[PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
Previously I'd suggested that we should be cleaning up inactive committers and inactive PMC members - because I'm a bit of a tidy-addict sometimes and I enjoy deleting :) A thread on [EMAIL PROTECTED] convinced me that this was half wrong though - we shouldn't be worrying about cleaning up the large list of inactive committers, they might come back and that would be great. However I do still think we should be cleaning up the inactive PMC members. The PMC represents the active committers entrusted with oversight - so to have inactive committers on there is a detriment to its ability to get the job done. My proposal is that we create a file in SVN in which PMC members can list themselves as being active. After 1 month, failure to appear in that list will result in removal from the PMC. If it goes well we could consider doing it periodically, or just when it feels like the numbers are getting out of sync again. Thoughts? Hen - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Next step for various discussion points
We've talked about a lot over the last few weeks. Next weekend (I suspect this weekend will be quite busy) I'll pull together the various threads and push those on that seemed to garner interest - ie) be constructive rather than stirring up trouble :) Though if anyone else would like to propose votes or stir up more trouble - please go for it. Hen - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
Hi Hen, My proposal is that we create a file in SVN in which PMC members can list themselves as being active. After 1 month, failure to appear in that list will result in removal from the PMC. If it goes well we could consider doing it periodically, or just when it feels like the numbers are getting out of sync again. Thoughts? Make sure there is an easy way for the removed people to get back on the list. Somebody might just be taking a longer vacation, or have a big backlog of things to do after a shorter vacation. cheers, Roland - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
Ahh, you're American. You do realize Europeans take like 5 month vacations? I don't care a whole lot so long as I'm exempted because I commit in spurts like once every 2-3 years ;-) -Andy Henri Yandell wrote: Previously I'd suggested that we should be cleaning up inactive committers and inactive PMC members - because I'm a bit of a tidy-addict sometimes and I enjoy deleting :) A thread on [EMAIL PROTECTED] convinced me that this was half wrong though - we shouldn't be worrying about cleaning up the large list of inactive committers, they might come back and that would be great. However I do still think we should be cleaning up the inactive PMC members. The PMC represents the active committers entrusted with oversight - so to have inactive committers on there is a detriment to its ability to get the job done. My proposal is that we create a file in SVN in which PMC members can list themselves as being active. After 1 month, failure to appear in that list will result in removal from the PMC. If it goes well we could consider doing it periodically, or just when it feels like the numbers are getting out of sync again. Thoughts? Hen - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
Henri Yandell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 16/03/2006 08:14:08: My proposal is that we create a file in SVN in which PMC members can list themselves as being active. After 1 month, failure to appear in that list will result in removal from the PMC. If it goes well we could consider doing it periodically, or just when it feels like the numbers are getting out of sync again. My thought is this... 1/ we have a process for decision making - email votes. 1a/ we don't have a process for managing your file, and anyway it would still require mail to be involved. 2/ we should use what works 3/ we know we're lazy so lets factor that in. What I think might be a better solution would be that we periodically vote to de-select named pmc members. The votes are tallied per lazy-consensus. Scenarios are... Danny proposes to de-select Robert (just an example mate, I'd never do that:-). a)No votes cast. Robert goes. b)Some people vote +1 but Robert votes -1. He gets to stay. c)Robert doesn't vote but someone else knows why he's temporarily unable to contribute so votes -1, He stays. Pros are: This is safe from the POV that it doesn't strip people of PMC membership unless no-one cares enough to do anything. It achieves its goal with minimum effort on the part of the active PMC members. The mail thread recording the decision is archived in the same place and the same manner as all the other decisions we take. The process which resulted in their election to the PMC is (more or less) followed in reverse. Cons are: It is open to abuse, there is no restriction on the people who can be proposed or the frequency that votes can be called. This would be mitigated by the fact that many of us are not as daft as we look. It's legitimacy could be challenged unless it was documented somewhere. Then again if someone was especially belligerent they could challenge anything I suppose, and I guess that the issue could be escalated to the board. d. __ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email __ - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
2006/3/16, Andrew C. Oliver [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Ahh, you're American. You do realize Europeans take like 5 month vacations? Hum, 5 weeks in France - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
Henri Gomez wrote: 2006/3/16, Andrew C. Oliver [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Ahh, you're American. You do realize Europeans take like 5 month vacations? Hum, 5 weeks in France - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] don't forget the 70 holidays :-) - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
