Pat Ferrel wrote on 4/22/17 11:46 AM:
> Probably the wrong place for this but…
> 
> What do people think about a governance change for approving releases
> through the IPMC to wit:
> 
> A week of no vote activity over the release proposal of a podling
> should be considered a passing vote. In other words the IPMC is to
> become a vetoing group.

No, because as noted in this thread the board and Legal Affairs
Committee already have a policy for Apache software releases:

  https://www.apache.org/legal/release-policy.html#policy

This is the spot where all the little legal bits of having a corporation
intersects with the Incubator's ability to mentor new podlings in how to
effectively run projects in the Apache Way.  However that legal policy
in particular is not going to change IMO.

Personally, I support any proposals that help ensure podling mentors are
more actively engaged, and can better serve as the formal IPMC votes for
podling releases.  Great to see some serious discussion about that in
this thread and the upcoming IPMC chair election.  The incubator has
been getting better organized as a whole over the past few years, and
keeps improving, which is great to see.

> I propose this for 2 reasons: 1) lack of votes or attention from the
> IPMC seems all too prevalent and puts an undo drag on the energy and
> velocity of community involvement. 2) the release has already been
> voted on and checked by at least 3 PMC members of the podling (which
> has ASF mentors in most all cases) so a veto role by the IPMC seems
> to have minimum danger to the ASF system of checks and balances.>

Yes, but the whole point of Incubation is that a podling is not yet a
project.  Only Apache PMCs have the authority to make a release, thus
only IPMC votes count.  On one hand this must feel incredibly annoying.
On the other hand, it is the #1 reason we have the ASF as a corporation
- to prevent the individual release manager from potentially getting
sued *personally* for problems with the release.

The fact that we have these documented policies, and that the board and
IPMC enforces them means that legally, releases are acts of the
Foundation.  Thus if anyone ever were to sue, they'd sue the Foundation
(which has insurance and legal counsel) and not individual committers.

-- 

- Shane, IPMC Member
  https://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/resources

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