[Incubator] public volunteer support organisation

[Jody Garnett]

Just a friendly reminder: 

We are a public volunteer organisation which strives for transparency.  No where is that tension felt more acutely then on the incubation committee. We have touched on a couple of sensitive topics this week, and I have gotten the occasional private message as a result.

We need to be supportive of projects in incubation, but we also need to be supportive of our volunteers on the incubation committee.  If you were/are worried about speaking up you can talk to me (or a board member) for a sanity check :-)

My rough guidelines are that anything about the functioning of this committee is fair game for the email list. So our discussion this week on community is health (and for me at least informative). And the transparency for projects entering incubation hopefully appreciated.

By the same token I encourage projects to push back on the incubation committee early and often (we can take it).

So what does cross the line and require privacy? Sensitive discussions of a legal/license nature are best bounced of a projects mentor, who could arrange for you to speak with a projects PSC if needed. If it has a chance of shutting down a project best have a sanity check first - often you will find the project/mentor all ready on the job.

(For a concrete example - during GeoTools incubation we had to yank prior releases. Ideally we would like the PSC to have space to figure out a battle plan and provide their community with a course of action.) 

Australia has a kind expression: "Eat some concrete and harden up". By all means the incubation committee can be supportive environment for some "tough love".

Lets get it done - together.
-- 
Jody Garnett

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