[News.eclipse.foundation] Re: [EDP] Mentors Council or Coaching Squad?

[Ed Merks <merks@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Bjorn,

Comments below.

Bjorn Freeman-Benson wrote:

> Ed Merks wrote:
>
> > I really hope that I can dispel the notion that I oppose the AC 
> > improving its mentoring role or that I oppose some other group taking 
> > on such responsibilities.  I don't recall anyone at the AC taking 
> > that position. 
>
>
> My sincere apologies then for misunderstanding what was said at the AC 
> meeting in Germany. I thought the statement about "processes are not 
> part of the AC role" was pretty definite but ok... water under the 
> bridge...

I had to leave before discussions concluded, so perhaps things went in a 
different direction after I left.

> > As I said, my reaction was: "Aren't we supposed to be doing this 
> > already? Is the AC being judged as doing its given role so poorly 
> > right now that there is a need to create a whole new group to fix the 
> > problem?"   
>
>
> Officially, currently the Architecture Council is "responsible for the 
> development, articulation, and maintenance of the Eclipse Platform 
> Architecture" 
> http://www.eclipse.org/org/documents/Eclipse%20BYLAWS%202003_11_10%20Final.pdf#page=20 
>
>
> and then:
> "This Council is responsible for providing an explicit description of 
> the architecture and syndicating this description among the 
> Development Teams, thereby protecting the architecture from 
> inadvertent corruption. The Architecture Council is also responsible 
> for plotting the evolution of the Architecture in response to the 
> Purposes and Roadmap, which is captured in an Architecture Plan. 
> Policies established by the Architecture Council are limited to the 
> domain of architecture, e.g. the identification of immutable interfaces;"
> http://www.eclipse.org/org/documents/Eclipse%20Development%20Process%202003_11_09%20FINAL.pdf#page=3 
>
>
> and then:
> "The Architecture Council produces an Architecture Plan that describes 
> the architecture changes required to achieve these themes and 
> priorities, or required to maintain long-term architectural viability."
> http://www.eclipse.org/org/documents/Eclipse%20Development%20Process%202003_11_09%20FINAL.pdf#page=6 
>
>
> I read these as meaning that the AC is responsible for the 
> architecture portion of the Roadmap (the Architecture Plan). I guess 
> one could read "syndicating" as mentoring, but I don't see mentoring 
> mentioned explicitly anywhere. Furthermore, I read "limited to the 
> domain of architecture" to mean that even if there where AC mentors, 
> they wouldn't provide advice on social aspects (how to create/foster a 
> community) or process issues (those reviews and that IP stuff) of 
> Eclipse open source.
>
> But, hey, if we're all in agreement that the AC should do these kind 
> of things, I'm happy to put that into the Development Process document 
> and work towards making that happen. I have no desire to create a 
> fourth group - I only proposed it because the AC had appeared to 
> reject a mentoring role.

Certainly my opinion isn't the only one that counts, but I'd rather see 
the leadership role of the AC be expanded than to define a new group and 
I would argue that team/technical leads and PMC members should already 
consider this a personal responsibility.

> - Bjorn