From sch at eng.sun.com Thu Dec 1 08:06:52 2005 From: sch at eng.sun.com (Stephen Hahn) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 08:06:52 -0800 Subject: [cab-discuss] Development process draft comments Message-ID: <20051201160652.GA201690@eng.sun.com> I will attempt to take the set of comments (and responses) and clarify the development process text, and figure out how best to redraw the pictures. However, in my assessment, none of the comments called for a rewrite (of even a section), so I want to verify that the document is sufficiently descriptive to be a useful reference for writing governance documents. Is it? Thanks Stephen -- Stephen Hahn, PhD Solaris Kernel Development, Sun Microsystems stephen.hahn at sun.com http://blogs.sun.com/sch/ From rich.teer at rite-group.com Thu Dec 1 14:45:06 2005 From: rich.teer at rite-group.com (Rich Teer) Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 14:45:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: [cab-discuss] Development process draft comments In-Reply-To: <20051201160652.GA201690@eng.sun.com> References: <20051201160652.GA201690@eng.sun.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 1 Dec 2005, Stephen Hahn wrote: > redraw the pictures. However, in my assessment, none of the comments > called for a rewrite (of even a section), so I want to verify that > the document is sufficiently descriptive to be a useful reference for > writing governance documents. Is it? It looks OK to me, but I'm not overly involved with writing the Governance Proposal. That's Roy's baby, so I guess his word should carry the most weight. -- Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member President, Rite Online Inc. Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638 URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich From sch at eng.sun.com Thu Dec 1 15:30:39 2005 From: sch at eng.sun.com (Stephen Hahn) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 15:30:39 -0800 Subject: [cab-discuss] Draft SCM requirements published Message-ID: <20051201233039.GA212033@eng.sun.com> These two threads on tools-discuss at opensolaris.org are the locations of the requirements http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=3982&tstart=0 and the initial list of candidates http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=3991&tstart=0 Have a look; join tools-discuss (or use the forums); send your feedback. (And, if you've built GHC for Solaris x86, please let me know.) - Stephen -- Stephen Hahn, PhD Solaris Kernel Development, Sun Microsystems stephen.hahn at sun.com http://blogs.sun.com/sch/ From sch at eng.sun.com Tue Dec 13 15:27:41 2005 From: sch at eng.sun.com (Stephen Hahn) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 15:27:41 -0800 Subject: [cab-discuss] Community proposals in the face of project support Message-ID: <20051213232741.GB177790@eng.sun.com> I thought I would throw out a proposal for folks to think about. We've got the new site version with project hosting (plus bug fixes) ready to go this afternoon. This means that we can now offer differently sized forums for collaborative efforts, and that the community approval process can be made "heavier" so that the ideas in the first governance draft about communities as sources of authority can be pursued. However, the current implementation to create a new project is still partially manual: a project must be requested. (We are working to fix this in a subsequent delivery.) As a result, I would like project requests to involve two or more individuals--that is, I would like to see a motion to create a project, and a seconder. Or something like that. With projects working, I would also like to see some bias to communities being proposed either after a related project has reached some critical mass (number of associated users, perhaps) or being asked to wait until one or more projects state that the community is one they wish to be identified with. What I mean is that the bulk of new collaborative efforts should be projects, and then graduate to being communities. Thoughts? - Stephen -- Stephen Hahn, PhD Solaris Kernel Development, Sun Microsystems stephen.hahn at sun.com http://blogs.sun.com/sch/ From sch at eng.sun.com Tue Dec 13 16:52:16 2005 From: sch at eng.sun.com (Stephen Hahn) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 16:52:16 -0800 Subject: [cab-discuss] Another charter draft Message-ID: <20051214005216.GA181245@eng.sun.com> In an attempt to get the charter discussion moving along again, I'd like to submit a version Keith authored. The goal of the charter, as I see it, is to delegate authority from Sun Microsystems to the larger OpenSolaris community, in the form of its governing board. Keith's attempt is more formal than previous versions, but is a draft that attempts to be precise in specifying the manner and expectations around that delegation. Furthermore, it is attempting to make the discussion of how the governing board works part of the constitutional discussions the board must have: the charter is the request from Sun to the community to form up to take those actions. (As a convenience, I've also attached a small archive with the previous complete published versions in SCCS. If I missed or misattributed a version, I apologize, and am happy