Punderings

Do we publicize the role of PMCs and PMC Chairs enough outside of the ASF?

We’re holding the annual member’s meeting of The Apache Software Foundation this week. One of the regular activities we do at member’s meetings is vote on electing any individuals who have been nominated for membership in the intervening months. Existing members nominate individuals who they believe have shown merit within the ASF, and then the body of members votes +1/-1 on admitting them.

ASF Members actually have very little direct power, other than the ability to vote for board members and nominate new members. Members are also allowed to read most of our private email lists, virtually all of which are organizational (i.e., not technical) in nature. In terms of the actual workings of our projects, it’s the PMCs that do it. Should it be important to us to better showcase the role of PMCs in the ASF, and show what an honor and kudos are deserving to PMC members, and especially PMC chairs?

I bring up this strawman idea for a couple of reasons – better showcasing our PMCs, and better managing growth.

PMCs do the work

As a leader in the open source arena, the ASF’s organizational models have been copied many times. One of the key structures we use is the PMC. PMCs are the actual groups that run our projects. They are both the formal body that approves software releases on behalf of the ASF itself, as well as the community/consensus model that is running the project for the long term. PMC members are elected, typically from within their committer communities, or are setup when a new project comes out of the incubator and becomes a TLP.

Given that PMC members are really performing the mission of the ASF – providing software for the public good – do we really showcase their role, and especially the role and honors that individuals serving there deserve? This is not at all to detract from all the good work that committers do, either through code donations, documentation, or helping on mailing lists. But PMC members have shown the merit and community spirit over a period of time to take it to the next level, and deserve broader public recognition for that.

The ASF is big

In thinking about the growth of the ASF – in this case, in terms of new members – I was also wondering about what makes a good member. There is a wide variety of opinion on this topic, and it’s hard to see where the “center of the consensus” lies. Some factors have broad agreement: individuals who have shown consistent merit over a period of time, and who can work well with communities, both key things for our success. But I wonder if the fairly flat structure of the ASF (members elect board, PMCs run themselves with oversight) is sometimes pushing us to nominate new members partly to honor their contributions – the kudos or honor associated with membership can be notable – and not always because they’ll be a strong resource in working on ASF-wide issues.

I think virtually all members agree on the first kind of criteria: Has an individual shown merit? But I’m pondering another criteria these days, as we attempt to scale: Would their membership be beneficial to the ASF? While I appreciate the work various committers (and non-committers) do, and definitely believe we need to honor that effort they’ve donated to the ASF, I wonder if there are other ways we can honor that, without the next and only step to elect them as a member. Hence the thought: do we showcase PMCs and their members enough, to ensure the world knows what they do?

Perhaps I’m being overly cautious. There is a wide variety of opinion; I think I fall somewhere between the middle and the grumpy old man view of electing new members, although this is a difficult topic to judge (votes on nominations are private). There are certainly some members who appear to rubber stamp virtually all nominations, or some, very respected members, who believe that anyone who’s contributed good work for long enough deserves to be elected in, period. But there are definitely growing pains associated with growth, both in terms of our internal size,

How I vote

• Solid and reasoned support from multiple existing members.
• Commitment over a significant period of time (year+, more is nice).
• Productive participation, and playing nicely with others.
• Demonstratively cares about the big picture (>1 project, more is really nice).

So, there’s my strawman idea: showcase PMCs more, to even out the perceived honors of doing the work of the ASF. Does anyone have a match? I know that @gstein is planning to bring one to the meeting…

• Stimulates the economy with more loans
• Promotes responsible undersea nuclear power
• Lets cute little chipmunks stick it to the annoying squirrels

HT2JimJag.

Wow – what you get for not reading the news is not realizing that about one million of your fellow New Englanders are still out of power from yesterday’s ice storm. Between that and reading tales of woe in Boston-area commutes (just heavy rain here, not ice), I’m really thankful we stayed around home today!

I thank the gods for the sea breeze. We live close enough to the coast around Boston that we get Boston weather, which is notably different from Metrowest weather a mere 6 miles to the west. Summers are cooler, and winters are warmer than just on the other side of the ring of hills. Hey, isn’t there a historical/geographical name for this ring of hills (most of them drumlins)?

Score one for Ning – some locals have created the Ice Storm Help Network already. Neat. Sadly, if your power is out, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to participate in the network, at least sans iPhone. And even then, I wouldn’t be surprised about cell towers being out.

As for us, we got our christmas tree this morning at Mahoney’s in Winchester, and the weather was cool but nice. They have all the usual holiday displays and plants – it’s actually a great place to walk around in the winter, since you can meander through the warm greenhouse when it’s cold outside. And this year they have a couple of really cute displays of stuffed animals from Hansa. Not only are the stuffed animals very detailed (and cute), they’re laid out in a couple of spots complete with plants all around, almost like a jungle (in potting supply greenhouse) or christmas wonderland. It took a while to get our little one away from all the fun.

