[GeoNetwork-devel] Proposal to change the PSC

GeoNetwork GeoNetwork Developer
1

Dear PSC members,
I would like to propose a change to the PSC to ensure the PSC is more effective in taking decisions and better reflects the active members of the project. Therefor I propose the following two changes:

1- I propose for Andrea Carboni and Emanuele Tajariol to step down from the PSC. They have done a tremendous amount of work for the project in the past. Their involvement however has ceased for more than a year now, so I think this would be a logical step.

2- I propose to change the number of people on the PSC from 7 down to 5. Although we have a fair amount of active developers, the project has a relatively small number of active developers that commit to trunk and have had a long term involvement. Also this proposal has the objective of making the PSC more effective and involved in the day to day work of the PSC.

Looking forward to your votes, greetings,
Jeroen

2

Ok for me +1

  -----Messaggio originale-----
  Da: Jeroen Ticheler [mailto:Jeroen.Ticheler@…437…]
  Inviato: gio 25/06/2009 15.30
  A: Devel geonetwork-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
  Cc:
  Oggetto: [GeoNetwork-devel] Proposal to change the PSC
  
  Dear PSC members,
  I would like to propose a change to the PSC to ensure the PSC is more
effective in taking decisions and better reflects the active members
  of the project. Therefor I propose the following two changes:
  
  1- I propose for Andrea Carboni and Emanuele Tajariol to step down
  from the PSC. They have done a tremendous amount of work for the
  project in the past. Their involvement however has ceased for more
  than a year now, so I think this would be a logical step.
  
  2- I propose to change the number of people on the PSC from 7 down to
5. Although we have a fair amount of active developers, the project
  has a relatively small number of active developers that commit to
  trunk and have had a long term involvement. Also this proposal has
the
  objective of making the PSC more effective and involved in the day to
day work of the PSC.
  
  Looking forward to your votes, greetings,
  Jeroen
  
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http://sourceforge.net/projects/geonetwork
  

3

Hello,

back from holidays, these are bad news for me.

1- I propose for Andrea Carboni and Emanuele Tajariol to step down
from the PSC.

-0 for me.

I have not been committing new code in the repo for a while, but I think this
is not a good reason for letting me (and Andrea) out; please also consider
that we are not the only PSC members in this situation.
I'm also working on other OGC related projects, some of them also closely
related with GN, and I consider this as an involvement in geonetwork as well.
With full loyalty with a voting process concerning myself, I am not vetoing
it, asking for other's PSC votes.

2- I propose to change the number of people on the PSC from 7 down to
5.

-0
The PSC for a project so widespread as GN should not be shrunk so much.

   Ciao,
   Emanuele

Alle 15:30:54 di giovedì 25 giugno 2009, Jeroen Ticheler ha scritto:

Dear PSC members,
I would like to propose a change to the PSC to ensure the PSC is more
effective in taking decisions and better reflects the active members
of the project. Therefor I propose the following two changes:

1- I propose for Andrea Carboni and Emanuele Tajariol to step down
from the PSC. They have done a tremendous amount of work for the
project in the past. Their involvement however has ceased for more
than a year now, so I think this would be a logical step.

2- I propose to change the number of people on the PSC from 7 down to
5. Although we have a fair amount of active developers, the project
has a relatively small number of active developers that commit to
trunk and have had a long term involvement. Also this proposal has the
objective of making the PSC more effective and involved in the day to
day work of the PSC.

Looking forward to your votes, greetings,
Jeroen

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http://sourceforge.net/projects/geonetwork

4

Hello,

some remarks and questions :

  • [slightly off-topic] What is the actual role and function of the “Advisory Board”, as distinct from the PSC ? On http://trac.osgeo.org/geonetwork/wiki/PSC it says “The AB meets on a yearly basis to discuss the requirements of the participating agencies and to define a work plan for the following year”, etc. Does this really happen ? I have found no evidence of this in the GeoNetwork mailing lists.

  • I haven’t seen a single instance where a PSC member actually voted against a proposal. This means that either the desired consensus is reached before voting, through channels not easily identified as being under the PSC flag, or that there have not been any proposals sufficiently out-of-the-trodden-path to merit anyone’s “no” vote. The former would mean this is an opaque process; the latter might mean we should be more active in our imaginations. I don’t mean we should start any flame-wars, but some more debate, with participants holding opposing views etc. could benefit the software.

