| [jakarta.ee-spec.committee] Ensuring Specification committee voting is transparent |
| All, During today’s (June 25th) Steering Committee call, the topic of ensuring votes by the Specification Committee are public and archived came up. I took the action item to address this topic. It turns out it has simply been an oversight on the Foundation’s part. To remedy the oversight, we are recommending the following. 1. The Spec Committee begin using the mailing list jakarta.ee-spec@xxxxxxxxxxx for all public votes. The jakarta.ee-spec@xxxxxxxxxxx list already exists, is open to everyone to join, and is archived. (FYI, we created this mailing list when we first formed the working group mailing lists, but it’s sat dormant until now.) ACTION ITEM: All committee members will need to join this additional mailing list. To do so, go here 2. All votes going forward will be held on this public mailing list. It is the case that anyone subscribed can send an email to the list, so there may be "some noise" that comes along with the votes, but that’s better than not being transparent and/or simply posting the results of votes after they have happened. ACTION ITEM: Eclipse will promote the mailing list on the community mailing list, the working group list, and through social media channels. Through this action, we will hopefully see an increase in interest and participation. 3. This leaves the issue of posting the results of votes which have already completed. I would suggest that in the interest of time and effort, we simply post to jakarta.ee-spec@xxxxxxxxxxx that the vote occurred over what time and what the results were (as opposed to “re-holding the votes” for example). ACTION ITEM: Eclipse will post previous vote results over the coming days so a public record will be made. As an aside, the same list can be used to converse about spec related topics for those interested in the subject. i.e., the list can be used generally for any topics being discussed that would be better held on a public list related to specifications (reserving the jakarta.ee-spec.committee@xxxxxxxxxxx list for committee specific conversations. In short, the public list need not be used simply for voting purposes. I am proposing that the Spec committee consider this proposal at its meeting tomorrow, and if agreed, to move to this more open process for votes beginning after that meeting. Regards, Paul Paul White VP, Member Services | Eclipse Foundation, Inc. +1.613.852.4303 (mobile) |