MapServer Technical Steering Committee Proposal

[Howard Butler]

Frank,

I think this is fantastic.  I made a couple of tweaks to the document to 
make it reStructured text and included it in the new website at 
<http://ms.gis.umn.edu/development/rfc/ms-rfc-1>.  Per discussions on IRC 
:), a few notes and suggestions have been added to the CVS version of the 
document (and the same one that is mirrored on the website).

So, now that we've got a document, how do we move forward?  I propose that 
we limit the discussion of the technical steering committee to only 
"technical" things as defined in RFC 1.  We should table further 
discussions about the "project governance" issues until we see how this 
process and proposal works for us.  MapServer has made it a long way 
without being incumbered by a lot of process, and I think we want to keep 
it that way if we can.  We can then take the experience we gain from the 
TSC and approach the project governance stuff if and when we need to.

In addition to the list of committee members, I propose that we also add a 
"highly technical" user be included as an advocate on behalf of 
users.  This person would be a full committee member, with all rights, 
privileges, and duties :).  This person should be able to express things in 
technical terms and follow the discussions, but they need not be actively 
developing MapServer software.  A person like this can provide perspective 
that might otherwise be hard to obtain.  Maybe we let the chair nominate 
this position?  Is this a good idea?

I really like that this proposal is clear about "not sweating the small 
stuff" and is really about building consensus for technical issues that are 
challenging to the project.  I think it fits the temperament of the project 
very well.  Thanks for proposing it.

Howard