{"thread":{"id":"49150","subject":"Git Project Leadership Committee","startedAt":"2018-08-16T22:41:41Z","lastAt":"2018-08-21T02:08:53Z","messageCount":7,"participants":["Jeff King","Junio C Hamano","Elijah Newren","Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason","Christian Couder"],"isPatch":false,"patchVersion":null,"patchTotal":null},"messages":[{"id":"355887","messageId":"20180816224138.GA15490@sigill.intra.peff.net","threadId":"49150","inReplyTo":null,"subject":"Git Project Leadership Committee","fromName":"Jeff King","fromEmail":"peff@peff.net","sentAt":"2018-08-16T22:41:38Z","receivedAt":"2018-08-16T22:41:41Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"peff@peff.net","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/45925?v=4"},"body":"This is a followup to the issue I raised back in March[1], which is\nthat our project committee at Software Freedom Conservancy has two\nmembers, but is required by the charter to have at least three.\n\nThere wasn't any substantive discussion in response to that email or at\nthe contributor summit. I intentionally left my own opinions out of that\nmail to avoid biasing discussion, and meant to follow-up after everyone\nhad a chance to speak. I didn't intend to leave it this long, though. :)\n\nJust to recap: the project leadership committee (PLC) represents the Git\nproject within Conservancy and decides on project-specific matters,\nincluding allocation of funds. Since joining in 2010, the PLC consisted\nof me, Junio, and Shawn Pearce.  With Shawn's passing, we need to elect\nanother member (by simple majority of the remaining members) to meet our\nminimum number of three.\n\nYou can get a sense of the types of issues and decisions from looking at\nmy report in [1], as well as past-year reports linked from there. If you\nwant a more precise picture of the day-to-day, it's mostly just\nmonitoring and discussing things on a project-specific mailing list that\ngets an average of about 2-4 messages per month (usually one thread\nevery month or two). I'm happy to answer any other questions people have\nabout it.\n\nHere are _my_ opinions on how we should fill the role. As 50% of the\nvoting populace, it's perhaps a disproportionately important opinion,\nbut I really would like to hear and take into account opinions from the\nlarger development community.\n\n - it should probably be somebody who has been with the project for a\n   while (so we feel comfortable that they are representative) and that\n   we expect to stay with the project for a while (so we're not doing\n   this again in 6 months). But those are negotiable. It's not the worst\n   thing for somebody to serve for a year or two and then move on.\n\n - we should avoid anyone who is affiliated with a company that already\n   has a member on the committee. So nobody from Google and nobody from\n   GitHub. I would extend that to Microsoft, too, given a certain\n   impending acquisition. I'd expect anybody who is affiliated with a\n   company to recuse themselves from decisions that directly affect that\n   company (which is what we've done so far).\n\n - I think ideally the candidate would be somebody who represents the\n   long tail of volunteer community members who don't work on Git as\n   part of their day-job. The current members have a fairly skewed view\n   in that respect. At the same time, we can't really represent the\n   _really_ long tail of infrequent contributors, by the \"stick around\"\n   criterion above.\n\n - I considered mostly people who have expressed interest in non-code\n   issues (e.g., GSoC, money policy, etc). But I don't think that's a\n   strict requirement if somebody is interested.\n\n - We're not restricted to three members. So we could add multiple\n   people. Four may be bad because it creates ties. On the other hand,\n   every decision so far has been unanimous. :)\n\nSo here are the nominations I came up with. If you'd like to nominate\nsomebody else (or yourself!), please do. If you have opinions, let me\nknow (public or private, as you prefer).\n\n - Christian Couder\n - Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason\n\nBoth are active, have been around a long time, and have taken part in\nnon-code activities and governance discussions. My understanding is that\nChristian freelances on Git, which doesn't quite fit my \"volunteer\nrepresentative\" request, but I think contracting on Git is its own\ninteresting perspective to represent (and certainly he spent many years\non the volunteer side).\n\nPhew. That turned out a little longer than I meant it to be, but I\nwanted to lay out my thought process, both for this decision and because\nwe may eventually have to do this again in the future.