Nope, English. 4 week of holiday there minimum, though I'm sure I'd be on 5 or 6 if I'd stayed - it tends to increase inversely to the amount you have time to take. Hen On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, Andrew C. Oliver wrote: Ahh, you're American. You do realize Europeans take like 5 month vacations? I don't care a whole lot so long as I'm exempted because I commit in spurts like once every 2-3 years ;-) -Andy Henri Yandell wrote: Previously I'd suggested that we should be cleaning up inactive committers and inactive PMC members - because I'm a bit of a tidy-addict sometimes and I enjoy deleting :) A thread on [EMAIL PROTECTED] convinced me that this was half wrong though - we shouldn't be worrying about cleaning up the large list of inactive committers, they might come back and that would be great. However I do still think we should be cleaning up the inactive PMC members. The PMC represents the active committers entrusted with oversight - so to have inactive committers on there is a detriment to its ability to get the job done. My proposal is that we create a file in SVN in which PMC members can list themselves as being active. After 1 month, failure to appear in that list will result in removal from the PMC. If it goes well we could consider doing it periodically, or just when it feels like the numbers are getting out of sync again. Thoughts? Hen - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, Roland Weber wrote: Hi Hen, My proposal is that we create a file in SVN in which PMC members can list themselves as being active. After 1 month, failure to appear in that list will result in removal from the PMC. If it goes well we could consider doing it periodically, or just when it feels like the numbers are getting out of sync again. Thoughts? Make sure there is an easy way for the removed people to get back on the list. Somebody might just be taking a longer vacation, or have a big backlog of things to do after a shorter vacation. 3 +1s from PMC members would be the most that would be needed - though I think we could also do it without even needing that vote. Someone just asks to be back on the PMC and after 72 hours they'd get added back on. Hen - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, Danny Angus wrote: Henri Yandell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 16/03/2006 08:14:08: My proposal is that we create a file in SVN in which PMC members can list themselves as being active. After 1 month, failure to appear in that list will result in removal from the PMC. If it goes well we could consider doing it periodically, or just when it feels like the numbers are getting out of sync again. My thought is this... 1/ we have a process for decision making - email votes. 1a/ we don't have a process for managing your file, and anyway it would still require mail to be involved. Poorly explained by me. The file would be deleted once it had served its purpose. An alternative is a mail thread to which everyone must answer to remain on the PMC - however a file in SVN is a lot simpler to keep track of. 2/ we should use what works 3/ we know we're lazy so lets factor that in. Yep. All process should be the minimum necessary to get the job done and allow us all to get back to the real task of development. What I think might be a better solution would be that we periodically vote to de-select named pmc members. The votes are tallied per lazy-consensus. Doesn't fit with the lazyness bit though. Up to 50% of the PMC are not active committers to Jakarta. That's a lot of voting, even with lazy consensus. Scenarios are... Danny proposes to de-select Robert (just an example mate, I'd never do that:-). a)No votes cast. Robert goes. b)Some people vote +1 but Robert votes -1. He gets to stay. Nope, he gets to leave. A -1 from the person involved would quite simply be a resignation, which can happen at any time. c)Robert doesn't vote but someone else knows why he's temporarily unable to contribute so votes -1, He stays. Pros are: This is safe from the POV that it doesn't strip people of PMC membership unless no-one cares enough to do anything. It's not as if it's hard to get back on if anyone cares to rejoin. It achieves its goal with minimum effort on the part of the active PMC members. The mail thread recording the decision is archived in the same place and the same manner as all the other decisions we take. That's a good one. We can record the results of the svn file in an email too. The process which resulted in their election to the PMC is (more or less) followed in reverse. Symmetry is nice - but whether someone stays on the PMC or not should really be up to just themselves - +1 means stay, -1 means go, no reply means go after a suitable period of time. Cons are: It's a lot of mail. Lot of work to collate that. It is open to abuse, there is no restriction on the people who can be proposed or the frequency that votes can be called. This would be mitigated by the fact that many of us are not as daft as we look. It's legitimacy could be challenged unless it was documented somewhere. Nah, we're into a realm where legitimacy is defined by whatever we decide to do. Technically our charter says we need a 75% of the PMC vote to remove someone - we're not going to get that and it's not a rule that scopes. We probably should just drop that from the charter - it's unnecessary bureaucracy. Or change it to something simpler. One question is whether we'd want to do that first - before removing the inactive PMC members from the PMC. Then again if someone was especially belligerent they could challenge anything I suppose, and I guess that the issue could be escalated to the board. Well, first it'd escalate to the chair. A chair should be able to sort such things out without it becoming a board issue. Hen - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