to emit an amended version.) - Stephen ---- The OpenSolaris Charter ident "@(#)charter.txt 1.8 05/12/13 SMI" 0. Whereby Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun) has granted universal license to a certain subset of its Solaris Operating System, known henceforth as OpenSolaris, under terms compatible with Open Source ideals, and whereby open and constructive development and dissemination of this code base is desired by all, Sun does by the execution of this charter all of the following: First, establish an OpenSolaris Governing Board (OGB) to manage and direct the OpenSolaris community in its efforts to improve and popularise OpenSolaris. Second, grant to the OGB certain powers and rights as are necessary to discharge its duties. Third, assign to the OGB a suitable initial membership. Last, establish a time at which this initial OGB shall have discharged its responsibilities and ceded to its successor the powers and rights granted herein. 1. The OGB shall be comprised of natural persons of number and nature to be defined by the Constitution, but in no event shall they be fewer than three in number at any time. The Board shall be selected and shall conduct its affairs in accordance with democratic principles and shall represent the interests of the OpenSolaris community as defined in the broadest manner. 2. The OGB shall construct and maintain a Constitution defining all of the following: 2.1. A process by which the Constitution and this Charter may be amended from time to time. 2.2. A method for determining the OGB's membership, which shall be consistent with the requirements of this Charter. 2.3. The roles recognised within the community. 2.4. The rights and responsibilities associated with each role. 2.5. The intended ralationship between the OGB and Sun. 2.6. Methods and processes by which disputes and disagreements among OpenSolaris community members might be resolved in a fair and just manner. 2.7. Regulations applicable to the OpenSolaris community as it finds beneficial to its development and growth. 2.8. The establishment and operation of, and delegation of appropriate powers and rights to, any associate governing bodies which it shall deem appropriate to the execution of any part of the Constitution or this Charter. 3. The OGB shall define and implement a process for its ratification of the Constitution, in a manner consistent with democratic principles. 4. The Constitution shall be operable when ratified by both the OGB and Sun. 5. The OGB shall be the supreme and final arbiter of all matters pertaining to the OpenSolaris Constitution. 6. The OGB may seek funding for its activites and for those of any associate governing bodies, and shall manage and dispose of responsibly any funds so acquired. 7. All powers and rights are granted to the OGB which are required by the execution of this Charter or the properly ratified Constitution and which are not inconsistent with applicable law of regulation. 8. All members of the Community Advisory Board (CAB) shall be initial members of the OGB. The initial OGB may select additional initial members as it may require to discharge its duties. 9. No initial OGB member may retain his or her membership beyond 1 April 2006, or after such time as the first OGB members selected in accordance with the terms of a properly ratified Constitution take office, whichever occurs first. However, if an initial member shall be so selected, he or she may serve as he or she otherwise would. 10. Notwithstanding any part of provisions 8 and 9, the CAB and the initial OGB shall be dissolved on 1 April 2006. 11. If the initial OGB shall be dissolved before a Constitution is properly ratified, Sun shall appoint a new set of initial OGB members in any manner it shall deem appropriate, and the terms of this Charter shall be applied to those replacement members with the following exceptions: 11.1. Provision 8 shall be inoperable. 11.2. Provision 9 shall be altered such that the termination date shall be extended by 6 months. 11.3. Provision 10 shall be altered such the the reference to the CAB is removed and the dissolution date shall be extended by 6 months. 12. The initial OGB shall have no power to alter any provision of this Charter. -- Stephen Hahn, PhD Solaris Kernel Development, Sun Microsystems stephen.hahn at sun.com http://blogs.sun.com/sch/ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: charter.tar Type: application/x-tar Size: 71680 bytes Desc: not available URL: From benr at cuddletech.com Tue Dec 20 17:34:08 2005 From: benr at cuddletech.com (Ben Rockwood) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 17:34:08 PST Subject: [cab-discuss] Re: Community proposals in the face of project support In-Reply-To: <20051213232741.GB177790@eng.sun.com> Message-ID: <98906.1135128912542.JavaMail.suncom@oss1> I don't have any objections to this, however I think that a large amount of education is needed to get everyone who might be interested up to speed. I'm a little concerned that this might be a bit too formal for most developers, but we'll just have to see how much acceptance this gets in the next couple weeks. benr. From benr at cuddletech.com Tue Dec 20 17:46:36 2005 From: benr at cuddletech.com (Ben Rockwood) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 