Re: [edt-dev] ... some comments from your friendly PMC

[David M Williams <david_williams@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks Matt, for providing me so many great
opportunities to discuss "the Eclipse Rules" :)  but the
following comment shows the same issue, but on the opposite end: 

"Finally, we can reduce the number
of EDT committers.  Alice Connors and Jon Shavor no longer work on
EDT.  (In fact, Jon has retired.)  Scott Greer will be moving
to a different job next month and won't work on EDT anymore -- unless you
want to contribute in your free time Scott? "

The Eclipse policy is very clear ...
once a committer, always a committer, no matter who employer is or what
a persons job is.  Of course, the reality is when someone changes
jobs, or retires!, they often do choose to resign their committership ...
but, not always. I know a few people who hope to have _more_ time to work
on Eclipse projects once they retire :) 

So, my point is, if they want to resign,
ideally those committers themselves would send a note (to edt-dev list)
saying they would like to "resign" their committership based
on changing responsibilities reducing their time and ability to commit
to the project, but they certainly do not have to, especially not just
because their employer or job changes. Also, as usual, if any committer
that is inactive for a period of time (e.g. 3 or 6 months) can be "expired"
by the project lead (and committer lists should be cleaned up, once or
twice a year, to remove inactive committers). This type of "inactive
removal" is, I think, the way a lot of people are removed when their
job or employer changes and they "hope" to still have time to
work on Eclipse ... but, over time find they do not. But, again, any individuals
who would like to explicitly resign may do so at their request ... but,
"we" can not remove people just because their job or employer
changes. (I know, sometimes people send a "resign" note to just
Project Lead or similar, which is ok, but then Project Lead should state
that, and quote from email, as appropriate, when they remove the persons
commit rights using the Eclipse Portal ... which is in turn sent to edt-dev).


I know it is not easy when a company
"moves people around" ... but ... we have the rules we have,
and have to live within them. 

Hope these comments help. I really do
mean them in the spirit of helping the project and committers, I am not
simply trying to enforce some arbitrary rules and certainly have no concerns
about any of the specifics ... well, except that Jon retired and didn't
tell _me_ :)  









From:      
 Matthew Heitz/Raleigh/IBM@IBMUS
To:      
 EGL Development Tools
<edt-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date:      
 10/19/2011 11:23 AM
Subject:    
   Re: [edt-dev]
Committer vote for Theresa Ramsey has concluded successfully ... some comments
from your friendly PMC
Sent by:    
   edt-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx

---

Thanks for pointing out these things, David.  I nominated Theresa,
and I agree that I should've said more about her.  As I wrote, she'll
be in charge of the website.  Only a committer can update the files
that make up the site.  Theresa is a User Experience expert, and she'll
be creating content for the site such as announcements about our progress.
 She'll also add documentation, tutorials, etc. (or links to them)
as time goes by. 

It's true that there's not a large history of contributions to back up
this nomination.  It was done in the name of efficiency, so she can
make her changes directly and not "bother" a committer.  As
you wrote, "It's only the website." 

You also wrote "The reason the Eclipse rules were set up this was
was to avoid mere 'positions' that would change based on employment, or
assigned responsibilities from employers...."  Unfortunately
in these early days of EDT that's exactly the situation we're in.
 I expect that to change once we finish our 1.0 release.  We'll
have a real community of developers then. 

Finally, we can reduce the number of EDT committers.  Alice Connors
and Jon Shavor no longer work on EDT.  (In fact, Jon has retired.)
 Scott Greer will be moving to a different job next month and won't
work on EDT anymore -- unless you want to contribute in your free time
Scott? 

 -Matt

From:	David M Williams/Raleigh/IBM@IBMUS
To:	EGL Development Tools <edt-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date:	10/19/2011 02:08 AM
Subject:	Re: [edt-dev] Committer vote for Theresa Ramsey has concluded successfully ... some comments from your friendly PMC
Sent by:	edt-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx

---

EDT Committers, 

I do plan to give my PMC vote and think Theresa will be a great committer
... but ... I think this is a good opportunity for me to comment on the
nomination and process to make sure future expectations are clear. 

The nomination was not as detailed as we'd normally like to see. It said,
basically, only that "Theresa will be taking over
ownership of the EDT website". 

Normally, we'd like to see some description that shows a history of contributions
before someone becomes a committer. Granted, committership is primarily
up to the committers, but, normally, they should base their judgement on
a public, demonstrated history of contributions, usually in the form of
patches, or attachments to bugs, but can also include design documents,
newsgroup participation, wiki pages, etc. I suspect maybe it was felt "its
only the website" ... but, still, access is access, and any committership
should have at least some history. 

The reason the Eclipse rules were set up this was was to avoid mere "positions"
that would change based on employment, or assigned responsibilities from
employers, but instead be determined based on publically demonstrated abilities
and commitment to the project while working with the other committers,
in the open. For easy reference, I'll include some links: 

http://www.eclipse.org/projects/dev_process/development_process_2011.php#4_1_Committers
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Development_Resources/HOWTO/Nominating_and_Electing_a_New_Committer

I certainly have no doubts about Theresa's abilities or commitment to the
project, but it was not documented in the nomination. I did go to the trouble
to search bugzilla and found 8 or 10 bugs that Theresa had commented on,
beginning in September, so perhaps that is enough "history of contributions"?
Even if so, no one should have to guess and it should be documented in
the nomination. So, in the future, please be sure to include a good "history
of contributions" or at least, state why there isn't one. 

I want to emphasize that I do not have any concerns at all with this specific
case, but thought it the perfect case to comment on. I did not want to
leave the impression that "history of contributions" did not
matter and am hoping a friendly reminder now would help avoid more complicated
situations in the future.

I hope this advise helpful. I don't mean to "burden" the process
... I know, it's hard enough as it is. 

Thank you all very much for your contributions to Eclipse and EDT.

portal-noreply---10/19/2011
12:03:58 AM---tools.edt Committers, This automatically generated message
marks the successful completion of

From: portal-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxx (portal on behalf
of Matt Heitz)
To: edt-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
Date: 10/19/2011 12:03 AM
Subject: [edt-dev] Committer vote for Theresa Ramsey
has concluded successfully
Sent by: edt-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx

---

tools.edt Committers,
This automatically generated message marks the successful completion of
voting for Theresa Ramsey to receive full Committer status on the tools.edt
project. The next step is for the PMC to approve this vote, followed by
the
EMO processing the paperwork and provisioning the account.

Vote summary: 7/0/0 with 13 not voting 
 ?  Aaron Allsbrook
+1  Tony Chen
 ?  Alice Connors
 ?  Jeffrey Douglas
 ?  Scott Greer
 ?  Paul Harmon
+1  Matt Heitz
+1  Jiyong Huang
 ?  Lisa Lasher
+1  Ben Margolis
 ?  Jing Qian
 ?  Jon Shavor
 ?  Will Smythe
+1  Justin Spadea
 ?  Brian Svihovec
 ?  John Trevisan (ClearBlade)
 ?  Bart Van Campenhout
+1  Joseph Vincens
 ?  Tim W Wilson
+1  Zhi Zhu

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your project
lead, PMC member, or the EMO <emo@xxxxxxxxxxx>

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