On 9/5/2011 12:54 PM, eric b wrote:
Hi Shane,
Le 5 sept. 11 à 18:22, Shane Curcuru a écrit :
Ha! Ross beat me to it!
Indeed, the role of the board at the ASF is strictly organizational.
Technical decisions on any project (or podling) at the ASF are up to
the (P)PMC running that project. PMCs are made up of individuals -
corporations are never invited to be on a PMC or other Apache body.
Ok, I see better now.
Maybe unrelated, but since some key legacy OpenOffice.org developers,
initialy contributing to Apache OpenOffice.org got hired by .. say some
other companies, I really wonder until which point, a Company can act
and disturb things.
Many Apache committers are paid by their employers to contribute to
Apache projects; this is quite normal. Committers and especially PMC
Members are expected - when acting within an Apache project - to act as
an individual working for the Apache project's best interests. We call
this "wearing your Apache hat" - which means working for the Apache
project's interests.
Obviously, there can be (and have been) cases where individuals are
influenced by their employer when doing work on Apache projects. In a
healthy community - i.e. one where the PMC is efficient at working
together and includes members from various backgrounds - this is usually
dealt with by the community as a whole. If the change is truly
beneficial to the project, the rest of the PMC can approve it. If the
change is only for the benefit of one corporation, or is harmful to the
Apache project, the PMC can stop it. In some cases, other ASF Members
may volunteer to help out or mentor a PMC through these situations, much
like Incubator podlings have Mentors.
Very rarely, a community has to deal with committers from a single
employer who may not be wearing their Apache hats, and may be acting
within the project more for the benefit of the employer than the Apache
project. In this case, the Apache board can step in to ensure that the
project's PMC does act on behalf of the Apache project, and can keep the
project independent from outside commercial influence.
Note that in no case does the Apache board make technical decisions for
a PMC or project. The board will only engage on the community and
governance side to ensure that the PMC as a whole is healthy enough to
continue to manage it's project independently.
Another document that may be helpful is the PMC Guide, which describes
how top level project PMC's are expected to work:
http://www.apache.org/dev/pmc.html
- Shane
The board does not get into technical decisions; nor do the Members of
the ASF, unless - as Ross says - they're acting as individuals on a
project. Even there, Members need to earn commit rights on each
project separately, just like everyone else.
Very sane rule.
For a little bit of perspective on what the ASF is, see my post:
http://communityovercode.com/2011/09/apache-by-the-numbers/
The only part of that Apache by the Numbers post that the board
directly works with is the Corporate section. As for the rest, it's
the People who make up the Communities that write some Code (using
Websites and Mailing Lists) to serve Users. The only reason for the
Corporate section there is to provide a legal place to stick all of
this stuff that's secure and independent from outside commercial
influence. Oh, and to ensure our servers keep running!
Although it's rather dry and boring, the official description of the
role of the Board at the ASF is quite accurate:
http://www.apache.org/foundation/board/
Thank you very much : like Ross's one, your post is extremely important
and brings a lot of information I didn't catch before (not being a
native speaker is really an issue either),
Eric