17:46:36 PST Subject: [cab-discuss] Re: Another charter draft In-Reply-To: <20051214005216.GA181245@eng.sun.com> Message-ID: <16568750.1135129642181.JavaMail.suncom@oss1> I'm a little confused as to the need for this charter. It looks to me like this really says: - The CAB is renamed the OGB immediately (when this document becomes effective) - The existing formula for electing the CAB (2+2+1) goes out the window. - The existing CAB (also known as the initial OGB) leaves their positions as scheduled at the end of their 1 year term, ending 1 Apr 2006. ... so on and so forth. So it seems to me the point of this Charter is to solve the "What if the CAB hasn't completed its tasks prior to April 1st" problem. I would very much like to hear the thoughts of the CAB on this subject. benr. From keith.wesolowski at sun.com Tue Dec 20 18:46:58 2005 From: keith.wesolowski at sun.com (Keith M Wesolowski) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 18:46:58 -0800 Subject: [cab-discuss] Re: Another charter draft In-Reply-To: <16568750.1135129642181.JavaMail.suncom@oss1> References: <20051214005216.GA181245@eng.sun.com> <16568750.1135129642181.JavaMail.suncom@oss1> Message-ID: <20051221024658.GA16478@sun.com> On Tue, Dec 20, 2005 at 05:46:36PM -0800, Ben Rockwood wrote: > ... so on and so forth. So it seems to me the point of this Charter > is to solve the "What if the CAB hasn't completed its tasks prior to > April 1st" problem. That's the point of provisions 8 through 11. The most important provisions, however, are 2 through 6 (inclusive), which define the scope of the Constitution the initial OGB is to construct and submit to the rest of the community for ratification. These are the sections which need the most thought. The objective of the charter, put simply, is to provide the CAB with complete and unambiguous answers to the questions: 1. What are we expected to do? 2. By when must we do it? 3. What constraints and goals exist? 4. What rights and privileges may we exercise to further our work? These answers form the directives customarily given to committees and boards. Additionally, this charter represents a (admittedly overly vague, in this draft) grant of powers to the permanent OGB; these are the powers of which use and succession are to be regulated by the forthcoming Constitution. > I would very much like to hear the thoughts of the CAB on this subject. As would I. -- Keith M Wesolowski "Sir, we're surrounded!" Solaris Kernel Team "Excellent; we can attack in any direction!" From fielding at gbiv.com Tue Dec 20 22:37:29 2005 From: fielding at gbiv.com (Roy T. Fielding) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 22:37:29 -0800 Subject: [cab-discuss] Re: Another charter draft In-Reply-To: <20051221024658.GA16478@sun.com> References: <20051214005216.GA181245@eng.sun.com> <16568750.1135129642181.JavaMail.suncom@oss1> <20051221024658.GA16478@sun.com> Message-ID: <561CB818-EDBD-42EA-9344-620D1BA1D0D4@gbiv.com> On Dec 20, 2005, at 6:46 PM, Keith M Wesolowski wrote: > On Tue, Dec 20, 2005 at 05:46:36PM -0800, Ben Rockwood wrote: >> I would very much like to hear the thoughts of the CAB on this >> subject. > > As would I. Well, um, its hard to say what the CAB thinks because we really aren't into group-think. But, I can give my perspective... The CAB worked on a governance model based on a certain set of assumptions, tried a draft, and found it to be somewhat painful. Aside from the fact that opensolaris.org tools are incapable of supporting basic cooperative work (and apparently none of the NIH tools used by the hundreds of other collaborative software projects are good enough to be installed), we discovered that the basic assumptions about collaboration were not shared by the most vocal folks in Sun Engineering. Instead, Sun's process will drive the basic goals and ideals of this new community, and we needed to wait until this process could be described to us outsiders because there really is no point in trying to impose self-governance. So, the CAB put the governance proposal aside until we could get a better grasp on Sun's process model, which left us with the charter material to work on in the meantime. The charter is really a form of governance-lite, and its purpose is to answer the question of who gets to make decisions for the OpenSolaris project and whether or not that group will have a budget to work with. Al put together a draft and we hashed it back and forth, came up with a balanced proposal that outlined the major themes, and then submitted it to Sun to be sure that someone actually approved of this model for future work, with the expectation that we would get a "yes", "no", or "this part needs some work, can you do better?" kind of answer. Well, a few weeks passed, and, instead of a simple answer, what we received back was a rewritten document that some committee within Sun apparently believed would make a nice charter. :( That was pretty bad (and most of the complaints came from Sun engineers), so Keith has rewritten it again to be more formal. I still don't know if it answers the original questions posed by our charter. To tell you the truth, it doesn't really matter if it does -- we already experienced the answer. At this point, I assume all this work has been well-intentioned and focused on