Mike has already been approved by the board of directors as the PMC Lead. When we were setting this up, Mike was identified as the obvious candidate as he had the more technical role, providing technical oversight of the various efforts underway in OpenHW Group. Assuming that my understanding of Mike's role is accurate, I believe that he is still the best candidate for PMC Lead.
Let's identify other PMC members and consider adding additional leads later. At least in part, we can do this now and have a more rounded PMC now, rather than wait until the October board meeting to get approval to add PMC Leads. According to the rules, the existing PMC members (i.e., Mike) need to vote on new candidates. If the candidates are ready to accept the responsibility and Mike approves, I can solicit EMO(ED) approval right now and get this rolling.
What does the PMC do?
OpenHW Group is in a bit of a special state right now as it only has one actual open source project under its purview. That makes the PMC mandate a little thin. As the project space grows, however, the role of the PMC will become more important.
In the most general sense, the PMC provides oversight and guidance (especially with regard to cross project issues) to projects under their purview as a part of the governance structure defined by the Eclipse Development Process.
In practical terms, the role of the PMC is to approve intellectual property contributions, elections, and EDP reviews for projects under their purview.
That is, the PMC has responsibility to ensure that the projects operating under their purview are successfully implementing the Eclipse Development Process and operating under the terms outlined by the charter of the corresponding top level project. In part, this means that they ensure that committer elections follow the rules (e.g., that candidates have demonstrated sufficient merit), and that the work being undertaken projects fall within the defined scope of the project and the scope defined in the top level project charter. The various reviews provide opportunities for projects to demonstrate that they're operating in an open and transparent manner as defined by the EDP and are implementing the Eclipse IP Policy; the EMO looks to the PMC to help us determine if these things are actually happening (and that the content of releases fit in with scope).
The PMC is not expected to be an expert in every bit of technology that is developed under their purview. The PMC doesn't need to be involved in the day-to-day operations of the projects operating under their purview, but does need to have some sense that the projects are progressing.
The PMC, as part of the leadership chain, is also part of the grievance handling process. I have a case in progress now, where I may need to engage one of our PMCs (completely unrelated to OpenHW Group, this is just an example) to help resolve a dispute between two committers on a project. In this particular case, I'm going to need the PMC's insight to help me make a technical assessment of some of the claims. Since the PMC is closer to the technology than I am, I need to leverage their expertise.
In addition to all of this, responsibility falls on the PMC Lead to make sure that the PMC runs smoothly.
Based on all of what I've stated above, my limited understanding of the OpenHW Group project space, and my recollection of our discussions when we built this top level project in the first place, I believe that Mike is the exactly the right person to be the PMC Lead.
My immediate concern is that we have
two contribution questionnaires (
project content CQs) waiting for PMC approval. These are stalled in our
workflow until we get PMC approval. So... if you, Mike, believe that these contributions align with the
scope of the OpenHW Group CORE-V Cores open source project, please open each of the CQs, set the PMC_Approval flag to +1 and click "Issues addressed, return CQ to IPTeam".
Wayne