Shane’s Apache Director Position Statement 2012

The ASF is holding it’s Annual Member’s Meeting this week, where the Membership elects a new board of directors along with other matters, like voting in new Member candidates. I am truly fortunate enough to have been nominated again for the board election, in this case by one of the founders of the ASF (JimJag). Along with believing that I can do a great deal of work to help the foundation and all Apache projects as a director, I also have to say that I have a lot of fun serving on the board. Yeah, I’m a little funny that way in liking doing all the organizing work behind the scenes.

Director candidates at the ASF write position statements about what their objectives for being a director are in preparation for the voting process. Since I write what I believe in, I also am posting my statement here, publicly. One of the biggest issues for the smooth functioning of the ASF as a home for healthy projects is doing a better job of explaining how we work – I hope this helps people understand us Apache types just a little bit better.

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Shane Curcuru (curcuru)–Director position statement –v1.0

My mission statement for the ASF

“The mission of the ASF is to provide high quality, open source software for the public good at no cost, and to showcase our meritocratic and community-driven method of building sustainable software projects.”

http://shane.curcuru.name/blog/2009/04/what-i-believe-asf-mission/

Objectives as a Director

My objective as a director is to prevent unnecessary drama and help the ASF and all Apache projects work more smoothly by:

• Acting as a calm, moderating, and explanatory voice on the board, and working to improve the board’s communication style,
• More clearly documenting and publicizing the very few rules and requirements that we expect of Apache projects,
• Better explaining and educating our project communities on the very many best practices and suggested guidelines we have.

I’ve learned a lot in the past few years on the board. A key lesson is that we need to minimize the number of hard rules that we have for our projects to those that are truly
requirements. We also need to much more clearly explain those rules and educate our project communities about them.

Likewise, we have an immense amount of best practices and great guidelines for running successful, collaborative projects that we’ve proven are helpful over and over again. More clearly presenting these as guidelines to our project communities and to the world at large will help all of our projects to succeed.

We’ve often said the board is a blunt instrument – but I believe that we’re experienced enough and a large enough organization that we don’t need to be. There are a number of times in the past years where the effect of the board tromping in to fix a project issue has been… unfortunate. With more professional communication and with better explanations of the rules and guidelines we expect Apache projects to follow, we can resolve project issues – and provide better advice to projects when they ask – with much less drama than we’ve had in some cases in the past.

We have immense collected wisdom on managing community led projects within the membership and the excellent director candidates for this year. It’s time to ensure we make this wisdom accessible to both our project communities and to potential contributors by better documenting it and presenting it, rather than waiting until after an issue arises and then explaining “you’re doin’ it wrong!”

Common Questions

Some members have been discussing a handful of questions about what people think about the future of the ASF, and some of our key projects and technologies, which I’ll comment on in some general ways.

The Apache Incubator is probably the most important project at the ASF today. It is where we should be teaching new podling communities both what is expected behavior and processes for Apache projects, as well as mentoring new communities on effective ways to build consensus-driven and community-built software projects. While the Incubator has been doing OK for a while, there is a lot of room for improvement. Luckily, both with Jukka as the new chair and a number of new, energetic members thinking through improvements, things are looking great. I’d encourage the IPMC to continue to simplify and normalize the sometimes wordy, pedantic, and all-over-the-place documentation for podlings – and especially to continue the great report review process changes that Jukka has begun. Similarly, we need a strong focus on ensuring that Members who sign up to mentor new podlings are truly showing up and working with their podling communities.

This is actually one of the most crucial areas that Apache Members can help. Both in terms of mentoring new podling communities within the Incubator, and in terms of helping to keep an independent and wise ear within our existing TLPs, Members are the personal element to the shared tribal knowledge of the Apache Way. Fundamentally, individuals will do what interests them; however I believe with some effort on clearer documentation around best practices, and especially some patience and effort at remaining calm and polite in our discussions (both privately and publicly), that we can improve Member activities within projects. In particular, this is a place where we need existing members to step up and provide strong mentoring to the various new Member candidates I expect will be voted into the ASF at this week’s meeting.

