Work to draft the project bylaws is in place on the Bylaws page...

Previously (JUNE 2004) proposed policies and procedures for the Excalibur Project:

Hi gang!

We do need /some/ procedures and policies I'm afraid. For example, the PMC must endorse (by voting) all project releases. Coding standards are another one of those.

I don't feel very much like re-inventing the wheel or spending much time on all of this. I propose that we incorporate the procedures followed by avalon, by reference, in particular, that's

http://avalon.apache.org/community/process/pmc-votes.html

http://avalon.apache.org/community/process/code-standards.html

http://wiki.apache.org/avalon/AvalonMailingListEttiquette

http://wiki.apache.org/avalon/AvalonDistributionLayout

http://wiki.apache.org/avalon/AvalonReleaseManagerHowto

to the maximum extent possible (ie the actual distribution layout is of course different). We can change things as they itch. Where bits of procedure and policy are not specified by avalon docs, refer to the process as written down on the jakarta site:

http://jakarta.apache.org/site/getinvolved.html

those of you who've been active on the avalon pmc should have no problems applying all of this. Those of you who are new to the role, you really don't need to go and read all of that right now. Just go with the flow and ask questions. The basic summary is as follows:

• don't smack each other on the head (or not too hard), behave like a
  responsible adult, use common sense, etc
• 1//-0/-1 mean what you expect of 'em
• releases are a big deal and need to be voted on
• ASF is strict about licensing/IP/etc stuff and there's rules to
  follow and people to speak to (like the apache incubator)
• a -1 is a veto unless specified otherwise or the vote is among the
  PMC (the PMC doesn't have vetoes)
• vetoes suck and arise from a failure to communicate
• by ASF bylaws, the PMC chair (currently that's me) is always right,
  if he/she wants to be, and can overrule or simply ignore any decision
  made by the committers or pmc
• basically more common sense stuff
  

I also recommend people who go and read the above docs to also take a look at the codehaus manifesto, which is brief and blunt:

http://www.codehaus.org/Manifesto

not that it applies here (this is not the codehaus after all), but it does provide some contrast with the "ASF process" as hammered down in all the policy documentation.

Finally, everyone who's an asf committer, esp. pmc members, needs to be familiar with the ASF bylaws:

http://www.apache.org/foundation/bylaws.html

this is a binding legal document (unlike all the other stuff referenced above). We shall adhere to it.

comments?

cheers,

• Leo

  ---