2022-11-17 Product Council Meeting Notes
Date
Attendees
- Aaron Trehub, Alexis Manheim, Brooks Travis, Charlotte Whitt, Dung-Lan Chen, Gang Zhou, Ian Walls, Karen Newbery, Kristin Martin, Marc Johnson, Martina Schildt, Martina Tumulla, Owen Stephens, Peter Murray, Sharon Wiles-Young, twliu, Tod Olson
Meeting Recording
https://recordings.openlibraryfoundation.org/folio/product-council/2022-11-17T09:25/
Discussion items
| Time | Item | Who | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 min | Announcements | See Community Council notes regarding status of reference environment. Part of a larger discussion of what it takes to run FOLIO. | |
| 45 min | Evaluation Process for New FOLIO Modules | Kristin Martin | The work of the Functional Evaluation for the new FOLIO Modules Group has been completed and we are ready to share our work with the Councils for feedback, and hopefully a path for adoption. We have written an overview of the entire evaluation process here, in the document titled, “Evaluation Process for New FOLIO Modules.” This document, if approved, would become a wiki page under the Product Council space that covers the full evaluation workflow for new modules, under the current system of flower releases for FOLIO. Criteria for how the PC would evaluate modules are included in this document, which also links to the Technical Council’s technical review process. Finally, the document provides a link to a proposed MOU for module contributors to sign. We would like to present this process to the three councils for discussion and welcome comments and feedback in the documents directly. There aren't the resources to perform a pre-review of module ideas, but groups are invited to have conversations with Product Council before development begins. At a high level: when the development is completed, the PC review it with its criteria, the TC review it with its criteria, the contributor signs a memorandum of understanding ("MOU"—to address concerns of ongoing support), and the inclusion is scheduled for a flower release. The PC evaluation process has been simplified from the previous draft; it includes an exploration of uniqueness, dependencies, how it interacts with other modules, permission issues, testing, documentation, code license, and support. Conversations don't have to happen with the SIG (in cases where SIGs are not prioritizing the development effort). Can something be added to the MOU to hand off responsibilities when a group that created/supported the module leave the project? What is the distinction between assigning copyright to the OLF versus releasing the code under Apache 2? How will the PC divvy up the work of accomplishing the tasks in this document? Discussion on Nov 30 for Tech Council and Nov 28 for Community Council. |
| 15 min | Roadmap reboot | Jesse Koennecke | Review comments and questions on this proposal, next steps, move forward with adoption. Charge updated to reflect changes that were discussed for setting prioritization of development activity. Quorum of PC members on the call approved the charge as described. Jessie Koennecke, Martina Schildt, and Kristin Martin volunteered to participate in the group. Members from TC and CC are encouraged to join as well, and Jesse will open the invitation to them as well as a general call for participation from SMEs in SIGs. |
| 20 min | Feedback from SIGs | Form a group to synthesize the feedback from SIGs. Discussion will happen after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. Karen Newbery and Martina Schildt volunteered to gather the comments into themes to facilitate further discussion. | |
| 5 min | Agenda Items for upcoming meetings | App Interaction Data Synchronization Working Group, question about approving what has not been tested (Martina S., Tech Council) Onboarding group continuing to meet on Tuesdays. Looking to have a discussion with the other council chairs about making sure the project has the people in place when key individuals leave. Community Council is expected to discuss the needs for people resources to bring up the hosted reference environment for Morning Glory. Knowledgeware is interested in showing their internationalization work to PC; that is happening on January 5. No PC meeting next week (U.S. Thanksgiving Holiday), as well as no meetings on December 22nd and 29th. Kristin will ask for written summaries from TC and CC to share. |
Chat log
