[GRASS-PSC] RFC1 vote reminder

[Paul Kelly]

Hello Michael,
Thanks for your response to this.

On Wed, 21 Mar 2007, Michael Barton wrote:

> I just looked at what is in the cvs.
>
> 1. It still has reference to ITC and Trento. I thought this was to be
> removed.

I was waiting for suggestion of a replacement - I think if we just remove 
"headquartered at ITC-irst, Trento, Italy." then the description loses a 
lot of its meaning. Maybe that isn't important. Probably I'm just being 
paranoid about it.

I have however been thinking a lot and can't think of anything clearer and 
simpler than defining the GRASS project as the community based around the 
CVS server, mailing lists and website: take those away and we'd be 
nothing. I guess the issue is whether describing them as hosted by 
Intevation and IRST is the best way of being specific, or if there's 
another way. As an alternative to "headquarted at...", I thought perhaps 
instead:

-------------------------------------------
Index: RFC1_PSC.dox
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/grass/grassrepository/grass6/rfc/RFC1_PSC.dox,v
retrieving revision 1.5
diff -u -r1.5 RFC1_PSC.dox
--- RFC1_PSC.dox        12 Mar 2007 11:34:21 -0000      1.5
+++ RFC1_PSC.dox        21 Mar 2007 17:47:27 -0000
@@ -16,8 +16,9 @@

  "The GRASS Project" is defined as the GPL-licenced GIS software known as the
  Geographic Resources Analysis Support System, together with the surrounding
-development, distribution and promotion infrastructure currently headquarted
-at ITC-irst, Trento, Italy.
+development, distribution and promotion infrastructure currently hosted (as
+of March 2007) by the IRST centre, Trento, Italy and Intevation GmbH,
+Osnabrück, Germany.

  \section tor Terms of Reference
-------------------------------------------

But IMHO that's really cumbersome. In response to what somebody said 
earlier about having to change the RFC document if the location of the CVS 
server or website/mailing list hosting changed - I don't see a problem 
with that. The GRASS community is de facto defined by our mailing lists, 
CVS server and website and if these are changed then that is a significant 
change and it's not unreasonable to have to update the RFC in that 
situation.

But on the other hand nobody else seems to care that much about this issue 
and as Arnulf said, other projects haven't really addressed it so perhaps 
I'm being way OTT about it - and if we don't come to agreement soon on an 
alternative wording and nobody else objects then I *am* willing to 
eventually just delete that headquarted bit and simplify the whole 
description.

> 2. I just noticed that it does not say how the PSC comes into being. In our
> case, it was a general vote of the GRASS user community, following a
> nomination period. Does a PSC member serve for a limited or unlimited term?

The section at the end "Composition of the Committee" defines 
("hard-codes", if you will ;) the initial PSC. We used the voting on the 
mailing list to determine who is in the initial PSC but that was in effect 
just a guidance measure - this document is what really determines that, as 
I understand it. And there deliberately is no minimum/maximum number of 
PSC members nor term of service - changes to composition are just handled 
from now on by voting on the PSC list.

A side note on how the PSC assumes "control" over GRASS - it's related to 
the first point really - GRASS *is* the codebase in CVS, mailing lists and 
website. So as long as the current maintainers of those (Bernhard and 
Markus, I suppose) agree to maintain them in accordance with the wishes of 
the PSC, that's enough, I think. Maybe this should be more explicit?



Right. As Arnulf said, we should be voting on this. Let me make it a 
formal proposal then. I propose, that subject to consensus on the list 
over the wording of the definition of the GRASS project, that we adopt the 
rest of RFC1 and RFC3 as currently in CVS, to be official guidance 
documents for the operation of the PSC. And with the four working days - 
we have until 7:30pm Central European Time on Tuesday 27th March to 
discuss and vote on this.

I would like to give it a +1 - in accordance with the voting guidelines 
(+1 means willing to support the implementation) I will do my best to 
maintain the documents in CVS and try and make what I meant by the various 
forms of words clearer if there is any dispute.

Now, we only need +2 and no vetos to pass it so please don't feel obliged 
to vote a +1 if you're not sure if you have time to "support the 
implementation" of the two new RFCs. Of course if you do think these are 
really great documents and will make GRASS much better and are 
enthusiastic to work with them etc. etc. then by all means vote +1!! ;) I 
just feel the voting process becomes a bit meaningless if everyone rushes 
to put in their +1.

Actually I really feel like such a pedant now; hope it doesn't come across 
like that :)

Thanks,

Paul