Hola, Generally +1 to what Henri said, with the following exception: Poorly explained by me. The file would be deleted once it had served its purpose. There's no overwhelming need to delete it, and it could be a useful historical record. I'd say keep it in SVN. Yoav - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
On 3/16/06, Henri Yandell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip/ Nah, we're into a realm where legitimacy is defined by whatever we decide to do. Technically our charter says we need a 75% of the PMC vote to remove someone - we're not going to get that and it's not a rule that scopes. We probably should just drop that from the charter - it's unnecessary bureaucracy. Or change it to something simpler. One question is whether we'd want to do that first - before removing the inactive PMC members from the PMC. no, we should just change it to a 75% majority needed to remove an *active* PMC member. though i wasn't there when it was written, i'd put good money down that that was the original intent. i'm sure the 75% rule is for removing abusers, not for dropping inactive members from the roles. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
On 3/16/06, Henri Yandell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Previously I'd suggested that we should be cleaning up inactive committers and inactive PMC members - because I'm a bit of a tidy-addict sometimes and I enjoy deleting :) A thread on [EMAIL PROTECTED] convinced me that this was half wrong though - we shouldn't be worrying about cleaning up the large list of inactive committers, they might come back and that would be great. However I do still think we should be cleaning up the inactive PMC members. The PMC represents the active committers entrusted with oversight - so to have inactive committers on there is a detriment to its ability to get the job done. My proposal is that we create a file in SVN in which PMC members can list themselves as being active. After 1 month, failure to appear in that list will result in removal from the PMC. If it goes well we could consider doing it periodically, or just when it feels like the numbers are getting out of sync again. Thoughts? Yea, why over complicate this? Simply email the inactive PMC's known email addresses explaining they have been inactive for an extended period of time and whether or not they have a problem being de-PMC-ified. Try to contact them three times at two week intervals and keep track of this either in svn or a bugzilla issue. After two months of no response let other PMCs vote on the issue. Introducing a new tasks that only your buddies will likely know about in order to maintain membership feels a bit like when the south (in the USA years ago) introduced literacy tests to keep blacks from voting. It's fine that you have an agenda, but be straight forward and honest about it. And don't make people jump through hoops so their possibly conflicting positions are still binding. -- Sandy McArthur He who dares not offend cannot be honest. - Thomas Paine - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
On 16/03/06, Henri Yandell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] Scenarios are... Danny proposes to de-select Robert (just an example mate, I'd never do that:-). a)No votes cast. Robert goes. b)Some people vote +1 but Robert votes -1. He gets to stay. Nope, he gets to leave. A -1 from the person involved would quite simply be a resignation, which can happen at any time. Surely +1 in this case is a vote for expulsion, and -1 is a vote against expulsion, i.e. to stay in the PMC? Or are Robert's votes always the inverse? ! c)Robert doesn't vote but someone else knows why he's temporarily unable to contribute so votes -1, He stays. Here -1 means don't expel. [...] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
On 3/16/06, Henri Yandell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Previously I'd suggested that we should be cleaning up inactive committers and inactive PMC members - because I'm a bit of a tidy-addict sometimes and I enjoy deleting :) A thread on [EMAIL PROTECTED] convinced me that this was half wrong though - we shouldn't be worrying about cleaning up the large list of inactive committers, they might come back and that would be great. However I do still think we should be cleaning up the inactive PMC members. The PMC represents the active committers entrusted with oversight - so to have inactive committers on there is a detriment to its ability to get the job done. I think I know what you mean, but if I'm right, you didn't say what you mean. ;-) The PMC represents those people entrusted with oversight of the project. The manner in which we elect PMC members means that those people are committers. A PMC member may be active or inactive with respect to committership, and may be active or inactive with respect to oversight of the project. Those two are not necessarily tied at any given time. For example, someone might be actively working to ensure oversight of the project, but may not have committed anything for a long time. All that is a long-winded way of saying that it's not inactive committers that are the concern, but rather inactive overseers. Those people are harder to identify. Your SVN file proposal might help, although it's not a complete solution. (I'm not sure that there is one, though.) -- Martin Cooper My proposal is that we create a file in SVN in which PMC members can list themselves as being active. After 1 month, failure to appear in that list will result in removal from the PMC. If it goes well we could consider doing it periodically, or just when it feels like the numbers are getting out of sync again. Thoughts? Hen - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
