I'm not an EPP committer or package maintainer, just an interested
party and member of the Technology PMC. I think this idea has a lot
of merit, but one thing that stands out to me is that the policy
would be in direct contradiction with the Technology Project's
policy on committer election
(http://wiki.eclipse.org/Technology#Committer_Elections)
One solution top that dilemma would be to move EPP out from under
the Technology umbrella; one could even make a case that it doesn't
really belong there anymore, as part of the original Technology
Project charter was that the sub-projects had a finite lifespan, but
EPP is an ongoing effort. Unfortunately, I don't know under what
other top-level project EPP would fit; the only ones that I can
think of as even potential candidates would be Eclipse Project or
Tools Project. But I'm not really sure about either of those.
Sorry I don't have any more concrete ideas than that; I'm copying
the Technology PMC on this message in the hopes that some of my
committee-mates will have some input.
Eric
On 11/8/11 12:26 PM, David M Williams wrote:
Last year, all of us package maintainers became
committers on EPP, by virtue of the fact we were package
maintainers. While there is not a lot of development, per se,
in EPP, nor committing required, I know some of us have
added/removed a few things to our packages based on this
committership.
So, now, as time has passed, the question comes to mind about
a) how to "transfer" package maintainer responsibility to
someone else, and b) how to elect new committers to EPP. Seems
we should have an established "project policy". How about if
we combine the two?
Markus and I have discussed a little, and we thought it time
to raise this on epp-dev list, to see if any other committers
had opinions or points of view that differed from ours. We
were thinking that our policy in EPP be similar to how
committership in Orbit is handled. In Orbit, if someone is a
committer on another Eclipse project, and they state they are
interested in contributing some packages to Orbit, that
suffices for them to be nominated and voted-in as a committer
and maintain what ever packages their project needs. This
differs from most other projects where, for good reason, a
person must have a history of contributions to that specific
project, not just Eclipse in general. The Orbit model seems to
fit EPP too, if some agrees to maintain a package (either a
new package, or transfer "ownership"), and they are a
committer in another Eclipse project, it seems reasonable they
would not have to have any direct EPP contribution history. I
guess the reasons to vote "no" (-1) would be something like
"no, I am the current maintainer and I do not agree to this!
:) ... or some other fairly large issue. Normally people do
not vote "0" in Orbit, but but vote "+1" if basic criteria are
met, to be welcoming and supportive of new people coming in.
Normally, we'd propose, unless a committer explicitly
"resigns" there would be no automatic removal of a committer
just because package responsibility is transferred, except
eventually the usual "inactive" reasons would apply ... if
someone is no longer responsible for maintaining a package and
has not been active on mailing lists, etc., for a period of 6
months or so, the Project Lead can remove them via Eclipse
Portal for "inactivity". And, of course, committers should
explicitly resign, if appropriate, such as they are changing
responsibilities and know they have no interest or time to be
involved. (In Orbit, someone may contribute a bundle, and then
do nothing else for years, but they stay a committer ... but
every now and then, I have removed people from the Orbit
committer list, if they are no longer are listed as the
contact for maintaining a bundle, and, obviously, do not
otherwise participate in Orbit discussions, etc.)
Does anyone object to us using the "Orbit model" of
committership? Any other suggestions on how to transfer
package "ownership"? If there are no objections and no
alternatives are forthcoming, I'll write up this policy on our
EPP Wiki in about a week and ask Markus to also discuss with
(or send note to) Technology PMC, to make sure they would not
find controversy with this policy (or, what ever policy we end
up with, from this discussion).
So, EPP Committers, let us know, here on epp-dev, what you
think of this proposed policy ... especially if you think
further discussion of alternatives is needed.
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