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[MirageOS-devel] [Need input] Proposal to change committers for the XAPI Project - implications for the whole project?



On 15/05/2014 10:19, Anil Madhavapeddy wrote:
On 15 May 2014, at 09:57, Lars Kurth <lars.kurth@xxxxxxx> wrote:

All the existing committers have voted in favour. So the proposal carries. I 
will update the XAPI webpage 
http://www.xenproject.org/developers/teams/xapi.html accordingly
Lars

This isn't intended to affect the voting, but I would note that it's slightly 
odd for an open-source project to switch its committers in such a big sweep 
without at least some discussion about how this affects the overall project 
direction.
Actually, thinking about it *could* affect the direction of the project for anything that is related to global votes. And we *do* need to have a discussion about it. And we *may* need a process change or clarification, but I don't think so as the process was originally designed to cover a gradual increase in the number of subprojects.

Thanks Anil for pointing this out. I was too overloaded to really spot this : Apologies.

== Different Expectations when to award maintainer status ==
First there is the observation in that:
* There are significant differences when it comes to when (aka under which criteria) committer status is awarded between subprojects and there are also difference in view within subprojects * XAPI does not have the maintainer role as far as I understand. In other words in XAPI maintainer=committer. Please correct me if I am wrong.

== Process implications ==
Looking at the governance process: http://www.xenproject.org/governance.html

Maintainers and committers have the right to vote in some circumstances. Now we have local (within subproject) and global votes (affecting all projects). What the process states specifically when it comes to voting is:

* The role of committers in electing other committers and project leads - this is subproject local. As such, a significant change in the number of committers only has a local effect.

* The role of maintainers (but not committers) is mentioned specifically when it comes to "formal votes" such as changes to governance (global) and other local votes. No mention of committers. In other words, all maintainers vote in "formal votes".

* Looking at the voting related to the project lify cycle: These are just "formal votes" which are allowed by maintainers

* Committers are specifically mentioned as "referees" in case there are conflicts. There we have a hierarchy of conflict resolution and the proposed xhange to XAPI committers should not affect

== What is the impact of this change (IMPORTANT) ==

As such, the change proposed to XAPI committers is affecting the voting dynamics for global votes as on the face of it it increases the number of maintainers (=committers) from 5 to 13. Given the size of XAPI subproject and the fact that it basically never listed its maintainers this seems reasonable. Also in light of the number of maintainers in the Hypervisor project, of which there are 28 if I counted correctly.

But it does raise the question as to whether such a significant change to maintainers sets a bad precedence and whether we need to look at our process

So I would argue that, *this ptoposal has* a global impact - even though unintended - and that for this reason we need to have a discussion and maybe a formal vote to ratify this proposed change by the XAPI project.

Best Regards
Lars


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