\n\n-Peff\n\n[1] https://public-inbox.org/git/20180306231609.GA1632@sigill.intra.peff.net/\n\n"},{"id":"355888","messageId":"xmqqmutldi38.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com","threadId":"49150","inReplyTo":"20180816224138.GA15490@sigill.intra.peff.net","subject":"Re: Git Project Leadership Committee","fromName":"Junio C Hamano","fromEmail":"gitster@pobox.com","sentAt":"2018-08-16T23:09:31Z","receivedAt":"2018-08-16T23:10:21Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"gitster@pobox.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/54884?v=4"},"body":"Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:\n\n> Here are _my_ opinions on how we should fill the role....\n> ...\n> So here are the nominations I came up with. If you'd like to nominate\n> somebody else (or yourself!), please do. If you have opinions, let me\n> know (public or private, as you prefer).\n>\n>  - Christian Couder\n>  - Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason\n\nFWIW, even though my opinions might be slightly different in some\ndetail (e.g. I would not place as much weight on \"ideally a\nnon-professional person\" as Peff does), I pretty-much agree with\nPeff on both the selection criteria and the nominations.\n\nThanks.\n"},{"id":"356024","messageId":"CABPp-BGq7rw6YfyxGJbhcGeeVONTSkAzE7h8CiVNx_AA-veUgQ@mail.gmail.com","threadId":"49150","inReplyTo":"20180816224138.GA15490@sigill.intra.peff.net","subject":"Re: Git Project Leadership Committee","fromName":"Elijah Newren","fromEmail":"newren@gmail.com","sentAt":"2018-08-19T02:32:38Z","receivedAt":"2018-08-19T02:32:52Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"newren@gmail.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/5455730?v=4"},"body":"On Thu, Aug 16, 2018 at 3:43 PM Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:\n>  - we should avoid anyone who is affiliated with a company that already\n>    has a member on the committee. So nobody from Google and nobody from\n>    GitHub. I would extend that to Microsoft, too, given a certain\n>    impending acquisition. I'd expect anybody who is affiliated with a\n>    company to recuse themselves from decisions that directly affect that\n>    company (which is what we've done so far).\n\nThat might make it hard for some of us to nominate others, since as\nfar as I can tell (e.g. looking at shortlog -sne output) few git\ncontributors use work email addresses to do so and we don't\nnecessarily know employers of other contributors.\n\n> So here are the nominations I came up with. If you'd like to nominate\n> somebody else (or yourself!), please do. If you have opinions, let me\n> know (public or private, as you prefer).\n>\n>  - Christian Couder\n>  - Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason\n\nI think either of them would be excellent choices.\n"},{"id":"356026","messageId":"20180819040827.GA31797@sigill.intra.peff.net","threadId":"49150","inReplyTo":"CABPp-BGq7rw6YfyxGJbhcGeeVONTSkAzE7h8CiVNx_AA-veUgQ@mail.gmail.com","subject":"Re: Git Project Leadership Committee","fromName":"Jeff King","fromEmail":"peff@peff.net","sentAt":"2018-08-19T04:08:27Z","receivedAt":"2018-08-19T04:15:13Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"peff@peff.net","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/45925?v=4"},"body":"On Sat, Aug 18, 2018 at 07:32:38PM -0700, Elijah Newren wrote:\n\n> On Thu, Aug 16, 2018 at 3:43 PM Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:\n> >  - we should avoid anyone who is affiliated with a company that already\n> >    has a member on the committee. So nobody from Google and nobody from\n> >    GitHub. I would extend that to Microsoft, too, given a certain\n> >    impending acquisition. I'd expect anybody who is affiliated with a\n> >    company to recuse themselves from decisions that directly affect that\n> >    company (which is what we've done so far).\n> \n> That might make it hard for some of us to nominate others, since as\n> far as I can tell (e.g. looking at shortlog -sne output) few git\n> contributors use work email addresses to do so and we don't\n> necessarily know employers of other contributors.\n\nI would say to err on the side of nominating, and the candidate can\nprovide the information.\n\n-Peff\n"},{"id":"356033","messageId":"87zhxipmv9.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com","threadId":"49150","inReplyTo":"20180816224138.GA15490@sigill.intra.peff.net","subject":"Re: Git Project Leadership Committee","fromName":"Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason","fromEmail":"avarab@gmail.com","sentAt":"2018-08-19T12:22:18Z","receivedAt":"2018-08-19T12:23:08Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"avarab@gmail.