On 3/16/06, Henri Yandell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, Roland Weber wrote: Hi Hen, My proposal is that we create a file in SVN in which PMC members can list themselves as being active. After 1 month, failure to appear in that list will result in removal from the PMC. If it goes well we could consider doing it periodically, or just when it feels like the numbers are getting out of sync again. Thoughts? Make sure there is an easy way for the removed people to get back on the list. Somebody might just be taking a longer vacation, or have a big backlog of things to do after a shorter vacation. 3 +1s from PMC members would be the most that would be needed - though I think we could also do it without even needing that vote. Someone just asks to be back on the PMC and after 72 hours they'd get added back on. The catch with this, though, is that someone coming back from a long vacation loses their binding vote on any vote that closes within that 72 hour period. -- Martin Cooper Hen - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, Martin Cooper wrote: On 3/16/06, Henri Yandell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Previously I'd suggested that we should be cleaning up inactive committers and inactive PMC members - because I'm a bit of a tidy-addict sometimes and I enjoy deleting :) A thread on [EMAIL PROTECTED] convinced me that this was half wrong though - we shouldn't be worrying about cleaning up the large list of inactive committers, they might come back and that would be great. However I do still think we should be cleaning up the inactive PMC members. The PMC represents the active committers entrusted with oversight - so to have inactive committers on there is a detriment to its ability to get the job done. I think I know what you mean, but if I'm right, you didn't say what you mean. ;-) The PMC represents those people entrusted with oversight of the project. The manner in which we elect PMC members means that those people are committers. A PMC member may be active or inactive with respect to committership, and may be active or inactive with respect to oversight of the project. Those two are not necessarily tied at any given time. For example, someone might be actively working to ensure oversight of the project, but may not have committed anything for a long time. All that is a long-winded way of saying that it's not inactive committers that are the concern, but rather inactive overseers. Those people are harder to identify. Your SVN file proposal might help, although it's not a complete solution. (I'm not sure that there is one, though.) Yeah, what you said. :) Sorry for any confusion. Hen - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, Sandy McArthur wrote: On 3/16/06, Henri Yandell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Previously I'd suggested that we should be cleaning up inactive committers and inactive PMC members - because I'm a bit of a tidy-addict sometimes and I enjoy deleting :) A thread on [EMAIL PROTECTED] convinced me that this was half wrong though - we shouldn't be worrying about cleaning up the large list of inactive committers, they might come back and that would be great. However I do still think we should be cleaning up the inactive PMC members. The PMC represents the active committers entrusted with oversight - so to have inactive committers on there is a detriment to its ability to get the job done. My proposal is that we create a file in SVN in which PMC members can list themselves as being active. After 1 month, failure to appear in that list will result in removal from the PMC. If it goes well we could consider doing it periodically, or just when it feels like the numbers are getting out of sync again. Thoughts? Yea, why over complicate this? Simply email the inactive PMC's known email addresses explaining they have been inactive for an extended period of time and whether or not they have a problem being de-PMC-ified. Try to contact them three times at two week intervals and keep track of this either in svn or a bugzilla issue. After two months of no response let other PMCs vote on the issue. See Danny's email on us being lazy :) I can definitely do this - just trying to avoid that much work and spam to the mail lists as I think I would need to cc pmc@ or general@ on each email - though I could do one big cc: email each week interval. If consensus prefers this, I'll definitely work at finding time to go ahead and do it. Introducing a new tasks that only your buddies will likely know about in order to maintain membership feels a bit like when the south (in the USA years ago) introduced literacy tests to keep blacks from voting. It's fine that you have an agenda, but be straight forward and honest about it. And don't make people jump through hoops so their possibly conflicting positions are still binding. Hope I'm not coming across like this. My buddies in this case are described as: People who read Jakarta mailing lists. Ideally pmc@ and general@, though I can quite happily mail all the -dev lists if we think there are pmc members not listening to the central lists. My agenda is to make things less messy. Am working hard to avoid taking the direction of introducing small changes to lead the community in a direction. That'd be the dishonest bit. I guess this does have some link to my agenda to enforce the single Jakarta community meme - but even in the multi-community meme, there'd be no excuse for pmc members not being on general@ and [EMAIL PROTECTED] A pmc member who is not on pmc@ (and doesn't want to subscribe) has effectively resigned in my view; pretty much the same for [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hen - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
