Thank you for putting together you first board report [1] I've taken a look at it and find it is acceptable in its current form. However, I do have a couple of comments (as you get to know me more I nearly always have "a couple of comments")
Incubator reports and TLP board reports are slightly different. Generally the Incubator reports are "how we are progressing towards graduation" whereas TLP board reports are more of a "how the community is functioning". The board is not really interested in any technical details of a project, that's up to the (P)PMC. What the board cares about is whether the community is functional or not. For this reason I tend to encourage podlings to explicitly address some of community related items in "Most important to address" section. A project will not graduate until its community is fully functional. The technical requirement to get a release out, for example, is not really that important in its own right (although it can be argued that getting a release out will help build community of course). I also wonder if getting a release out is more important than getting the code in SVN or removing licence incompatibilities so that a release can be made. Under the "Community Development Progress" heading I think the project should give itself a pat on the back. We are already starting to see people becoming conscious about increasing the transparency of the projects operations. It's not just mentors saying "don't use the private list" anymore. Perhaps a comment along the line of "initial committers are already acting upon mentors guidance with respect to the ASF policy of having everything in public". I suggest this because the relationship between, for example, IBM and the project is probably a significant concern for some potential contributors. It also sends a strong signal that, as a mentor, i would ask for the reverse to be put into the report if I felt there were a problem. Of course other mentors may have a different opinion on what should be on the board report at this time. I'm not insisting on these items being included. Wait to see what other mentors say before editing further. Ross [1] http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/July2011 -- Ross Gardler (@rgardler) Programme Leader (Open Development) OpenDirective http://opendirective.com