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/45301?v=4"},"body":"\nOn Thu, Aug 16 2018, Jeff King wrote:\n\n>  - Christian Couder\n>  - Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason\n\nThanks for the nomination. I'm happy to help the project by serving on\nthe leadership committee if you'll have me.\n\n> Both are active, have been around a long time, and have taken part in\n> non-code activities and governance discussions. My understanding is that\n> Christian freelances on Git, which doesn't quite fit my \"volunteer\n> representative\" request, but I think contracting on Git is its own\n> interesting perspective to represent (and certainly he spent many years\n> on the volunteer side).\n\nI'd say I'd mostly be a \"volunteer representative\", but in the interest\nof full disclosure here's the extent to which I'm not.\n\nI'm involved in internal Git infrastructure at my employer, Booking.com,\nand some of the the work I do on git is company sponsored, since it\nhappens to be stuff Booking.com needs from git. E.g. my recent\nfetch.fsck.* series is one example of that, as well as the\n\"fetch.pruneTags\" option in 2.17.\n\nBooking.com doesn't really have any sort of git.git infrastructure team\nin the sense that Microsoft & GitHub do. I'm on the team which, among\nother things, manages our internal GitLab installation and git-related\nthings in general.\n\nI'm trusted to spend company time on patching git when that's the\neasiest or best way to accomplish some task. Usually I don't even\ndiscuss the specifics of that with anyone, I just go ahead and do it.\n\nI'm not aware of Booking.com, or its parent company Booking Holdings (or\nsister companies) in any way being involved in any business model that\ninvolves Git (unlike say GitHub, Atlassian etc).\n\nSo I can't imagine any situation where I'd need to recuse myself due to\nreal or perceived conflict of interest, but would of course do so if\nthere was even the appearance of impropriety.\n\nBooking.com has also had a contract with Christian Couder to work on\nthings in git.git since 2015-ish. E.g. the rebase speedups Christian did\nand the ongoing work on reftables is paid for by Booking.com.\n\nDuring this time I've been the person tasked with managing the work that\nChristian is doing on git.git for Booking.com, in a very loose sense of\n\"managing\". It's usually just e.g. \"hey rebase performance kind of\nsucks, can you work on it?\" \"sure!\".\n\nI know Christian also does contract work for GitLab, e.g. I understand\nthat his delta island integration work these days is done on their\nbehalf, but I'll let him provide details on that or any other corporate\nentanglements he may have to the extent he feels it's relevant.\n"},{"id":"356084","messageId":"CAP8UFD3agHbDuDtjs7SsOaLx5A6vZ=HUxkCWYTwTSw1x5Zvbyw@mail.gmail.com","threadId":"49150","inReplyTo":"20180816224138.GA15490@sigill.intra.peff.net","subject":"Re: Git Project Leadership Committee","fromName":"Christian Couder","fromEmail":"christian.couder@gmail.com","sentAt":"2018-08-20T13:09:32Z","receivedAt":"2018-08-20T13:09:35Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"christian.couder@gmail.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/208954?v=4"},"body":"On Fri, Aug 17, 2018 at 12:41 AM, Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:\n\n> So here are the nominations I came up with. If you'd like to nominate\n> somebody else (or yourself!), please do. If you have opinions, let me\n> know (public or private, as you prefer).\n>\n>  - Christian Couder\n>  - Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason\n\nThanks for nominating both!\n\n> Both are active, have been around a long time, and have taken part in\n> non-code activities and governance discussions. My understanding is that\n> Christian freelances on Git, which doesn't quite fit my \"volunteer\n> representative\" request, but I think contracting on Git is its own\n> interesting perspective to represent (and certainly he spent many years\n> on the volunteer side).\n\nYeah, I am freelancing since October 2015 mostly for GitLab,\nBooking.com and Protocol Labs as can be seen on my LinkedIn profile:\n\nhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-couder-569a731/\n\nI feel lucky to be considered mostly like a regular employee\nespecially by GitLab and Protocol Labs. Both of these companies employ\na high ratio of remote developers from around the world, who often\nhave some kind of freelance legal status, so they give them as much as\npossible the same kind of perks or incentives (like stock options) as\nregular employees.