Just a thought. Chris' solution says 'make mentors the initial PMC'. They vote in other project team members as appropriate to be peers. This creates a positive egalitarian setup which mirrors that of a PMC, which is a good thing.
Much of the problem in the incubator seems to me to be mentor inactivity. People can sign up as mentors, gain whatever 'glory' is involved in that, and *do* nothing. This is not on, in my book, does a disservice to the projects that they are supposed to be mentoring, and can, eventually, make the incubator PMC look like the 'bad boys' by having to say things that the mentors should be saying (e.g. you're not up-to-scratch). We can (and should) expect a lot more of our mentors. Perhaps one way to restructure things would be for the task of the Incubator PMC to oversee/supervise *the mentors* not the project. The project reports to the board, as any existing TLP does. But a new mentor needs to be approved by the incubator PMC, and needs to be witnessed to be mentoring effectively on his first few podlings. After the incubator PMC has seen him do the job well, they can relax a bit, and pay less attention to projects he is mentoring. Perhaps there comes a point where he can mentor new projects without any incubator involvement at all (as effectively was with Apache Steve). The incubator PMC can report to the board about mentor's inactivity, and the projects/podlings involved, giving them a heads-up to issues that might be coming. This puts heaps more responsibility on mentors (who are effectively core PMC members) and creates an accountability mechanism to (hopefully) keep them on track, and to spot cases where, for whatever reason, a project is not getting the mentor attention required to progress, which is the task that the board has delegated to the Incubator PMC already. An amalgam of the various approaches already suggested. As I said, just a thought. Upayavira On Thu, Apr 4, 2013, at 09:06 AM, Greg Stein wrote: > On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 8:20 PM, Ross Gardler > <rgard...@opendirective.com> wrote: > > On 31 March 2013 17:08, Mattmann, Chris A (388J) < > > chris.a.mattm...@jpl.nasa.gov> wrote: > > > >> Why is it so hard to see that the board is already watching those 22 > >> nascent projects in the same manner they watch the 137 TLPs? > > > > Because they are not watching with the same manner. They are delegating a > > huge range of tasks such as IP oversight and mentoring to the IPMC. > > I believe this is simply a matter of training and mentor oversight. If > a podling required three Members to sign off, and the report required > your points... then we (the Board) might actually have better insight > than some TLPs. > > The Board has 50+ reports to review each month. Thankfully, there > hasn't been much push back on that yet. We seem to be keeping up (the > shepherd/comment system helps us). Throwing in some podlings shouldn't > upset us, as it actually drops the [giant] Incubator report down to > (maybe?) empty. > > >> Ross says the Board pays less attention to these (by implication) than > >> say the 137 TLPs at present. Ross is one Director. Good for him. > > > > I, personally, pay as much attention to the PPMCs as I do to TLPs. I'm > > active in the IPMC and thus have more visibility. That doesn't mean they > > should be expected to by me or by anyone else. > > If we alter the incoming-project mechanism, then yes: maybe we > *should* expect the Directors to read the reports with a little more > attention. But if we demand that N ASF Members track the podling, and > approve the report, then sure... the Board may be able to > delegate/slack a little bit on those reports. > > Point is: the Incubator is not the only solution here. Think about > other options. Maybe the Board can accept the podling, and designate > some pseudo-VPs to be held responsible? > > >> I know other directors (Greg IIRC at least) didn't want the Incubator > >> specific podling reports to go away (and to only have the summary > >> at the top of the Incubator report). > > > > > > I don't think any of the Directors want them to go away. But board reports > > are not what the IPMC is about. That is the reporting process within the > > foundation and provides the level of oversight into the PPMCs that the > > board requires. But the IPMC does *much* more than submit a monthly board > > report with a verbatim copy of the podlings individual reports. > > Agreed! And this is a very important point that seems to be left behind a > bit. > > I would counter that the IPMC doesn't tend to satisfy this > oversight/educational role consistently well. In the end, it simply > depends upon the Mentors' attention. There are very few (none?) > solutions to that basic problem. > > >... > > Cheers, > -g > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
