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Re: [science-iwg] Rebooting the Science Working Group

Good Morning,

I also vote for option #2.
If possible, I'm also available for joining the SC on election.


Best,
Philip

Am 11.02.21 um 04:12 schrieb Jay Jay Billings:
Everyone,

Good evening! I wanted to follow up on Sharon's and Torkild's emails that discussed revisions to our charter and the idea of rebooting the Science Working Group (SWG). What follows below is a loose summary of the meeting we had with the Eclipse Foundation (EF) staff and some thoughts for your consideration.

On January 21st Sharon Corbett emailed the SWG list about proposed amendments to our charter in light of the EF move to European governance. I started a discussion thread on the SWG Steering Committee (SC) Mailing List, which is a separate list only for the SC, to ask how this should be handled (reasons below) and Sharon was kind enough to organize a meeting. That meeting was earlier today and it was attended by Sharon Corbett, Paul Buck, Torkild Resheim, Mike Milinkovich, and me. As some of you may recall, I resigned as Chair of the SC when I moved to Stellar Science in September since it is not a member company and, thus, I participated in the meeting as a representative of the group and not a member of the SC.

The meeting opened with an introduction from Paul describing our goal of figuring out what to do with the Working Group and, in particular, how to move forward with amendments to the charter in light of the present state of the group. I provided a summary of the concerns that I highlighted in my original email, which are the following:
1. Participation in the Science Working Group would appear to be at an all-time low. Although we do check in every so often by email discussions on the list, we do not have a large amount of activity compared to our hey-day when Mike once described us as the most active WG in the EF.
2. We were not able to successfully hold an election for the SC in March 2020. For a year or so Torkild and I were the only members participating in the SC with both of us having been re-elected as Secretary and Chair, respectively, in 2019. Other members moved on. During the 2019-2020 term and into the Unelected Term of 2020-2021, we were unable to find new Steering Committee members and unable to hold an election because we were the only two remaining members.
3. I resigned as Chair when I moved to Stellar Science in September 2020, leaving Torkild as the last person standing on the SC. That seems quite problematic for Torkild and the group, and the request to update the charter for the move to the EU revealed as much.

Note that these observations do not apply to the Science Top Level project. While there have been no new projects in a while, there are active commits and releases on multiple projects. Greg Watson holds monthly PMC meetings for those projects who can attend and the PMC continues to govern the projects. The Science PMC is governed completely separately from the Science IWG, although the membership is a lot of the same characters.

In light of the three points above and in consideration of the move to EU governance which requires updates to our charter, we are left with three options:
1) Immediately hold elections to repopulate the Steering Committee and ratify the changes to the charter.
2) Allow Torkild to ratify the changes to the charter as proposed and "reboot" the group with new membership policies to expand membership both for the SWG and the SC and thereby revitalize the community.
3) Decline to ratify the changes and recommend that the group be disbanded. That is, hang up our spurs and let the group ride out into the sunset.

The decision by those present was that #2 was by far the most desirable option. No one wants #3 and if we went that route would we ever be able to get back together again? #1 is a possibility but as Torkild and I already spent more than a year trying to rebuild the SC it is unlikely to be successful.

So, we make it to the final question: What does it mean to "reboot" the group? Ultimately this question comes down to membership and who can join the working group and how they can do it. The primary reason that Torkild and I were unable to recruit new SC members is that our charter is rather restrictive on who can be a member of the SC. This also applies to the membership of the group as a whole. You can read the details in the charter here: https://www.eclipse.org/org/workinggroups/science_charter.php. Mike said it best at the meeting today: "The working group does not need 4 tiers of membership."

We plan to rewrite the charter to 1) satisfy the needs of the new European business entity and 2) rework the membership rules to a) clarify who can join the working group and how they can do it, and b) establish a new Steering Committee that is self-replicating and meritocratic in its membership, including both member companies and longstanding committers. This plan will ensure the continued longevity of the group and give us the opportunity to revitalize the community by broadening and empowering our membership.

I welcome your candid feedback and constructive criticism. And with that, on behalf of our membership, I will kindly ask Torkild in his role as our entire steering committee: Mr. Secretary, will you create a Google Doc for the group to update our charter?

Jay
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Jay Jay Billings
Twitter Handle: @jayjaybillings

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