minutes/2006.04.17.html

<h1>ECESIS, PTP</h1>
<h2>PMC Minutes April 17, 2006</h2>
<div align="center">
  <center>
  <table border="0" cellspacing="3">
    <tr>
      <td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><b>Attending</b></td>
      <td align="center" >&nbsp;</td>
      <td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><b>Late</b></td>
      <td align="center" >&nbsp;</td>
      <td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><b>Regrets</b></td>
      <td align="center"></td>
      <td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><b>Missing</b></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Ward Cunningham</td>
      <td></td>
      <td>Cliff Schmidt</td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td>John Duimovich</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Bjorn Freeman-Benson</td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td>Wayne Beaton</td>
    </tr>
  </table>
  </center>
</div>

<p>The Board will vote on the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/lepido/">Lepido,
Tools for Apache Cocoon</a> archiving.</p>

<p>Wayne is scheduling a conversation with Dwight about the <a href="/ecesis/">ECESIS</a> 
project.</p>

<p>The Technology PMC is scheduling a face-to-face on Friday, July 28th (end of
OSCON) starting at 2pm.</p>

<p>Cliff reported on his ongoing interaction with the PTP project, his positive meeting with the project lead at EclipseCon, and his
most recent and less positive exchange regarding new committers. Cliff read the portion of the email that has caused disturbance.</p>

<blockquote>Regarding the election of Randy Roberts as a PTP committer, the<br>
Technology PMC cannot approve someone as a committer with little or no<br>
history to base a meritocratic decision on.  The typical process<br>
through which one becomes a committer at Eclipse begins with the<br>
developer making contributions to the project (usually over the course<br>
of several weeks to months) through patches that are evaluated by the<br>
committers for quality.  After a while, some committer (often the one<br>
who has the most contact with the contributor) will nominate the<br>
person referencing the series of contributions that the person has<br>
made and the high quality of those contributions.  Based on this<br>
history, the other committers would vote to make the person a<br>
committer.  Finally, the PMC then ratifies the vote if this process<br>
has been followed.</p>

<p>I don't see any record of Randy's merit at all.  Before the vote, I<br>
hadn't seen a single email from him on the dev list or any post on the<br>
newsgroup.  Please correct me if I've missed something, but it looks<br>
from the outside that this guy was only approved because he works with<br>
some of the other committers.  This is not an approach that encourages<br>
participation from all parties while maintaining a high level of<br>
quality in the project.</blockquote>

<p>
The PMC agreed that this was in fact a reasonable and helpful&nbsp;interpretation of the Technology project charter's requirements&nbsp;for new committers. The location of the charter within the&nbsp;website was discussed (it's
<a href="http://www.eclipse.org/technology/technology-charter.html">here</a>) as was the exact&nbsp;<br>
wording of the requirement in question:</p>

<blockquote><i>Developers who give frequent and valuable contributions to a Project, or component of a Project (in the case of large Projects), can have their status promoted to that of a "Committer" for that Project or component respectively.</i></blockquote>

<p>
Whether this charter served the needs of the research&nbsp;community was discussed without resolution. Cliff will&nbsp;solicit PTP participation in further consideration of this&nbsp;question. Cliff will also be clear that revision of the charter,&nbsp;if it is called for, will take considerable advocacy within the&nbsp;Eclipse community, membership and board.</p>

<p>
Bjorn noted that he has had similar conversations with other&nbsp;projects that wanted to relax new committer rules, that each&nbsp;felt that they were in some way unique in their needs, and&nbsp;that on further study, each had come to the conclusion that&nbsp;the current rules were workable.</p>

<p>
Discussion of OHF postponed due to time constraints.</p>

<hr>

<p>Current project mentors:</p>

<ul>
  <li>Bjorn
    <ul>
      <li> <a href="/higgins/">Higgins</a></li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>Cliff
    <ul>
      <li><a href="/ptp/">Parallel Tools Project</a></li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>Ward
    <ul>
      <li> <a href="/vtp/">Voice Tools Project</a></li>
      <li><a href="/laszlo/">IDE for Laszlo</a> </li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>Wayne
    <ul>
      <li> <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/lepido/">Lepido,
Tools for Apache Cocoon</a></li>
      <li> <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/ecesis">ECESIS</a></li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>John
    <ul>
      <li><a href="http://www.eclipse.org/photran/">Photran</a></li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>