the project, and attends all board meetings. This is how the board maintains oversight over each project. The PMC approves (implicitly or explicitly) the actions of its committers. One way in which the actions of the committers are approved is by approving a project release (there is a vote and if it passes then the tarball and other release files are put up on the website for public distribution). Since many of the ASF guidelines are not strict rules, it's up to the PMC to fill in the gaps (for better or for worse). Sometimes one PMC will do things differently than another PMC. In the end, it is the responsibility of each PMC to make sure things are Running smoothly, and to fix them if they are broken. Normally, the PMC mailing list is quiet, where most of the activity revolves around approving new committers or PMC members. Sometimes something sensitive will come up, like a security vulnerability or some copyright dispute, etc... When this happens it usually happens on the PMC mailing list. Eventually, all decisions that affect the project are brought to the public development list. Just because the PMC has the power and the responsibility over its project doesn't mean the committers have no power. On every PMC I'm on (I'm on a few at this point) the voice of the committers carries huge weight. In most cases the distinction is totally transparent because the PMC is comprised of most of the committers, and that group usually agrees with the minority of people who are not yet committers. In any case, there is an incentive there for committers to become full PMC members, since it guarantees their voice in the project that they have dedicated so much effort to. I hope that clears things up a little. Again, feel free to post this to the geronimo list or to ask any other questions about this. I may not have everything totally right, and as it sometimes works at the ASF, there are multiple ways of doing things, so someone else have some other Better ideas for the above descriptions. -aaron On Tuesday, September 16, 2003, at 01:30 PM, Cabrera, Alan wrote: > Let me ask a dumb question. What is a PMC? ---------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our Internet site at http://www.reuters.com Get closer to the financial markets with Reuters Messaging - for more information and to register, visit <http://www.reuters.com/messaging> Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of The Reuters Group.
