Proposal to add Steve Woodbridge to the TSC

[Howard Butler]

At 12:56 PM 4/13/2006, Daniel Morissette wrote:
>Sean Gillies wrote:
>>For as long as I've been involved with MapServer, Steve 
>>Woodbridge  has been a contributor to discussions not only on 
>>MapServer usage,  but also on project architecture, governance, and 
>>direction. I've  appreciated his insights, and would like for us to 
>>encourage and  empower Steve by giving him a position on 
>>MapServer's technical  steering committee. In accordance with our 
>>rules, I propose that we  add Steve Woodbridge as a TSC member, and 
>>cast my +1 vote.
>
>I am a bit hesitant with this proposal. Please don't get me wrong, I 
>have no problem with Steve personally, but so far all members of the 
>TSC were contributors in term of source code, documentation, website 
>or other tangible contributions.
>
>By adding Steve, we would open the door to TSC members who have been 
>contributing mostly in terms of user support or comments via the 
>lists. My hesitation comes from the fact that I am worried about 
>dissolving the TSC too much if we start going that route. Without 
>thinking much about this, I can think of at least Bart van den 
>Eijnden and Tom Kralidis who contributed at least as much as Steve 
>in advice, user support and QA efforts to the project (and I'm sure 
>there are a few others that I can't think of right now). To be 
>consistent we should consider them for membership too (and I'm not 
>proposing that we do that).
>
>Perhaps there have been off-list discussions and arguments that 
>would justify broadening the TSC, if that's the case then I'd like 
>to hear them, otherwise, for now I'll vote +0.
>
>Daniel
>--
>Daniel Morissette
>http://www.mapgears.com/



Another thing to consider is the TSC is the de facto governing entity 
of MapServer right now.  Frank's original RFC 1 was very explicit 
about limiting scope of the TSC to the technical realm.  If you've 
been following OSGeo's incubation stuff, you'll notice that it looks 
like a governing body, called a "Project Management Committee" must 
exist to graduate incubation.  I think we might need to either think 
about creating a PMC (or project steering committee) with mandate to 
deal with the "non-technical", or overload the TSC and call it the 
PMC.  If there were two committees, I'm sure there would be plenty of 
overlap (in people and procedures).  If there is one big committee, 
we might want to look at adjusting the rules and scope a bit.

I think the TSC works very well right now, and I feel that it has 
resulted in a noticeable improvement in how MapServer is developed 
and developer awareness of areas of MapServer they might not have 
otherwise been familiar with.  I think most of this is can be 
attributed to the RFC process, as we've yet to have to decide 
anything controversial.  It seems like bureaucratic overhead to have 
yet another committee, but it also feels like scope creep to make the 
TSC take over all project governance.  The TSC has already stepped 
out of its scope a little by approving MS RFC 10 (Joining OSGeo), 
with the additional step of providing community input through a 
non-anonymous poll.

Regardless of any of the TSC/PMC stuff, I think that Steve should be 
on the TSC.  I would be excited to also see Bart and Tom K on the 
TSC.  They provide perspective and articulate consequences of 
development choices on the user side of MapServer much better than I 
think we developer-types can do.

Crap, I just noticed I type too slow.  What Frank said :)

Howard