On 3/16/06, Henri Yandell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, Sandy McArthur wrote: On 3/16/06, Henri Yandell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Previously I'd suggested that we should be cleaning up inactive committers and inactive PMC members - because I'm a bit of a tidy-addict sometimes and I enjoy deleting :) A thread on [EMAIL PROTECTED] convinced me that this was half wrong though - we shouldn't be worrying about cleaning up the large list of inactive committers, they might come back and that would be great. However I do still think we should be cleaning up the inactive PMC members. The PMC represents the active committers entrusted with oversight - so to have inactive committers on there is a detriment to its ability to get the job done. My proposal is that we create a file in SVN in which PMC members can list themselves as being active. After 1 month, failure to appear in that list will result in removal from the PMC. If it goes well we could consider doing it periodically, or just when it feels like the numbers are getting out of sync again. Thoughts? Yea, why over complicate this? Simply email the inactive PMC's known email addresses explaining they have been inactive for an extended period of time and whether or not they have a problem being de-PMC-ified. Try to contact them three times at two week intervals and keep track of this either in svn or a bugzilla issue. After two months of no response let other PMCs vote on the issue. See Danny's email on us being lazy :) I can definitely do this - just trying to avoid that much work and spam to the mail lists as I think I would need to cc pmc@ or general@ on each email - though I could do one big cc: email each week interval. If consensus prefers this, I'll definitely work at finding time to go ahead and do it. In my mind it is the right thing to do regardless of general consensus. If you are going to strip someone of their title or responsibilities without previously agreed terms or making an reasonable effort to directly resolve the issue with them, then it's wrong and disrespectful. Introducing a new tasks that only your buddies will likely know about in order to maintain membership feels a bit like when the south (in the USA years ago) introduced literacy tests to keep blacks from voting. It's fine that you have an agenda, but be straight forward and honest about it. And don't make people jump through hoops so their possibly conflicting positions are still binding. Hope I'm not coming across like this. My buddies in this case are described as: People who read Jakarta mailing lists. Ideally pmc@ and general@, though I can quite happily mail all the -dev lists if we think there are pmc members not listening to the central lists. My example included a little exaggeration to make it more obvious. I don't actually equate being a PMC with what I consider a human rights issue. But yes, it does seem like your avoiding the effort required to do the right thing and in the process it comes off a little underhanded. My agenda is to make things less messy. Am working hard to avoid taking the direction of introducing small changes to lead the community in a direction. That'd be the dishonest bit. I guess this does have some link to my agenda to enforce the single Jakarta community meme I generally don't have a problem with administrative goals, I'm mostly indifferent to all of them. I care about the code, the end user's experience, and my user experience. I will say I think ratio of administrivia emails and commit log emails is out of balance. Administrative tasks are important but not so much to justify a bureaucracy and kill productivity. - but even in the multi-community meme, there'd be no excuse for pmc members not being on general@ and [EMAIL PROTECTED] A pmc member who is not on pmc@ (and doesn't want to subscribe) has effectively resigned in my view; pretty much the same for [EMAIL PROTECTED] I can agree with that but unless that is made clear when someone is made a PMC. I'm not a PMC so I don't know. If the duties and expectations of a PMC don't include being responsive on a mailing list then changing the rules without their consent isn't right. -- Sandy McArthur He who dares not offend cannot be honest. - Thomas Paine - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
Firstly, thanks for these emails Sandy. It's a good wake up call for me, and I should explain why I'm being so anti-community. We're out of sync with the ASF - I'm pretty confident that the view that was reached a few years ago that Jakarta should not be a huge umbrella has not changed. If anything it has been strengthened by time and the weakening of the Jakarta community. The chair role is that of a bridge. They must pass information to the board/ASF from the community, and to the community from the board/ASF. My pushes for reforming how do we do things are the latter - they're my ideas, but I check every now and then informally with other asf members (individually and via the members IRC channel) to make sure I'm not going too far. Hopefully you'll see that I'm not that tied to my ideas - if there's not a lot of interest, I'll dump them and come up with new ones :) The other half is to then see what conversations happen and consensus builds. People are quite against moving votes to a common list for example, but they're less against having no walls in svn (just a couple of -1 opinions so far). So I'll be dropping the former and asking for votes on the second. And yes, I don't know what I'm doing :) We're pretty good at having unique problems in Jakarta - I don't think Web Services and XML have quite the separation of internal communities that we have. One possible consensus may have been that we wanted to remain separate - in that case I'd have to be