Garrett D'Amore wrote:
> We don't have a good fill in replacement for the ON C-Team as far as ON
> goes right now.
Frankly I'm about two weeks away from proposing to disband and reform the
ON community, since they still have no forums to hold discussions or votes
on - I'm just waiting to see if the people who promised to fix that will
do so once they've gotten back from the holidays. It seems ludicrous to
begin our election process with the community hosting one of the most
active parts of our code base not being able to name Core Contributors
because there's nowhere to discuss naming them.
(Before anyone goes off the deep end, the net effect of such a move would
simply be the OGB decides to create a forum and names the new leadership
of the ON community, but the community otherwise stays unchanged - under
the Constitution we can't take any action to make decisions for the
community, can only disband the existing one and reform it with the same
charter/resources/webpages/etc. and a newly specified mailing list.)
> 1) Create a list of projects and processes which currently are Sun
> internal, that need to be replaced or removed in order to make the
> process fully open. As part of this list, there should be specific ways
> that both internal and external folks can help out. A task list, if you
> will.
Seems reasonable. Off the top of my head, this list would start with:
1) Bug updating - see #3 in your list
2) ARC case submission - see #2 in your list
3) Permission to commit - depends on consolidations - for many, large
projects require a C-Team checklist, but bug fixes/RFE's do not.
For many, all putbacks require some sort of review (code & process)
- in ON, this is WebRTI; in X, this is CRT; etc. JDS is the only
consolidation I know of to have any part of this open, since their
integration review for putbacks happens on an opensolaris.org mailing
list, but they still don't have the C-Team checklist for projects open.
4) Package Request-to-Integrate - a simple text form submitted to the WOS
RE when a new package is added to the OS telling them the information
they need to know to set the right properties in the installer/image
(Does it need to be in the miniroot? End User or Developer install?
Does it replace an existing package? etc.) Since this is a text form
submitted via e-mail, it could be easily published on opensolaris.org.
Someone who has actually done an ON putback would have more insight to any
ON-specific processes than I do of course.
Of course, Sun employees have to go through a bunch of additional processes
for Solaris integration that don't necessarily apply to OpenSolaris:
- Legal review - though as long as Sun hosts OpenSolaris.org, it requires
legal review for anything posted on the site it owns/operates. This
only applies to sources brought in from outside projects under its own
license, not those developed for an OpenSolaris community under that
communities specified license(s) and contributed under a SCA or similar
agreement.
- Accessibility review - required to verify that Solaris can be sold to
US government agencies under Sec. 508, or to other customers with
similar requirements due to laws on general business like the Americans
with Disabilities Act or to government regulations on government
purchases in other countries.
- Export control review - making sure that Sun complies with the various
import & export regulations around the world, mostly around encryption,
though again, Sun requires this for anything hosted on the site it runs
as well.
> 2) Formally request that an OpenSolaris ARC be formed, perhaps staffed
> initially with the PSARC membership,
How would that be different than the existing OpenSolaris Architecture
community?
> and that it be mandated to begin
> using tools available outside of SWAN at its earliest convenience.
The last conversation I had with Plocher before the holidays was that he
was working on this now that he'd gotten access to set up tools hosted on
OpenSolaris.org outside the limitations of the core webapp. I'll leave
it to him to give details/status.
> 3) Mandate that the RTI tools be made available outside of SWAN, with a
> fixed deadline to be decided upon by OGB. This is a key process, and it
> need not depend on SWAN.
How can the OGB mandate that this happen and impose a deadline? What do
we do if it's missed? Issue a strongly worded statement that we're unhappy?
We can't force Sun to assign resources or punish anyone if they're not.
We can declare that OpenSolaris consolidations cannot require RTI's for
putbacks until it's outside the firewall, but until the code is outside and
outside committers are named, Sun can still require its employees to require
them. Hell, since most of us are employed by Sun, Sun can require us to
not vote for ignoring their mandated processes if the matter is forced into
a standoff, so setting up an ultimatum seems liked a doomed strategy.
That said, you might want to pay more attention to tools-discuss:
http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/tools-discuss/2007-December/007495.html
> 3) Request a status report on the search for a bugster replacement.
Again, welcome to last month's tools-discuss mail:
http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/tools-discuss/2007-December/007477.html
http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/tools-discuss/2007-December/007506.html
> 4) Formally create a role for C-Teams, to be assigned/elected by either
> the Core Contributors or the OGB, for consolidations. Mixing governance
> and C-Team duties is a mistake IMO, and ultimately I believe that we
> need far fewer C-Team members than we need Core Contributors.
I started discussions on this last summer, but got pulled into a new project
at work and didn't get back to finishing it, and no one else cared enough to
pick it up. I don't see the OGB appointing C-Teams for all the consolidations
- the communities would know much better than us who should be making decisions
for them.
> That's an awful lot to do. But at this point, I think the leadership we
> elected needs to stand up, and take action.
While it may not be visible, the OGB's attention is still mostly focused on
working out a resolution with Sun on the Indiana/OpenSolaris naming issue,
a discussion being held privately between the OGB and Sun management. Some
of us have discussed with Sun management the need to deal with the C-Team
issue, and they agree we need to solve that after we get past the naming
hurdle.
--
-Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersmith at sun.com
Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering
