We have a checklist in the
handbook. You'll note that this checklist is pretty generic. The EMO uses this (roughly) as part of our review. It would be helpful if the PMC could alert the EMO if they know that the project is falling short on any particular item, but we don't certainly expect the PMC to go through every line of this checklist.
Where we need the PMC's help is in confirming that project- and TLP-specific things are being observed, e.g., validation that the project is operating within the charter of the Top Level Project, and within the bounds of its own scope. In most cases, you should be able to determine whether or not this is true by just reading the description of the release. i.e. it shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes.
I do need a little extra help from the PMC to ensure that project releases do not violate the current and any future trademark agreement that we have with Oracle. Note that it is generally the case that Eclipse projects cannot violate trademarks owned by other organizations; getting some help from the PMC to do this would be great, but I understand that it can be time consuming (I don't expect the PMC to go line-by-line through code). I'm thinking that we'll make this a required checkbox in the release record and require that the Project Lead attest that the project code and documentation does not violate trademarks owned by others (or something like that). In the meantime, maybe it's enough to let this paragraph serve as a reminder for project leads that this is an issue.
The request for approval is also a good opportunity for the PMC to make comments and recommendations regarding growing the diversity of project committers or other health metrics, conformance to best practices, technical direction, etc.
Wayne
