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The objective of this page is to give Mentors guidance on situations that podlings find themselves in and how they might be addressed. Each project is different, so the outcomes or how you deal with any given podlings situation may be different from your podling. What is a good fit for one project may not be a good fit for another.
Possible values include charity, community, consensus decision making, flat structure, governance, individual contributions, independence, merit, open communication, oversight, security, transparency.
Added so far:
Help wanted to expand on these points:
- Discussions are happening off-list.
- Too much talk is happening on the private list.
- Users questions are going unanswered on the mailing list.
- There is little or no activity on the mailing list.
- There is a lot of GitHub or version control notifications on the mailing list.
- The project has trouble making its first release.
- Too many release candidates are needed for a release.
- Compiling the project is challenging.
- Getting the LICENSE and NOTICE correct is difficult.
- The PPMC is making releases without voting on them.
- The PPMC members are not looking after the projects name and brand.
- No PPMC members have been elected.
- No committers have been elected.
- The podling is having trouble attracting committers.
- PPMC members not signed up to the private mailing list.
- The project has a benevolent dictator.
- Releases are not being placed in the ASF mirror system.
- Other mentors have gone missing.
- The podling is voting on too many things.
- Having trouble getting software transferred to ASF.
- Having trouble getting ICLA signed from all committers.
- Unsure if ICLA or SGA or CCLA is needed.
- Mentors or PPMC have a conflict of interest.
- The podling is ready to graduate but is having trouble doing so.
- Conversations on the mailing list are mainly occurring in a language other than English.
- Only a few core people from one company are contributing code.
- The podling is make process but has no website.
- Author tags in code.
Also feel free to add your own to the above list or take one and expand on it below.
Unsure When to Recognise Committers
Situation
The project is unsure when how much a contributor needs to do, before being made a committer.
Suggested Action
Encourage the podling to discuss what it means to be a committer and document it on their website. Encourage them to keep the committer bar low and recognise all forms of contribution, not just code contributions. If committer = PMC then perhaps suggest breaking into those two groups, so it's easier to appoint committers. Encourage the PPMC to look out for committers that slowly commit over time as well as the ones who are more easily recognisable.
Reasoning
For the project to have a long term future, it's essential to have new committers and PMC members. A podling that sets the committer bar too high or only recognises certain forms of contribution, and discourage involvement. Having new people with different backgrounds will inject fresh ideas and will make the project flourish in unexpected ways.
Values
merit, flat structure, community
Video Meetings
Situation
The project wants to have regular video meetings to work out project direction.
Suggested Action
Try to discourage the project from having these meetings and encourage discussion to take place on the mailing list. If they insist, then make sure that anything discussed at the meeting is brought back to the mailing list. Make it clear that decisions are not made in those meetings, but discussions are brought back to the list to involve the entire community.
Reasoning
Not everyone lives in the same timezone or even if they do can attend meetings if you work on the project outside of your day job. Synchronous communications can also disadvantage people who can only contribute part-time to the project. Having meetings like this may mean that project knowledge may not be written down or shared, and that puts up barriers to people unfamiliar with this cultural knowledge.
Values
independence, open communication, community, consensus decision making
External Website
Situation
The project has an external web site managed by some people in the project.
Suggested Action
Encourage the project to move the website to ASF infrastructure, redirect the existing domain to the Apache one and donate the domain name to the ASF.
Reasoning
The PPMC should have control of their website, not a 3rd party or another group of people. Having the site hosted on ASF infrastructure ensures that it will exist as long as the project does and that all the community can work on it.
Values
governance, independence, community, flat structure, security
Seeking Early Graduation
Situation
The project thinks it ready to graduate when it is not.
Suggested Action
Provide feedback on the podlings reports if they try to graduate too early. Encourage the project to fill out the maturity model and reflect honestly on where they are.
Reasoning
Projects often think they are ready to graduate when they may not be. Reflecting on where they are in that journey might show some gaps and areas when they need to improve before graduating.
Values
governance, community, open communication, consensus decision making, oversight
Missing Reports
Situation
The project missed an incubator report.
Suggested Action
Encourage the podling to discuss the report on list or create and collaborate on the report on their wiki a week or two before the due date. Reminders are often sent to the dev list or private list, lack of responses to those reminders, might indicate that PPMC members are not signed up to list.
Reasoning
Working on the report in the open encourages everyone to contribute and feel that are part of the project. Once the project graduates they will need to submit reports to the board. PPMC members need to be signed up to and read the project's mailing lists to provide required oversight.
Values
governance, community, open communication, consensus decision making, oversight