RT via Dims, Storming, whurley. You can see the FSF overview of their suit against Cisco. Might be big. Glad to have the FSF around for some things

I knew it! I knew it! I meant to post this two days ago, and just now I there’ll be no more Lander in the Morning (HT2UH)!

Seriously – I thought Mix 98.5 was supposed to be one of the ‘hip’ stations in the market. But a recent morning drive-time poll proved otherwise with Lander and his crew.

The question was “What movie franchise is the most popular of all time?” They actually spent so long taking reader calls (and playing a song, and doing morning DJ talk stuff), that I actually ran into my office and tried calling in to answer – I’m not sure I’ve ever done that before.

While a number of the answers were obvious – the staff guessed Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones), and Star Wars (is on the list). Many listeners guessed Batman (yes, it’s a franchise, but it’s not that big), Rocky (which I understand in a historical context), Harry Potter (a good guess), Pirates of the Caribbean (which I would have dismissed personally – not enough of them yet), Jurassic Park and The Matrix. Those are all fine.

But who in the world guessed Back to the Future? And was disappointed when it didn’t win! I loved the 80′s as much or more than anyone who grew up there – but get real, honey; the time traveling Delorean was a flash in the pan, and not at all a serious contender for franchise popularity. And Lethal Weapon? Or Home Alone? Who are these people?

As Dave Barry says: I am not making this up. It really took them almost 20 minutes to find a winner. Sheesh. No wonder Lander’s moving on. (OK, I know, it’s all about contracts – but the timing is still ripe to call conspiracy theory!)

Really dark. You just can’t believe how vastly deeply inkly dark it is. I mean you may think it’s awfully dark in your basement when you turn out the lights and put blankets over the window, but that’s just twinkles compared to how dark it is when the power goes out. For your whole neighborhood.

It was a very eerie feeling – I mean, I was already tired from staying up to late finishing a half-dozen things from the day. But suddenly there’s this clunking sound, and something’s not right, and then silence. There was that half-second where my brain was telling me everything’s fine – I mean, I’m sitting here reading a webpage, and I can still read it on my laptop. And the light going out was probably cause it’s on a timer…

Oh, wait, the fishtank is off too, and it’s suddenly reeeealy dark. Look out the window – yup, everyone on my street, and the next street over, in both directions – no lights. Then I had to stumble around to find my cell phone to call the power company. (Yes, I am one of those people who calls in the power outages.) Luckily, I really like flashlights, so once I turned a couple on, it was kinda fun.

Of course, it’s not really that dark outside. Anyone who lives even vaguely close to the metro area in a developed country knows you can never find actual blackness outdoors anymore. The glow from Boston was still plenty to see my way around outside. I wonder: how much more light pollution do we have today versus 20 or 30 years ago? Besides just population density, are we overall doing better or worse at excess lights in the sky these days? I can’t tell if the fondness of seeing the stars long ago is just happy memories from childhood, or if there’s a real difference in how many are visible in the night sky now.

Murphy came through, as he often does; the power turned on just as I was completing the automated “report your location out” call. Sigh. I didn’t even get the good doobie feeling for getting to report it.

Comment on Tyson’s blog post and they’ll donate 100lbs of food to the Greater Boston Food Bank. Sweet!

Just a friendly warning to Cambridge residents today that I am wearing shorts today, just in case some of you are the type to be offended. Either of men wearing shorts in the winter – some, I believe feel it’s un-Yankee – or of wearing white after labor day. I never bought into the no white after labor day in any case.

I will freely admit that my M.T.F.S. – Minimum Temperature For Shorts – has risen with my age. In college, it was around 40°F. Several years after that, I realized that as much as I love shorts, my M.T.F.S. had risen to about 50°F, since that was comfortable, and I didn’t need to prove anything else. Now as I have a child, I’ve realized I’ve let my M.T.F.S. slip into the mid-50′s, just out of practicality.

This is not at all to detract from the highly respected French Toast Alert, popularized by Universal Hub, which Adam has properly set to today’s level: Low. Rather, this is more of a style warning system, applying more to social situations, rather than being a warning about shopping situations (and potential riots when the alert goes to high and there are stampedes for milk, eggs, and bread).

This is really a chance to recognize those hearty souls who prefer the freedom of shorts. This also goes out to the old Lotus 1-2-3 team’s build lab staff, all of whom wore shorts. Especially one who admitted that he occasionally put on wind pants – but only when shoveling more than a foot of snow. And to a new friend we’ve discovered through daycare – hi Sam!

I’m also wearing a bright green sweater, too. Hee hee hee.