00:08:04 Kristin Martin (UChicago she/her): https://wiki.folio.org/display/PC/2022-11-17+Agenda 00:08:56 Kristin Martin (UChicago she/her): Reference Environment update Harry Kaplanian reports after discussions with Mark Veksler and other POs, there is no slack in any team to take on this work. It is estimated that 0.5 FTE could handle this work. The would be roughly $50k if an EPAM resource was contracted. 00:12:56 Kristin Martin (UChicago she/her): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VtQXj5EgWGFUusKDbaLQTX5dSBZgwv_XlffBXJTrBAI/edit# 00:18:59 Dung-Lan Chen: Is this process similar to Owen's presentation of Serials Management in FOLIO to PC first and then to discuss with relevant groups such as Acq SIG?! 00:19:33 Brooks Travis: Ultimately, I think they need to go through the SIGs it’s going to be part of the flower releases, whether that is a subgroup that reports up, or a new, dedicated SIG that reports directly to PC 00:20:22 Owen Stephens: What does “go through the SIG†mean? 00:21:05 Brooks Travis: Gather requirements and feedback on requirements/UX 00:21:37 Owen Stephens: That seems impractical in situations where the SIG has deprioritised the issue 00:22:02 Owen Stephens: That is - they don’t think it’s not important, but they don’t want to prioritise it within the SIG right now 00:22:10 Brooks Travis: Then create a separate group that reports directly to the PC, but there needs to be broader participation 00:24:31 Brooks Travis: “Best efforts†00:24:36 Owen Stephens: I appreciate that and I think that’s the right approach Kristin 00:26:17 Alexis Manheim: +1 Marc 00:27:11 Brooks Travis: Yes 00:27:32 Marc Johnson: I wasn’t suggesting an evergreen period. Rather a responsibility that when they choose to end the support, they should provide a handover 00:28:20 Marc Johnson: What is the difference between providing a license and transferring copyright? 00:28:38 Brooks Travis: Copyright assignment is pretty standard for OSS projects… 00:30:25 Marc Johnson: I’m not contesting what is possible, only what policy we currently have 00:30:32 Ian Walls: cool. I'm fine to move on 00:30:46 Peter Murray: There was discussion at WOLFcon surrounding the app store concept of intentionally loosening the requirements for inclusion on the platform. That is a good discussion to continue. 00:31:17 Marc Johnson: I’m working on the basis than anything that goes into an App Store wouldn’t go through this process as is 00:32:12 Marc Johnson: There are lots of aspects of this process that could change if we have another distribution mechanism for modules 00:32:28 Peter Murray: +1 Marc. 00:32:28 Sharon Wiles-Young: Sorry I have to go to interview a candidate Thanks 00:32:41 Marc Johnson: That area is more where Julie’s groups attention is 00:32:58 Marc Johnson: (That area being releases, builds, distribution etc) 00:34:45 Kristin Martin (UChicago she/her): ÂÂÂhttps://docs.google.com/document/d/183G5ZhxZS3hfqbjWu3FAukQGSdh9_jBl/edit 00:37:14 Marc Johnson: The TC is currently reviewing it’s module acceptance processes around topics like transparency and inclusion too 00:37:51 Alexis Manheim: I do 00:38:55 Karen Newbery: I do 00:39:04 Charlotte Whitt: Yes, this looks good 00:39:09 Martina Schildt | VZG: +1 00:39:24 Dung-Lan Chen: +1 00:42:03 Owen Stephens: Reporting discussion scheduled for 28th November 00:45:07 Alexis Manheim: I'm excited about that 00:47:06 Owen Stephens: Frustrated 00:49:10 Martina Schildt | VZG: Sorry, Brooks and Charlotte were on that group as well - did not want to forget you 00:49:48 Brooks Travis: Yeah, that’s not a workable model… 00:50:04 Brooks Travis: At least not if we want to actually improve things 00:51:30 Aaron Trehub (Auburn): Have to prepare for another meeting... 00:52:02 Brooks Travis: Can they not offer provisional approval, pending a PoC? 00:52:22 Owen Stephens: And of course the working group has absolutely no ability to do that work - we have capacity and skills for discussing what was needed not implementing a working prototype 00:52:30 Brooks Travis: i.e. “we think this is a good idea and will likely serve the project well, but we would like to see a PoCâ€? 00:52:49 Tod Olson: The solution might be to have a pilot project, but still someone needs to dedicate time to it. 00:54:59 Brooks Travis: Which parts, specifically, were accepted/rejected/deferred? 00:55:16 Owen Stephens: The inbox/outbox pattern was rejected 00:55:23 Brooks Travis: Grrr… 00:55:52 Brooks Travis: 🙠00:56:21 Dung-Lan Chen: The team should focus on building features that are mostly desired/needed by the community?! 00:57:22 Marc Johnson: Brooks, the TC did effectively provisionally approve it. We don’t have a formal way to do that, so it’s effectively embedded in some meeting notes 00:58:17 Brooks Travis: RMB needs to be updated to support it… 00:58:40 Brooks Travis: Isn’t that managed by Core Platform? 00:58:46 Marc Johnson: Yes, it is. 00:59:05 Marc Johnson: That team has shrunk to a couple of part time folks 01:00:04 Marc Johnson: Chen, yes, at the moment, teams are driven by features. Those features are chosen by the folks paying for it. That may be informed by the community 01:01:14 Brooks Travis: Agreed 01:04:02 Brooks Travis: I don’t think it’s about enforcement. It’s about staking out a formal position. 