[ogb-discuss] OGB Meeting Minutes :: 25th April 2007

[Glynn Foster]

Hey,

Apologies for not having an mp3 yet - having some technical difficulties for
getting the call recorded. If anyone wants to listen before I get the mp3
published, call into the following -

Replay Name: OGB Meeting :: 25/04/07
Replay Toll Free Phone Number: NOT AVAILABLE (Non-US?)
Replay Toll Phone Number: (203) 307-6404
       ^^^^ (NOT FREE)

I'll upload the mp3 as soon as possible.


Glynn

==

OGB Call :: Wednesday 25th April, 2007

Present: Alan, Glynn, Keith, Steve
Regrets: Rich
Absent: Casper, Jim

1) Project Creation Guidelines

   Keith has a set of pending changes based on the discussion that he needs
   to make, including a dependency on a yet to be written project naming
   policy. Glynn asked whether the implementation details should be separate
   to the actual policy. Keith didn't think so, but would make sure to
   tweak the language so that the policy described a set of roles, and that
   the OGB could delegate that to certain people or committees. Keith would
   like to get this approved as soon as possible, with any non-approved
   projects being asked to follow this policy.

   Steve asked if it could be voted on today, based on the feedback already
   received, with the understanding of visiting any major objections to
   it - Alan, Glynn, Keith and Steve all approved.

   Glynn asked where the policy would be homed, citing that the OGB
   community pages wasn't necessarily the most obvious place for it, but
   didn't have any suggestions. Alan suggested housing it there, and creating
   links from other places as necessary.

   ACTION: Keith to incorporate the latest changes, and post the policy.


2) Community and Project Re-Organization

   Steve sent out a 2nd version of the draft to ogb-discuss. He restored the
   original project/community names, deciding that a clear project naming
   policy should be written independant of this proposal.

   Steve detailed 4 outstanding issues in the latest draft, 2 of which could
   be handled by the affected communities, and the other 2 (Shells, and
   Installation & Packaging) that he wanted the opinion of the OGB.

   Steve thinks Shells is larger in scope than a project, in terms of a
   lifetime, but too narrowly focused for a community. He would just
   as much like to see shell related projects being endorsed by other
   communities eg. System Admininstration. Glynn was not convinced by
   the level of activity to warrant a community, and Alan confirmed that
   it was really just Roland and the ksh93 project.

   Keith mentioned that it was similar in scope to the Printing community,
   with the latter being slightly more active. Steve commented that he
   felt Printing was higher level, crossing various boundaries and different
   sub-systems. Alan asked if the Shells community could be focused around
   traditional commandline utilities. Keith suggested that shells were
   relatively uninteresting, defined by standards, and may not encourage any
   discussion activity within a community structure.

   Glynn asked if the Shells community was a direct result of Roland falling
   through the gaps in the recent core contributor status allocation. Steve
   commented that Roland should have recognition regardless, with Keith
   backing that up that he should at the very least be a contributor on
   account of his community endorsed project. Keith didn't feel that we should
   go too far to rectify the community group governance issues - if they don't
   want to contribute status to a person, there's nothing the OGB can do.

   Steve commented that maybe the Distributions community should merge with the
   Installation & Packing community. If push came to shove, he would keep them
   separate. Glynn commented that distributions in general do a whole lot more
   than just installation and packaging. Keith asked what would an Installation
   & Packaging group address, and was worried that the Install part was a
   Solaris specific group. Steve commented that it was only specific if no one
   else used it, and that SchilliX, BeleniX and Nexenta all use Sun's SysV
   packaging at some level. Keith commented that install was specific to a
   distribution and didn't know any distribution that shared installer that
   wasn't essentially the same distribution.

   Steve proposed a Distribution & Packaging Community, with Install being a
   project underneath that. Keith commented that an alternative was to take
   Distributions as originally proposed with Install project underneath that,
   and take a Packaging community which ties into various packaging related
   tools eg. Sys5, pkg-get, apt-get, ports, ...

   Steve commented that he didn't expect to have a vote on this today. Keith
   asked if a vote would be on the policy that we want to try and get people
   to re-organize themselves, or whether it would be a new policy describing
   our strategy and the series of changes to implement that policy. Steve
   replied that he didn't expect a vote on something not finalized and
   implemented, nor did he think that a clear specific policy has emerged.
   Keith commented that the current guidelines in the constitution described
   Community creation pretty well.

   ACTION: Steve to finalize changes and start discussing with community
           and project leaders

3) Email Voting Guidelines

   Alan commented that based on the discussion on ogb-discuss, if we did an
   email vote, it had to be completely unanimous but worried didn't allow
   for people who are on vacation to participate.  Keith replied that Roy's
   explanation made sense since regular meetings gave people the opportunity
   to object or provide a valuable opinion, and that email discussions didn't
   necessarily reflect that. Steve felt the opposite, and that email was a
   little more flexible and was likely to be more so on his honeymoon. Keith
   commented that it wasn't the intent to stop all discussion by email, but
   that the adoption of formal policies and important steps should take an
   official vote to provide a greater level of protection and documentation
   if the board ever became a legal entity.

   Glynn commented that perhaps we could do things informally by email, and
   go through those decisions at the start of every meeting. Keith commented
   that another way of doing this would be to create a committee to delegate
   that power to, which didn't have the same restrictions on voting. Keith
   commented that we should make committees chartered in the way that the
   constitution was intended with specific tasks in mind rather than a
   generic committee of OGB members.

   Alan brought up the issue of a formal vote for the list of contributors
   and core contributors. Alan, Glynn and Steve approved. Keith abstained.
   The OGB voted to approve the list of core contributors.


4) Other Business

   Marketing:
   Glynn commented that he had been in touch with Sara and Terri, and discussion
   was still continuing in the background. He mentioned it would likely be some
   community opensolaris-mktg initiative over time.