On Feb 16, 2007, at 2:46 AM, Mark Brouwer wrote:
Craig L Russell wrote:
Podlings are encouraged to make all committers members of the
Podling's PPMC. Thus, the vote to accept a new committer should
also be a vote to accept a new member of the PPMC. The initial
membership of the PPMC should include the initial committers,
the Champion, and the Mentor.
Can someone with a thorough understanding of the ASF tell whether
there
are projects that keep a distinction between committers and PMC
members,
if so for what reasons and for what kind of projects might it be
better
to maintain this separation.
All projects do in the sense that there *is* a difference between
committers and PMC members. A PMC member has a binding, legal vote
on project issues (like releases) and the committer doesn't. PMC
members, by definition, are responsible for oversight over the whole
project, whereas a committer technically is responsible for the
commits they make.
There are different styles of how projects do this. Some keep the
bar somewhat low for committership and then over a period of time, a
few months (?) watch the committers behavior and if "compatible" (as
defined by that PMC) with the community, offer that person PMC
membership. Others keep a higher bar for committership, and then
offer PMC quicker. This is something this community has to decide.
My personal taste lately is a reasonably high bar for commit to
ensure working social and technical compatibility, and then faster PMC.
I also believe that all committers should eventually be on the PMC.
You will have cases where people choose to not be - they don't have
time, for example. But those tend to be exceptions, dictated by life
experiences ("I'm going to have a baby next week, and won't have the
time.")
I have very mixed feelings with regard to this subject and no
experience
at all, but I realize that as soon as all the committers are PMC
members
and making committer == PMC member turns out to be a mistake it is
likely too late to correct it.
A PMC can always get rid of someone if there is a problem, but it has
to be for a good reason, and really, really is an unpleasant
experience. :)
Please enlighten me :-)
Hope that helped. In practice, it works well - in a project with
active social interaction, you can usually figure out problems before
they happen, and people tend to be self-selecting. IOW, if I'm a
PITA to work with, we're going to probably have friction from the get-
go, and it won't be fun for anyone, including me, and therefore I
probably won't hang around anyway. We're all volunteers :)
geir
--
Mark
