Mentors, the Role of the Architecture Council
| See "4.5 Councils" in the Eclipse Development Process |
The Architecture Council is responsible for the development, articulation, and maintenance of the Eclipse Platform Architecture and ensuring the Principles of the Development Process through mentorship. ... Election [to the Council] is a highly visible confirmation of the Eclipse community's respect for the candidate's technical vision, good judgement, software development skills, past and future contributions to Eclipse. It is a role that should be neither given nor taken lightly.
(1) Who is on the Architecture Council?
The current Architecture Council members are listed on the Eclipse Councils page.The Architecture Council is composed of senior Committers whose technical vision, good judgement, and contribution to Eclipse qualifies them to provide leadership to the entire Eclipse technical community.
(2) What does the Architecture Council do?
The Architecture Council is responsible for the long-term technical health of the Eclipse platforms and frameworks. The Council involves itself in inter- and intra-project architecture through discussion during its meetings. The Council also involves itself in the architecture and open source process of individual projects through one-on-one mentoring and consultation. The Council has a monthly conference call as well as an annual face-to-face event at EclipseCon.The Architecture Council is involved in both technical and process aspects of the projects in its quest to ensure the long-term technical health of the Eclipse platforms because the social and process structure of a project has been shown to have a direct impact on the technical quality of its extensible frameworks and exemplary tools. Teams that are not open and transparent tend to produce frameworks with insufficient extension points. Teams that are not careful about nightly builds and regular milestones tend to produce software with an increased defect count. Etc.
More information about the Architecture Council can be found on the Council's wiki page.
(3) How do I become a member of Architecture Council?
Architecture Council members come from three sources as per the Bylaws:- first, each Strategic Developer Member may appoint one member,
- second, each Top-Level Project PMC may appoint one member (subject to the no-double-representation clauses of the Bylaws),
- third, by nomination and election, the Council can recommend new members for appointment by the EMO (N.B. the Bylaws state that the Executive Director can appoint members to the Council; while remaining consistent with the Bylaws, this nomination and election provides an avenue for the Council to recommend such appointments)
At least once a year, the Architecture Council considers and elects new members. By convention, this happens in the first quarter of the year in advance of EclipseCon so that new Architecture Council members can attend the face-to-face meeting held at EclipseCon. The process is:
- Nominations are taken on the Architecture Council mailing list. Candidates must be current Committers on an Eclipse project.
- The chair calls for a vote whose duration is no less than one week.
- Voting is accomplished in the usual open-source manner, with each existing Council member voting +1, 0, or -1 on each candidate.
- Candidates must receive +1s from a simple majority of the existing Council members and not have any upheld -1s. Note that this requirement for a majority vote is a higher hurdle than the three +1s required for Committer elections, but this is by design: election to the Architecture Council is a sign of extremely high regard by the community.
- The chair passes the nominations and recommendations of the Council (as evidenced by their votes) to the Executive Director who then, at his discretion, appoints the new members to the Council.
(4) What is the term of Architecture Council members?
Members appointed by dint of Strategic Membership have no term limits. Members appointed by the EMO are appointed to three year terms. Members' terms can be renewed any number of times through reelection.Members who are unresponsive to the business of the Council (for example, if they do not participate in the vetting and election of new candidates) can be removed by a simple three +1s, no upheld -1s vote of the Council, or (in extreme cases) by the EMO.