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[technology-pmc] PMC Changes and Plans
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Hey Technology PMC and other interested parties.
I'd like to welcome Chris Aniszczyk to the Technology PMC. Chris is
well-known throughout the community. He is a tireless champion of
Eclipse Technology who seems to have his fingers in just about
everything. He has promised to be the "iron fist" of the PMC; I'm not
sure what that means exactly, but I am looking forward to a
demonstration (I am familiar with "iron palm", but I'm quite sure that
that is something different). Welcome Chris.
As you may or may not already know, I have been asked to take over
leadership of the Technology PMC. As some of you have already
noticed/suffered, this change has added enthusiasm to get to know the
Technology projects a little better.
We have started a process of working our way through the Technology
projects (alphabetically) to get a feel for (a) what they're about and
(b) their overall status. Part (a) is personally gratifying and arms me
with information necessary to do my regular job as a Technology
Evangelist. Part (b) is a little more interesting.
An important aspect of the Technology project is the relatively short
term nature of projects. The project landing page [1] states:
Projects under the Eclipse Technology Project have limited lifecycles.
Unlike the other top-level Projects, the Technology Projects are meant
to be technology explorations or incubators. When these projects have
explored, proved, or disproved their associated technologies, the
project comes to its natural end
<http://www.eclipse.org/technology/archived.php>. For some projects,
this end is a paper publishing the research results; for others, this
end is to be incorporated into the base technology of another
top-level project.
One thing that is not specified is how long this "limited" lifecycle is.
It is pretty clear however, that projects are not expected to live under
the Technology banner indefinitely.
To that end the Technology PMC will be asking projects that are more
than a year old to develop their end-game plan. Once proven viable under
the Technology project, a project should consider moving to a more
permanent home. In some cases, that new home might be under a different
top-level project. It could also be as a component under another project
(though, with recent changes to the development process, this is
probably not a necessary option). Perhaps your project may make sense as
its own top-level project. Of course, some projects will simply run
their course; for these projects archival is a noble option.
It is not our intention to rush you. These things do, in many cases,
take time. The point is that, as a Technology project, you need to have
some idea what that end-game is. We do not want to put a specific time
frame on this. Keep in mind that other PMCs will look at factors like
project liveliness and community development before agreeing to a move.
As part of our review of the projects, we will be attempting to gauge
the various liveliness factors. We will, for example, be looking at
download statistics, newsgroup, mailing list, and blogging activity, and
other indicators of community development. We will review the state of
the project website, project info page, project plan, IP log, general
conformance to the development process and rules, etc. to ensure that
this information is (a) actually provided, and (b) helpful for an
outsider who wants to learn more about your project.
We will be looking for project mentors. All technology projects, owing
to the relatively short-term lifecycle, should have two Eclipse
Architecture Council [2] mentors. If you do not have a mentor, you need
to get one (two preferred). If you are not in regular contact with your
mentor, you need to make that contact. Mentorship is a very important
role taken by the Architecture Council and it is, frankly, a little
foolish not to avail yourself of the experience they bring. FWIW, a
project mentor can also be a committer; if you have a committer who is
on the Architecture Council, it can be them.
The result of our review will be posted on the project's dev list and
copied to the technology-pmc mailing list. The intent of the posting is
to *help* you reach out to a broader community and be a more effective
open source project. We do home that you do not see this activity as an
intrusion as it is not intended as such. And, despite the fact that
"Iron Fist" Aniszczyk is on board, we do not intend for this to be
heavy-handed.
As a matter of practice, the Technology PMC will use this mailing list
for all communication within the PMC to ensure maximum transparency. We
will not be scheduling any regular calls at this time. We can, however,
schedule calls as necessary (just ask).
If you've managed to read this far into this note, I thank you for your
attention. We look forward to working with you.
Wayne Beaton
Technology PMC
[1] http://www.eclipse.org/technology/
[2] http://wiki.eclipse.org/Architecture_Council