Discussions around new tools and arguments about technical merits don’t usually interest me that much. What does interest me is ensuring that we work to provide the tools that our projects responsibly ask for, and that for all of our tools we:

• Ensure we have a reliable capacity to maintain the tools with our own existing infrastructure (people and servers). It is important that the ASF is in control of the tools and servers that our projects need to continue their work, since we’ve seen issues in the past where, even with the best of intentions, third parties maintaining tools for us just doesn’t work in the long term.
• Ensure that the ways the tools are used truly supports consensus-driven and community-built software projects, in ways that keep our projects functioning as true collaborations of a community, and not just a collection of individuals.

Greg Stein – another existing Director who’s nominated for another term – came up with a great objective: to create a Foundation that can live for 50 years, hosting healthy projects. I love that idea. I think we already have the start of that, however some key things to think about are:

• Better documenting and mentoring new members and new communities on the core values of the Apache Way. As we grow, it’s harder and harder to convey the tribal knowledge that many of our members share organically; it’s time to be more consistent at educating newcomers to all of them.
• Much more clearly document the minimum required rules that we need to operate. I say minimum, because these should be limited to only what we truly need; however there are plenty of corporate procedures that we know how to do, but may not have written down for the next decade’s set of officers and directors to learn from.
• Continue to evaluate new tools, methods, ideas, and incoming communities to see how we can grow and improve upon our core Apache Way – all the while without losing our way. The ASF is not a place for all projects; we have a clear ethos around how to build and distribute software that we should not bend. But there are improvements we can make to ease the way for communities of developers who do share our core values.
• We need to get better and more frequent feedback from our regular sponsors, since their recurring donations are critical to keep our independence – through the infrastructure, press, and other services those funds allow us to provide to all Apache projects. This is never to say that sponsorship dollars ever translate into technical influence. But for many potential sponsors, it’s both what we do and how we present ourselves that is important.
• We need to ensure that as we grow staff positions (infrastructure and other contractors) that we are careful to keep our policy decisions thinking about the future Foundation, hosting projects full of volunteers; and our paid staff and officers focused on execution.

Some members have asked about legal and trademark issues. These are both areas that work differently than our Apache projects, in that much of the work is necessarily done in private lists. This often makes it more difficult for people to understand how comfortable they are with what’s happening (even though all Apache Members are always welcome to review any mailing list, even private ones).

In both the legal and trademark areas, I agree with most directors that we have delegated execution of these areas to the respective officers (disclaimer: I am the current VP, Brand Management), and that I trust those officers will responsibly manage their affairs. I’m confident this will work, and that we’ll be able to find the resources needed, both because I know the officers, and because we have a solid and monthly reporting that the board reviews and discusses regularly. Our Conferences Committee has had some issues in the past year or so with burnout (planning ApacheCon takes a lot out of people – as I and a dozen or so other Members know far too well). But we have a new VP in the form of Nick, and some great energy from a number of new volunteers in that space, so I’m confident that while ApacheCon may be a little bit different in years to come, that it and the many other BarCamps and smaller events we’re lending our brand to will be successful in bringing newcomers into our communities.

Many members have varying opinions on growth: how much should the ASF grow, how should we grow, etc. I recently wrote about this in my set of slides About: Apache, where I reviewed the ASF and the Apache Way. A key part of my slides is: the ASF doesn’t have a technical agenda. “Apache” doesn’t have a top-down list of projects or technologies we want to “acquire”. The ASF exists to provide a home for like-minded communities who build software. While I hope that my work on Apache branding and work on improving documentation about the ASF and Apache projects helps new communities understand who we are, I don’t personally plan to directly “recruit” new projects. If people ask, I’m certainly very happy to tell them about the Apache Way, and why I think it’s so cool – but I’m not looking to proselytize.

Officers and Directors

If elected I will not accept any new officer positions this term, unless the new board wishes to appoint me Chair/Vice Chair.

About Shane

I recently had my 20th+ anniversary at IBM, where I work in the HR division as an Applications Architect. My employment and income have been unrelated to my work at the ASF for many years, and I will always clearly separate volunteer work from employer-funded work.

My involvement in the ASF is driven by a belief in, and a love of, the ASF, and is not influenced by politics or finances. I live in Arlington, MA with my wife, young daughter, and 2 cats. I view directorships and officer positions at the ASF as serious commitments.

I will continue my attendance at every board meeting if re-elected.

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