Shane’s Apache Director Position Statement, 2016

The ASF is holding it’s annual Member’s Meeting this week to elect a new board and a number of new Members to the ASF.  I’m honored to have been nominated to stand for the board election, and I’m continuing my tradition of publicly posting my vision for Apache each year.

We are lucky to have both a large involved membership, as well as another excellent slate of candidates including a couple of great new faces. No matter how Apache STeVe ends up computing the results, Apache will have a great board for the year to come.

Please read on for my take on what’s important for the ASF’s future…

Shane Curcuru (curcuru) Director Position Statement 2016

V1.0 STATEMENT

I’m honored and pleased to be nominated for the board again. If you want a director who will take the time to help projects politely, ensure we keep our strong and independent governance, and act as a positive and friendly voice to the outside world, then I urge you to cast your first place vote for me [1].

While Apache has amazing successes, I believe we can do a better job of serving all of our projects while still staying true to our roots. We are long past the point where tribal knowledge is an efficient way to guide our projects or to respect the time of our volunteer mentors, officers, and committers.

We need to take operations at the Foundation level to the next step: build a professional organization that is run by volunteers. I’m confident we will always keep our strongly independent and volunteer-run governance – but we must do better at helping all of our communities understand and implement the Apache Way as best fits their situation, and provide them with the services they deserve.

Internally, projects frequently ask questions that we’ve already answered – either because they didn’t read the available Apache process/practice/policy docs, or they didn’t understand the rationale behind our policies. Addressing these questions individually every time they come up both requires time from the ASF directors and officers who help resolve the issue, as well as leading to confusion for projects sometimes when inconsistent or incorrect interpretations are provided by different people.

Opportunities for improvement include: making sure new projects understand what the Apache Way means, as well as why our policies are written the way they are; developing and providing clear access to documentation that’s easy for newcomers to find and understand; and providing better mentoring and more consistent guidance to projects. Similarly, we need to find ways to provide more friendly and organized mentoring and guidance for projects at the day-to-day level, so that more issues are identified earlier, instead of waiting until a crisis appears and (over)reacting to it. I also support efforts to fund and hire a sufficient infrastructure team to maintain our services properly for all projects.

Externally, we also need directors who are willing to provide a public face to the ASF. While titles don’t matter much within Apache, to the outside world, titles (like Director, President, VP) are very important. When sponsors or companies considering donating technology or engineering time to the ASF want to ask questions, they ask to speak to an officer, not just some PMC member. Apache project volunteers deserve directors who will help the rest of the world understand how Apache works and help guide newcomers to contribute to our projects productively, and who will always treat our diverse project communities and contributors with respect.

If elected, I will:

  • Attend every board meeting
  • Take the time to be sure each PMC understands any report feedback I bring from a board meeting to their project
  • Speak at every ApacheCon (if they accept my CFPs!)
  • Be available to speak or meet with Apache projects or meetups in the New England area or other conferences I attend

I look forward spending time this summer with my wife, daughter, and our four cats, I also look forward to devoting additional time to my ASF responsibilities over the coming year. Having sufficient time for ASF activities will be a priority in any future plans, as I will not consider jobs that would limit my ability to support the ASF as fully as I would like to. For me, Apache always comes before jobs.

More Resources About How Apache Works

I’ve helped write or contributed to many different web pages explaining how Apache really works:

[1]
  • Or your second place vote, if first place goes to a newcomer!

Published by

Shane

Briefly, Shane is: a father and husband, a friend, a geek, a Member and director of the ASF, a baker, an ex-Loti, a BMW driver, a punny guy, a gamer, and lifelong resident within the 495 belt. Oh, and we have cats.

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