\n\nGitLab is a very open and transparent company. The way it works is\ndescribed in details in its Handbook\n(https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/). Its informal policy regarding\nGit has been to use regular released versions of Git in GitLab. If\npossible GitLab should use a recent version of Git to benefit from the\nlatest improvements, though it should be compatible with old versions\nof Git, as this can be useful for example to people who want to build\nGitLab from source on top of a regular Linux distro that comes with an\nold Git.\n\nSo for GitLab my work on Git has to be integrated upstream. I have\nbeen working on remote odb related things, which I haven't managed to\nget merged yet, and on a few other small things like delta islands for\nwhich things have been going better so far.\n\nI also do some Git support at GitLab (for Git users, GitLab\ndevelopers, customers, sales people, ...). I am sponsored by them to\nparticipate in or give presentations at conferences (like FOSSASIA\n2017, GSoC Mentor Summit, Bloomberg Hackathon, Git Merge, GitLab\nSummit, ...). And sometimes I do other marketing, security, developer\nrelations or sales (like meeting a few French customers) related\nthings.\n\nÆvar already talked in details about Booking.com and my work for them.\n\nI have been working much less for Protocol Labs than for GitLab or\nBooking.com since I started working for GitLab around 2 years ago.\n\nAs with Git I had started working on my free time on IPFS\n(https://ipfs.io/) before I became a freelance working on it. So for\nProtocol Labs I have been using Sharness\n(https://github.com/chriscool/sharness/, which was created in 2011 by\nextracting t/test-lib.sh from Git) to add and maintain end to end\ntests to go-IPFS and other IPFS related projects.\n\nAround one year ago Protocol Labs made a successful ICO (Initial Coin\nOffering) for Filecoin (https://filecoin.io/) and since then things\nhave become a bit more like in a regular company (which is not\nnecessarily bad).\n\nI have also had a few consulting contracts from various French\ncompanies for a few days each about consulting or teaching Git/GitLab.\n"},{"id":"356157","messageId":"20180821020849.GA2527@sigill.intra.peff.net","threadId":"49150","inReplyTo":"20180816224138.GA15490@sigill.intra.peff.net","subject":"Re: Git Project Leadership Committee","fromName":"Jeff King","fromEmail":"peff@peff.net","sentAt":"2018-08-21T02:08:49Z","receivedAt":"2018-08-21T02:08:53Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"peff@peff.net","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/45925?v=4"},"body":"On Thu, Aug 16, 2018 at 06:41:38PM -0400, Jeff King wrote:\n\n>  - we should avoid anyone who is affiliated with a company that already\n>    has a member on the committee. So nobody from Google and nobody from\n>    GitHub. I would extend that to Microsoft, too, given a certain\n>    impending acquisition. I'd expect anybody who is affiliated with a\n>    company to recuse themselves from decisions that directly affect that\n>    company (which is what we've done so far).\n> \n>  - I think ideally the candidate would be somebody who represents the\n>    long tail of volunteer community members who don't work on Git as\n>    part of their day-job. The current members have a fairly skewed view\n>    in that respect. At the same time, we can't really represent the\n>    _really_ long tail of infrequent contributors, by the \"stick around\"\n>    criterion above.\n\nThanks both Christian and Ævar for giving more details on your\nsituations elsewhere in the thread. I do think neither of you is quite\nin the \"I just do this in my spare time\" situation. But I also think\nthat situation is going to be inversely correlated with being active in\nthe project and wanting to spend time on governance stuff. So IMHO some\ncompromise there is necessary. And I feel like both of you can represent\nthose interests, even if they're not exactly the situation you're in.\n\nSo what next?\n\nThere was a little bit of off-list discussion (mostly nominations to\navoid putting the candidate on the spot), but no new public candidates.\nI'm happy to entertain more discussion here, but it seems like everybody\nis reasonably happy with these two names.\n\nSo either Junio and I can pick one, or possibly we could have both (that\ngives us a 4-person committee, but again, tied votes haven't been an\nissue so far).\n\nAny final thoughts are welcome.\n\nAlso, on a more meta-level, I'm happy to hear any thoughts about this\nprocess that we might want to enshrine for later iterations. This is\nobviously not nearly as formal as something like Debian elections. But I\ndon't think we're a big enough community to need that. So my attempt is\nto just keep things informal, but try to give as many opportunities as\npossible for people to speak up.\n\n-Peff\n"}]}