As for the two proposals in the original email :

1 - I agree with Emanuele that the reasoning behind it seems arbitrary

2 - I have no opinion on what is the ideal size of the PSC. Though seeing the lack of any “no” votes as I mentioned above, it doesn’t seem that the current size is an impediment to the PSC’s effectiveness. However I disagree with the reasoning that possible new members should be trunk committers with a “long involvement” (whatever that may mean). On the contrary, having only people with ancient involvement on board could be an impediment to the PSC’s effectiveness, in my opinion. I’d say it would be good to include some new blood into the PSC – for example any one of the ESA project members, who supposedly laid the foundations for the future architectural direction for GeoNetwork. Or even someone who is not a GeoNetwork developer at all, but who has a broad knowledge of current technologies that may be relevant to the GeoNetwork software.

kind regards
heikki doeleman

On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 10:39 PM, Emanuele Tajariol <e_tajariol@anonymised.com.> wrote:

Hello,

back from holidays, these are bad news for me.

1- I propose for Andrea Carboni and Emanuele Tajariol to step down
from the PSC.

-0 for me.

I have not been committing new code in the repo for a while, but I think this
is not a good reason for letting me (and Andrea) out; please also consider
that we are not the only PSC members in this situation.
I’m also working on other OGC related projects, some of them also closely
related with GN, and I consider this as an involvement in geonetwork as well.
With full loyalty with a voting process concerning myself, I am not vetoing
it, asking for other’s PSC votes.

2- I propose to change the number of people on the PSC from 7 down to
5.

-0
The PSC for a project so widespread as GN should not be shrunk so much.

Ciao,
Emanuele

Alle 15:30:54 di giovedì 25 giugno 2009, Jeroen Ticheler ha scritto:

Dear PSC members,
I would like to propose a change to the PSC to ensure the PSC is more
effective in taking decisions and better reflects the active members
of the project. Therefor I propose the following two changes:

1- I propose for Andrea Carboni and Emanuele Tajariol to step down
from the PSC. They have done a tremendous amount of work for the
project in the past. Their involvement however has ceased for more
than a year now, so I think this would be a logical step.

2- I propose to change the number of people on the PSC from 7 down to
5. Although we have a fair amount of active developers, the project
has a relatively small number of active developers that commit to
trunk and have had a long term involvement. Also this proposal has the
objective of making the PSC more effective and involved in the day to
day work of the PSC.

Looking forward to your votes, greetings,
Jeroen

— _______________________________________________
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GeoNetwork-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geonetwork-devel
GeoNetwork OpenSource is maintained at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/geonetwork

GeoNetwork-devel mailing list
GeoNetwork-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geonetwork-devel
GeoNetwork OpenSource is maintained at http://sourceforge.net/projects/geonetwork

5

This issue only came up very briefly at Bolsena and obviously didn't get a full discussion :slight_smile:

Here's how I see it:

Steering committee (PSC) = people actively involved in determining the direction that GeoNetwork develops. For me active development means developing GeoNetwork or running a team of people who are developing GeoNetwork with a committment to/history of providing these developments to the trunk and history of active participation in the mailing lists.

PSC doesn't need to have all the ideas for future development of GeoNetwork as these can and should come from as many people as possible.

Advisory committee = people who are not members of the PSC but who can provide advice on directions and decisions taken by the PSC. Perfect people for this group are those involved in groups like the OGC that have or develop specifications or code that are key to GeoNetwork and former members of the PSC whose experience and knowledge of GeoNetwork is essential to the PSC and should be available.

I think the current role/make up of the advisory committee seems to stem from FAO days and perhaps needs to change along the lines I'm suggesting above.

So perhaps if we agree on the above then we could amend the original proposals to:

1. Ask Emanuele and Andrea (and perhaps Archie) to assess their position with respect to the PSC and consider moving to the advisory committee if they are no longer actively developing GeoNetwork. That way we can keep their experience and input to GeoNetwork available to the PSC.

2. Ask the GeoNetwork ebRIM/ESA team to nominate a developer for the PSC for the reasons given in Heikki's email.

What do others think?

