TLC Meeting February 27, 2007

The TLC met by teleconference on February 27, 2007 at 1:00 PM EST.

Agenda

1. Draft project management guidelines

2. Creation of new project acceptance checklist (see ProjectAcceptanceChecklist).

3. Update on recruiting for maintainers and other volunteer efforts (see HelpWanted).

4. Update on CoinUtils

5. Update on mailing list issues

6. Update on creation of static Web pages

7. Standardizing the content and location of README, INSTALL, and AUTHORS files (see StandardizeReadmeInstallAuthors)

8. Installation verification tests

9. Project review and classification

Notes

1. There was a lengthy discussion of the draft project management guidelines. The following comments were raised and discussed.

Comments by Francois:

• In a couple of places, the TLC takes a decision and then also rules on a possible appeal. I am not sure if this is a problem or not. Maybe having a "classification manager" would be better. He would have first decision. Appeals would be handled by the full TLC. That would also have the advantage that most of the classification work would not have to be discussed in TLC sessions. Resolution: Classification and other decisions should initially be made by the handler of the project, with appeals to the TLC.
• Maybe we should say that deletion of a project requires unanimity of the TLC (for similarity with refusing a new submission). Also say that other TLC decisions regarding classification of a project is made based on majority (unanimity might be difficult to get with such a subjective classification). Resolution: Most projects will never be "deleted" unless for legal reasons. In most cases, projects will be archived instead. Most other decisions will be made by the project handler with appeal to the TLC (see above).
• Mention that umbrella projects receive only one classification (i.e. subprojects are not classified separately). Resolution: Agreed.
• Use a generic term for "trac page/web page." Resolution: Agreed.
• Add a section "contacts" listing the email addresses for submission, TLC, secretary etc., and web page with submission status. Resolution: Agreed.
• A few "development projects" should be changed to "Level 1 project or below." Resolution: Agreed.

Comments by Ted:

• Should we change the Level 5 requirement from "being part of the binary distribution" to "having a binary distribution?" Resolution: Agreed.
• Should we say something more about the location of required files (README, LICENSE, AUTHORS), especially for "connected projects?" Resolution: It was agreed that nothing more should be said about the location of required files. However, we should endeavor to ensure that all required files do exist for all projects and that for any source distributions, all required files for each project included in the distribution are present. Any projects not conforming to this requirement should be removed from the source distribution.
• Should we put any requirement on the directory structure of the SVN repository? Resolution: It was agreed that there should be no more requirements in the guidelines, but we should do our best to let PMs know that conforming to the suggested structure will make their lives a lot easier and will allow us to help them more easily when there are problems.
• Should we distinguish between "Level 0" projects and "archived" projects? Resolution: It was agreed that an archived project is really different from a "Level 0" project, which is what we are now calling a development project.
• The following steps need to be added to the checklist: Resolution: Agreed.
  • Adding project to projects.csv and re-running the script.
  • Classifying the project.

2. Leo agreed to update the on-line project acceptance checklist based on the new project management guidelines.

3. The HelpWanted page has been created and (somewhat) populated. It was agreed that it should be publicized to users as soon as possible.

4. No progress has been made on splitting CoinUtils.

5. Matt has agreed to resolve the mailing list issues brought up at the last meeting.

6. The creation of a static Web page area has been completed.

7. The location of required files (such as README, LICENSE, AUTHOR, etc.) is not very standardized. For the "connected projects" (those including others in their externals), this may be a problem, as it could result in some source distributions not including all the required files for each external project. Rather than requiring specific locations, however, we should leave it to each project manager to ensure that their source distribution includes all required files. If it does not, it should be removed until the situation can be resolved.

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Attachments:

• contribproc.pdf