asking the board for a whole series of different things. If we remain highly separate, I think we need to be able to delegate subproject oversight far more clearly than we have so far - and that's something we pretty much decided not to do a few years ago when there was lots of debate. As it is, I think we're pretty split on the separate bits, and new TLPs are probably a better solution to some of those desires to remain independent. Not that the above is meant to be complaints - this stuff is very interesting to be thinking about; but hopefully it gives you a bit of an idea of my reasons and direction so it seems less sly. Replying inline about the particular issue: On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, Sandy McArthur wrote: On 3/16/06, Henri Yandell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I can definitely do this - just trying to avoid that much work and spam to the mail lists as I think I would need to cc pmc@ or general@ on each email - though I could do one big cc: email each week interval. If consensus prefers this, I'll definitely work at finding time to go ahead and do it. In my mind it is the right thing to do regardless of general consensus. If you are going to strip someone of their title or responsibilities without previously agreed terms or making an reasonable effort to directly resolve the issue with them, then it's wrong and disrespectful. The biggest problem I have with it is that it forces me to come up with a list of people to exclude - that's the one that feels wrong to me. Let's say, anyone who hasn't committed since 2004. They might not commit, but they may still listen to the pmc@ mailing list and say something every now and then. So let's say everyone who has not emailed since 2004 and not committed since 2004. And that still doesn't cover those who have not been reading email since 2004 - as that's an impossible list to make. I agree with one of your points - not telling them before removing them is definitely wrong. However I don't think your solution is right. Rather we should: * Do the SVN file to create a list of people who are not actively fulfilling their responsibility as a member of the PMC (ie paying attention). * Post the list of those not in the SVN file to the PMC list for any -1s and reasons as to why they'd be * Inform each PMC member of the removal (I can repeat if felt necessary). * Wait a period of time. 1 month, 2 months, 3 months? * Remove from PMC. Record who was removed so we know who to be able to quickly add back in. Martin mentioned that 72 hours meant they could miss the vote they're interested in - yep, c'est la vie. It may turn out that everyone shows that they are active and that we really do have an active PMC that is three times larger than the next (or double or something like that). In that case, I'll be able to happily tell the board that that is so and we'll have underline the importance of paying attention to the shared community mailing lists. Introducing a new tasks that only your buddies will likely know about in order to maintain membership feels a bit like when the south (in the USA years ago) introduced literacy tests to keep blacks from voting. It's fine that you have an agenda, but be straight forward and honest about it. And don't make people jump through hoops so their possibly conflicting positions are still binding. Hope I'm not coming across like this. My buddies in this case are described as: People who read Jakarta mailing
RE: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
My proposal is that we create a file in SVN in which PMC members can list themselves as being active. After 1 month, failure to appear in that list will result in removal from the PMC. Why not just send out e-mail to the PMC members asking them if they want to remain active? We have done this with another PMC, and had one person repeatedly ask to stay listed as active. I don't think that I've seen a post from him other than that in some years now, but as long as he's happy reading and has nothing to say, I have no problem with keeping him. There is no quorum to be met for the PMC. --- Noel - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
there are no written down rules that I know of for what a PMC member should do (that'd be unnecessary bureacracy). The written rules for the ASF are http://www.apache.org/foundation/bylaws.html.PMCs would make their lives a whole lot simpler if they would facilitate human participation and focus a lot less on rigid structures (aka, rules). If you do not need a rule, do not have it. If you need a rule, I prefer SHOULD rather than MUST unless coding automated protocols. Guidelines are better than requirements. Ok, that's enough from speakers corner. Good night. :-) --- Noel - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PROPOSAL] Cleanup pmc members
On 3/17/06, Noel J. Bergman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My proposal is that we create a file in SVN in which PMC members can list themselves as being active. After 1 month, failure to appear in that list will result in removal from the PMC. Why not just send out e-mail to the PMC members asking them if they want to remain active? I dunno, I'm suggesting the same thing but I guess that is too simple of a solution. On 3/17/06, Henri Yandell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The biggest problem I have with it is that it forces me to come up with a list of people to exclude - that's the one that feels wrong to me. If you want, I'll come up with a list, starting with http://jakarta.apache.org/site/whoweare.html , and make an effort to contact them and report back after a while and it will feel right to me. -- Sandy McArthur He who dares not offend cannot be honest. - Thomas Paine - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
