Re: [4diac-dev] Antw: Re: Standardize process of electing/retiring commi

[Alois Zoitl <alois.zoitl@xxxxxx>]

Hi Bianca,

thx for compiling this list. After reading your email a few times I think this list is a guide starting point for us. I think Michael, who already responded to
your email, would be a very good candidate for testing the process.

Cheers,
Alois

On Tue, 2022-12-27 at 17:11 +0100, Bianca Wiesmayr wrote:
> Dear 4diac community,
> 
> I would like to resurrect this discussion because more and more people contribute to Eclipse 4diac, but we did not nominate any committers in the past years.
> 
> I do like your past suggestions regarding a personal meeting to discuss the implications for both electing and retiring a committer. In addition to the
> significant contribution, I think that also the expected future contributions should play an important role. For instance, we have had contributors who
> submitted a large amount of code as part of a university project or internship. However, they do not become long-time contributors, rather the contributions
> are limited to a period of max. 1 year. 
> 
> To summarize and answer my own questions from long ago with some statements to hopefully initiate a discussion....:
> 
>  --> Which criteria should a contributor fulfil before we initiate a committer election?
>  * Amount: Significant contribution to Eclipse 4diac over a period of at least six months.
>  * Timeframe: Expected contributions also in the future, i.e., the contributions are not part of a time-limited project.
>  * Culture: A certain level of knowledge of the Eclipse contributing process is required 
>  * Independence: The code quality of the contributions is usually sufficient for merging without extensive interactions with other committers.
>  * Community: I would suggest at least minimal interaction with the community as a requirement (e.g., post to the mailing list to introduce yourself,
> participate in the community chat, community events, or the like)
>  * Personal contact: After a meeting, an existing contributor is convinced that the requirements are fulfilled. 
> Programmer: I think that contributions should also be valid if they are not code-related. This is probably anyway not a common case (e.g., very extensive
> documentation rewriting without code contributions).
> 
>  --> Which criteria should a contributor fulfil before we ask a committer to retire?
>  * Amount: Even small contributions are sufficient to retain the committer status.
>  * Timeframe: A period of one year without any known reasons and without any contributions could be the minimum waiting period before retiring a committer.
>  * Community: Significant interactions with the community count as contributions to the project. Such interactions could be reviewing code, helping newer
> committers with the old code, supporting new adopters of the tool, ...
>  * Personal contact: After a meeting, an existing contributor is convinced that future contributions are unlikely. OR The committer is unwilling to have a
> meeting without providing reasoning. OR The committer cannot be contacted successfully.
> 
> Based on these criteria, we would probably need to nominate quite a few people as committers.
> 
> I am looking forward to discussions on the presented examples! Please feel free to add new criteria if you can come up with any.
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Bianca
> 
> -- 
> -- DI Bianca Wiesmayr, BSc
> University Assistant
> LIT Cyber-Physical Systems Lab
>  
> JOHANNES KEPLER
> UNIVERSITÄT LINZ
> Altenberger Straße 69
> LIT Open Innovation Center (EG)
> 4040 Linz, Österreich
> T +43 732 2468 9485
> bianca.wiesmayr@xxxxxx
> jku.at/lit/cps-lab
> 
> 
> 
> 
> & Hi Bianca,
> & 
> & thanks a lot for starting this discussion. Especially as project lead I 
> & would be happy if we can come up with some numbers and more detailed rules.
> & 
> & I think the numbers should somehow reflect that the contributor did a 
> & significant contribution, as stated in the Eclipse project handbook. Also I 
> & think the
> & committer who wants to nominate a contributor should have a personal meeting 
> & upfront of a nomination. This allows to discuss the implications of the 
> & committer
> & nomination as well as the willingness of the nominee.
> & 
> & For me the retiring process is more critical and hard. I think the numbers 
> & can only serve as guideline and in all cases a personal meeting with the 
> & inaktive
> & committer should be done. This could only be with the project lead but I'm 
> & also happy if other committers join that session.
> & 
> & As you started the discussion do you have already some numbers and or 
> & process in mind?
> & 
> & Cheers,
> & Alois
> & 
> & 
> & 
> & 
> & On Tue, 2021-03-09 at 21:31 +0100, Bianca Wiesmayr wrote:
> &> Hi all,
> &>
> &> an increasingly diverse community uses and develops Eclipse 4diac. We
> &> welcome all kinds of contributions - from bug reports to submitted code.
> &> Currently, there are seven committers, see
> &> https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/iot.4diac/who
> &> As the number of code submissions is rising, especially for 4diac IDE,
> &> also new committers will certainly be elected in the future. What does a
> &> committer do? As a committer, you have write access to the git
> &> repository. 4diac contributions are typically uploaded to the Gerrit
> &> code review. Here, the acceptance of the code by a committer is required
> &> before the code can be merged into the repository. Furthermore, only
> &> committers can elect other committers on the project.
> &>
> &> In order to create a fair and inclusive environment for (potential)
> &> contributors, I suggest to discuss formal criteria for selecting
> &> committers. Of course, these criteria would only complement the election
> &> procedure from the Eclipse foundation and not result in any automatism.
> &> Information on becoming a committer can be found on the webpage, e.g.
> &> https://www.eclipse.org/membership/become_a_member/committer.php
> &>
> &> --> Which criteria should a contributer fulfil before we initiate a
> &> committer election?
> &> --> How long should the person have been contributing?
> &> --> Which minimum requirements should the contributions fulfil?
> &> --> Should we consider whether we expect the person to provide
> &> contributions also in the future?
> &> --> Which other criteria can you come up with?
> &>
> &> Of course, during our lives many things change: we may stop
> &> contributing due to a lack of free time, due to shifted interests or
> &> simply because of our career path. I'd therefore also suggest to
> &> initiate a default procedure for retiring committers after a certain
> &> period of time.
> &>
> &> --> A certain period of inactivity is certainly normal. After which
> &> period of time should we retire committers?
> &> --> Should an inactivity involve only times without contributions, or
> &> does also a low number of contributions count as inactivity?
> &> --> Should we consider whether we expect contributions from this
> &> committer in the future?
> &> --> Which other criteria can you come up with?
> &>
> &> While formal voting rights for committer elections are given only to
> &> other committers, I hope to open a broader discussion on this process. I
> &> therefore strongly encourage everyone on the mailing list to share their
> &> opinions and ideas.
> &>
> &> Looking forward to your answers,
> &>
> &> Bianca
> &>
> &> --
> & 
> & 
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