Cheers,
Simon
________________________________
From: heikki [tropicano@anonymised.com]
Sent: Monday, 29 June 2009 9:23 AM
To: geonetwork-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [GeoNetwork-devel] Proposal to change the PSC

Hello,

some remarks and questions :

* [slightly off-topic] What is the actual role and function of the "Advisory Board", as distinct from the PSC ? On PSC – GeoNetwork opensource Developer website it says "The AB meets on a yearly basis to discuss the requirements of the participating agencies and to define a work plan for the following year", etc. Does this really happen ? I have found no evidence of this in the GeoNetwork mailing lists.

* I haven't seen a single instance where a PSC member actually voted against a proposal. This means that either the desired consensus is reached before voting, through channels not easily identified as being under the PSC flag, or that there have not been any proposals sufficiently out-of-the-trodden-path to merit anyone's "no" vote. The former would mean this is an opaque process; the latter might mean we should be more active in our imaginations. I don't mean we should start any flame-wars, but some more debate, with participants holding opposing views etc. could benefit the software.

As for the two proposals in the original email :

1 - I agree with Emanuele that the reasoning behind it seems arbitrary

2 - I have no opinion on what is the ideal size of the PSC. Though seeing the lack of any "no" votes as I mentioned above, it doesn't seem that the current size is an impediment to the PSC's effectiveness. However I disagree with the reasoning that possible new members should be trunk committers with a "long involvement" (whatever that may mean). On the contrary, having only people with ancient involvement on board could be an impediment to the PSC's effectiveness, in my opinion. I'd say it would be good to include some new blood into the PSC -- for example any one of the ESA project members, who supposedly laid the foundations for the future architectural direction for GeoNetwork. Or even someone who is not a GeoNetwork developer at all, but who has a broad knowledge of current technologies that may be relevant to the GeoNetwork software.

kind regards
heikki doeleman

On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 10:39 PM, Emanuele Tajariol <e_tajariol@anonymised.com<mailto:e_tajariol@anonymised.com>> wrote:
Hello,

back from holidays, these are bad news for me.

1- I propose for Andrea Carboni and Emanuele Tajariol to step down
from the PSC.

-0 for me.

I have not been committing new code in the repo for a while, but I think this
is not a good reason for letting me (and Andrea) out; please also consider
that we are not the only PSC members in this situation.
I'm also working on other OGC related projects, some of them also closely
related with GN, and I consider this as an involvement in geonetwork as well.
With full loyalty with a voting process concerning myself, I am not vetoing
it, asking for other's PSC votes.

2- I propose to change the number of people on the PSC from 7 down to
5.

-0
The PSC for a project so widespread as GN should not be shrunk so much.

  Ciao,
  Emanuele

Alle 15:30:54 di giovedì 25 giugno 2009, Jeroen Ticheler ha scritto:

Dear PSC members,
I would like to propose a change to the PSC to ensure the PSC is more
effective in taking decisions and better reflects the active members
of the project. Therefor I propose the following two changes:

1- I propose for Andrea Carboni and Emanuele Tajariol to step down
from the PSC. They have done a tremendous amount of work for the
project in the past. Their involvement however has ceased for more
than a year now, so I think this would be a logical step.

2- I propose to change the number of people on the PSC from 7 down to
5. Although we have a fair amount of active developers, the project
has a relatively small number of active developers that commit to
trunk and have had a long term involvement. Also this proposal has the
objective of making the PSC more effective and involved in the day to
day work of the PSC.

Looking forward to your votes, greetings,
Jeroen

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6

Hi all,

here are my considerations:

1- I propose for Andrea Carboni and Emanuele Tajariol to step down
from the PSC. They have done a tremendous amount of work for the
project in the past. Their involvement however has ceased for more
than a year now, so I think this would be a logical step.

-0 for me, leaving the decision to others. Anyway, I agree with Simon and maybe it is better to move myself to the Advisory Board. I would leave Emanuele inside the PSC.

2- I propose to change the number of people on the PSC from 7 down to
5. Although we have a fair amount of active developers, the project
has a relatively small number of active developers that commit to
trunk and have had a long term involvement. Also this proposal has the
objective of making the PSC more effective and involved in the day to
day work of the PSC.

-1 for me.

5 members for the PSC is not enough for me: decisions could be easily biased. GN has now an active community worldwide, with several active developers. I would let some of them in the PSC, as Simon suggested, maybe increasing the PSC size to 9 members.

Cheers,
Andrea

7

Jeroen Ticheler wrote:

Dear PSC members,
I would like to propose a change to the PSC to ensure the PSC is more
effective in taking decisions and better reflects the active members
of the project. Therefor I propose the following two changes:

1- I propose for Andrea Carboni and Emanuele Tajariol to step down
from the PSC. They have done a tremendous amount of work for the
project in the past. Their involvement however has ceased for more
than a year now, so I think this would be a logical step.

2- I propose to change the number of people on the PSC from 7 down to
5. Although we have a fair amount of active developers, the project
has a relatively small number of active developers that commit to
trunk and have had a long term involvement. Also this proposal has the
objective of making the PSC more effective and involved in the day to
day work of the PSC.

Cheers all!

+0 for me

Sorry for the delay. I've been out of town (and offline) for a while
with a family emergency. I'm back to work now.

I generally agree with Andrea's suggestion, and would be more than happy
to join him on the Advisory Committee to make room for other active
developers on the PSC. While I'm available to be involved in assessing
the CSW capabilities for upcoming releases (and I'm delighted to see
Mathieu working on it), I'm not currently actively involved in development.

I'd prefer to see a small PSC of active developers and a larger group on
the Advisory committee to evaluate changes and provide experience-based
input. The small size of the PSC doesn't really concern me because
these are the people actually implementing changes they propose.
Perhaps some level of approval from the advisory committee would be
desirable, but the mechanics for how that would work don't spring
immediately to mind.

--

Archie

-- Archie Warnock warnock@anonymised.com
-- A/WWW Enterprises www.awcubed.com
-- As a matter of fact, I _do_ speak for my employer.

8

Hello,

I agree with Simon's point 1 and 2, and with his new formulation of the
proposals. Personally I think the PSC members, as such, should actively show
up their interest and commitment in the software development, otherwise they
woud risk to slow down its progress. In the case they are actually doing
something in the back ground, then it's in the whole community interest to
keep informed the others on their renovated commitment. That is why I voted
+1 to the original proposals. I mean, my vote was of course nothing against
Emanuele and Andrea. I was conscious that I could be the next one to be asked
to step down from the PSC, due to my scarse recent participation :frowning:

But, I also agree with Heikki, in the sense that we would need some more
debate, either among PSC members or Advisory board paricipants, if we want to
deliberate something so important like the criteria for reducing the PSC
members.

Anyway, I take this discussion as a good start to move staff forward a more
active partecipation in the GeoNetwork opensource issues.

Cheers, Patrizia

  -----Messaggio originale-----
  Da: Simon.Pigot@...192... [mailto:Simon.Pigot@…192…]
  Inviato: lun 29/06/2009 13.54
  A: tropicano@...31...; geonetwork-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
  Cc:
  Oggetto: Re: [GeoNetwork-devel] Proposal to change the PSC
  
  This issue only came up very briefly at Bolsena and obviously didn't
get a full discussion :slight_smile:
  
  Here's how I see it:
  
  Steering committee (PSC) = people actively involved in determining
the direction that GeoNetwork develops. For me active development means
developing GeoNetwork or running a team of people who are developing
GeoNetwork with a committment to/history of providing these developments to
the trunk and history of active participation in the mailing lists.
  
  PSC doesn't need to have all the ideas for future development of
GeoNetwork as these can and should come from as many people as possible.
  
  Advisory committee = people who are not members of the PSC but who
can provide advice on directions and decisions taken by the PSC. Perfect
people for this group are those involved in groups like the OGC that have or
develop specifications or code that are key to GeoNetwork and former members
of the PSC whose experience and knowledge of GeoNetwork is essential to the
PSC and should be available.
  
  I think the current role/make up of the advisory committee seems to
stem from FAO days and perhaps needs to change along the lines I'm suggesting
above.
  
  So perhaps if we agree on the above then we could amend the original
proposals to:
  
  1. Ask Emanuele and Andrea (and perhaps Archie) to assess their
position with respect to the PSC and consider moving to the advisory
committee if they are no longer actively developing GeoNetwork. That way we
can keep their experience and input to GeoNetwork available to the PSC.
  
  2. Ask the GeoNetwork ebRIM/ESA team to nominate a developer for the
PSC for the reasons given in Heikki's email.
  
  What do others think?
  
  Cheers,
  Simon
  ________________________________
  From: heikki [tropicano@...31...]
  Sent: Monday, 29 June 2009 9:23 AM
  To: geonetwork-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
  Subject: Re: [GeoNetwork-devel] Proposal to change the PSC
  
  Hello,
  
  some remarks and questions :
  
  * [slightly off-topic] What is the actual role and function of the
"Advisory Board", as distinct from the PSC ? On
http://trac.osgeo.org/geonetwork/wiki/PSC it says "The AB meets on a yearly
basis to discuss the requirements of the participating agencies and to define
a work plan for the following year", etc. Does this really happen ? I have
found no evidence of this in the GeoNetwork mailing lists.
  
  * I haven't seen a single instance where a PSC member actually voted
against a proposal. This means that either the desired consensus is reached
before voting, through channels not easily identified as being under the PSC
flag, or that there have not been any proposals sufficiently
out-of-the-trodden-path to merit anyone's "no" vote. The former would mean
this is an opaque process; the latter might mean we should be more active in
our imaginations. I don't mean we should start any flame-wars, but some more
debate, with participants holding opposing views etc. could benefit the
software.
  
  As for the two proposals in the original email :
  
  1 - I agree with Emanuele that the reasoning behind it seems
arbitrary
  
  2 - I have no opinion on what is the ideal size of the PSC. Though
seeing the lack of any "no" votes as I mentioned above, it doesn't seem that
the current size is an impediment to the PSC's effectiveness. However I
disagree with the reasoning that possible new members should be trunk
committers with a "long involvement" (whatever that may mean). On the
contrary, having only people with ancient involvement on board could be an
impediment to the PSC's effectiveness, in my opinion. I'd say it would be
good to include some new blood into the PSC -- for example any one of the ESA
project members, who supposedly laid the foundations for the future
architectural direction for GeoNetwork. Or even someone who is not a
GeoNetwork developer at all, but who has a broad knowledge of current
technologies that may be relevant to the GeoNetwork software.
  
  kind regards
  heikki doeleman
  
  On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 10:39 PM, Emanuele Tajariol
<e_tajariol@...11...<mailto:e_tajariol@…11…>>
wrote:
  Hello,
  
  back from holidays, these are bad news for me.
  
  > 1- I propose for Andrea Carboni and Emanuele Tajariol to step down
  > from the PSC.
  
  -0 for me.
  
  I have not been committing new code in the repo for a while, but I
think this
  is not a good reason for letting me (and Andrea) out; please also
consider
  that we are not the only PSC members in this situation.
  I'm also working on other OGC related projects, some of them also
closely
  related with GN, and I consider this as an involvement in geonetwork
as well.
  With full loyalty with a voting process concerning myself, I am not
vetoing
  it, asking for other's PSC votes.
  
  > 2- I propose to change the number of people on the PSC from 7 down
to
  > 5.
  
  -0
  The PSC for a project so widespread as GN should not be shrunk so
much.
  
    Ciao,
    Emanuele
  
  Alle 15:30:54 di giovedì 25 giugno 2009, Jeroen Ticheler ha scritto:
  > Dear PSC members,
  > I would like to propose a change to the PSC to ensure the PSC is
more
  > effective in taking decisions and better reflects the active
members
  > of the project. Therefor I propose the following two changes:
  >
  > 1- I propose for Andrea Carboni and Emanuele Tajariol to step down
  > from the PSC. They have done a tremendous amount of work for the
  > project in the past. Their involvement however has ceased for more
  > than a year now, so I think this would be a logical step.
  >
  > 2- I propose to change the number of people on the PSC from 7 down
to
  > 5. Although we have a fair amount of active developers, the project
  > has a relatively small number of active developers that commit to
  > trunk and have had a long term involvement. Also this proposal has
the
  > objective of making the PSC more effective and involved in the day
to
  > day work of the PSC.
  >
  > Looking forward to your votes, greetings,
  > Jeroen
  >
  >
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  >
GeoNetwork-devel@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:GeoNetwork-devel@…317…
rge.net>
  > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geonetwork-devel
  > GeoNetwork OpenSource is maintained at
  > http://sourceforge.net/projects/geonetwork
  
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http://sourceforge.net/projects/geonetwork
  
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http://sourceforge.net/projects/geonetwork