01:04:11 Owen Stephens: Agreed Brooks 01:04:52 Brooks Travis: It feels like folks don’t want to actually take formal positions 01:04:57 Owen Stephens: And the positive I take from this is that we’ve got that for some aspects of the proposal - this wasn’t a completely pointless process as it had that outcoem 01:05:26 Owen Stephens: The problem is that we could have shortcut the whole discussion if we’d realised what we were about was formalising the existing mechanism for approval 01:05:44 Brooks Travis: Yeah 01:08:27 Charlotte Whitt: I hate to say it, but we do also need to be mindful about the money the libraries fundings new work. So the process around formal approval must not be extremely costly for everyone involved 01:08:57 Marc Johnson: I think a part of that is that we had a working group from a SIG coming up with a technical solution. And the technical folks leveraged what had already been done when the proposal was put together. 01:09:11 Brooks Travis: That’s why I feel like staking out architectural requirements for new development is the way to go… 01:09:49 Martina Schildt | VZG: In the data sync case the group had been tasked by TC 01:10:16 Marc Johnson: The TC currently has limited to no involvement in the decisions made by individual teams It’s up to the teams to decide what to escalate up as architectural if they want 01:11:01 Ian Walls: the Councils aren't really set up to be decision making bodies.... perhaps we should look at them more as forums for communication and reaching consensus 01:11:30 Martina Schildt | VZG: https://wiki.folio.org/display/TC/DR-000004+-+Cross+application+data+sync+proposal 01:11:31 Brooks Travis: I think I generally disagree with that assessment… 01:11:56 Marc Johnson: Ian, how does one do governance without making decisions? Isn’t consensus a decision? 01:12:02 Brooks Travis: The councils are tasked with making policy decisions for the project within their spheres 01:12:13 Marc Johnson: Brooks, which assessment do you disagree with? 01:12:19 Ian Walls: they're tasked with making decisions, sure, but they lack any sort of power to do so 01:12:19 Brooks Travis: Ian’s 01:12:46 Brooks Travis: I don’t think they do (lack power). We don’t seem willing to exercise it, though 01:13:02 Marc Johnson: We lack the power to enforce those decisions. The TC’s guidance is similar to the PC’s roadmap. It’s what we’d like folks to take on board 01:13:15 Brooks Travis: If the councils don’t approve, it doesn’t make it in 01:13:19 Marc Johnson: Brooks, what power do the councils have? 01:13:35 Marc Johnson: We only have an approval process for new modules 01:13:51 Marc Johnson: Changes in existing modules are not approved 01:13:55 Brooks Travis: We can say a flower release isn’t going to be released 01:14:05 Brooks Travis: They could be 01:15:03 Marc Johnson: We could. The TC deliberately disconnects it’s decisions from the flower releases as much as it can. It doesn’t make calls about the flower releases. 01:15:13 Owen Stephens: I hate to say it but I don’t think we are able to say whether a Flower release happens or not. That falls to release planning group afaik 01:15:34 Brooks Travis: What is and isn’t “the product†is our purview 01:15:38 Marc Johnson: We could approve changes to existing modules. We have no process and insufficient capacity to do so 01:19:01 Brooks Travis: I agree, it’s a blunt enforcement instrument, but it’s what we have 01:19:30 Ian Walls: Brooks, yes, the Councils do own the rights to the "FOLIO" trademark, and can withhold rights to that stamp, but that doesnt' stop groups from releasing their own build of the code under a variant name 01:22:14 Owen Stephens: I would note that the PC is focussing on its SIG relationships to make this happen. I wonder if the TC needs something similar with the development teams. I know that the ‘tech leads’ group did previously try this but maybe it needs another attempt 01:22:41 Owen Stephens: Don’t need a response to this comment btw - just food for thought 🙂 01:23:08 Jesse Koennecke (he/him): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hp5-lmYm_eJE-XGG4XO6f8q95PAlFDT3c_u2KalhyNs/edit 01:23:50 Marc Johnson: Owen, I think it would be nice to have something around that area. A difference between those is that SIGs are commissioned by the PC and report to the PC. The development teams do not report to the TC. 01:24:58 Martina Schildt | VZG: yes 01:25:03 Kristin Martin (UChicago she/her): Yes 01:25:07 Karen Newbery: yes 01:27:02 Brooks Travis: I think it would be good to have a group of devs and architects that would advise TC and disseminate decisions to the dev teams, and serve as a mechanism for dev teams to surface architectural and other technical design concerns to the TC. 01:27:24 Brooks Travis: This is referencing earlier topic