getting the best proposals on the table. However, the pattern is painfully clear: the CAB is free to discuss all it wants and write what it wants, but what we decide has no binding effect on OpenSolaris at all. In fact, I can say (quite pointedly) that not a single significant piece of advice given by the CAB for the community has been followed -- all of the decisions so far, including those that led to a successful initial release, the entire opensolaris website, and the miserable lack of meaningful collaboration via a shared version control system, have been made on private lists within Sun. A lot of those decisions have been good, a small number of them have been bad, and a few simply unnecessary. None of them made use of the CAB as a public body, though they sometimes involved participation by individual CAB members. Perhaps that is the central problem with being called the "Community Advisory Board": we aren't actionable. It doesn't matter how we want the website to work because the website is not an open source project. It doesn't matter that we want a versioning system that has proven itself on countless other projects, because the versioning system for OpenSolaris has to be the same one that all of Sun uses internally for not-yet-released code. It doesn't matter how we think collaboration should involve people outside of Sun as peers because Sun engineering is not willing to risk giving up control to peers that might not share its own culture. We aren't creating an open community. Sun is creating a window into their own process so that code fixes can be directly contributed by customers to workers at Sun who will be tasked with shepherding their fixes. That is a fine way to produce and release open source code -- companies like Apple, Sleepycat, and MySQL have been operating successfully on that basis for years. It just isn't very interesting. I am an extremely busy person right now. I suspect that the rest of the CAB members are in a similar boat. I have to allocate my time on the basis of how productive I think it will be, and right now I don't think it is productive for me to work on CAB issues. Heck, just writing this e-mail has cost me $600 in lost time. I am hoping that we can get back to work on a governance proposal that more closely matches the process desired by people actively working on the opensolaris projects, perhaps early next year, assuming someone decides to make a writable, versioned information space for the project a priority. I am not even going to read the documents again until that happens. Cheers, Roy T. Fielding Chief Scientist, Day Software From webmink at sun.com Sun Dec 25 14:26:14 2005 From: webmink at sun.com (Simon Phipps) Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2005 22:26:14 +0000 Subject: [cab-discuss] Fwd: Your proposal for DebConf6 about "OpenSolaris and Debian: Can we be friends?" References: <20051225210158.1665523FB29@timotheus.schuldei.com> Message-ID: <234CD460-7B68-4493-AA1C-DEA8A46B9BC3@sun.com> Hi CAB, I've reserved a slot at DebConf to discuss the relationshp between the Debian and OpenSolaris communities and would welcome discussion of how to conduct the session. More at http://blogs.sun.com/roller/ page/webmink?entry=debconf_session_accepted S. Begin forwarded message: > From: committee at debconf.org > Date: December 25, 2005 21:01:58 BST > To: webmink at gmail.com > Subject: Your proposal for DebConf6 about "OpenSolaris and Debian: > Can we be friends?" > > (This is a mass-mailing. If you want to speak to a human, please > reply to this > mail!) > > Hi Simon Phipps! > > Merry Christmas! > > Thank you for submitting the proposal for a Roundtable (90 min) about > "OpenSolaris and Debian: Can we be friends?". > > We are happy to accept it into the main track of DebConf6. > > If you need travel support, please book your tickets as soon as > possible. > Please try to get good prices and tell us how much you need by Jan > 15 at the > latest. If you require more time please let us know. > > Please submit your paper for the Roundtable (90 min) by 2006-04-06 > via the comas > interface where you should also choose a fitting (preferably DFSG > free) > license. > > Afterwards this date, the papers will be checked, (perhaps) > commented on, > typeset, printed and bound before finally being shipped to the > conference > venue. This deadline is a hard one. We can not push it further > back, so it's > imperative that your paper is submitted by this date. Once again, > that's > Thursday 6th April, 2006. If you can submit your paper before then, > please do > so, as it will make our jobs easier :) > > This year we are fortunate to have (once again!) a dedicated, > qualified person > who can help you with both preparing/rehearsing your talk and > getting your > paper into shape. Feel free to drop Meike Reichle > a mail if > you would like to get a second opinion on your paper or would like > to make > arrangements to go over your talk before the conference. > > Should you have special requirements for your talk (besides a > limousine :P) > which could take more preparation than usual (e.g. fonts installed > on the > presentation notebook), please let us know. > > We look forward to meeting you at Debconf6 in Mexico! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: