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= Roles and Responsibilities
Apache Incubator PMC
2002-10-16
:jbake-type: policy
:jbake-status: published
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This document describes the roles (including Sponsor, Contributor, Mentor) and provides an overview of the responsibilities of the different parties involved in an incubation process.

== The Board

The link:http://www.apache.org/foundation/board/[Board Of Directors] of the
link:http://www.apache.org/foundation/[Apache Software Foundation]
manages the organizational affairs of the Foundation.
The board is elected by the
link:http://www.apache.org/foundation/members.html[Apache Members].

The Board delegates responsibility for incubation to the
link:#Incubator+Project+Management+Committee+%28PMC%29[IPMC].

link:http://www.apache.org/foundation/board/[Directors]
are often active in the Incubator.
link:http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html#hats[Conventionally],
unless indicated otherwise, individuals speak personally. So, a Director speaking
without their Board hat is not stating policy but expressing a personal opinion.

See also: link:http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html#management[How Apache Works]


== Incubator Project Management Committee (IPMC)
The Incubator PMC [link:https://whimsy.apache.org/board/minutes/Incubator.html#minutes_2002_10_16[resolution]] is responsible for:

* acceptance and oversight of candidate projects submitted or proposed to become part of the Foundation;
* providing guidance and ensuring that podlings under it's purview develop products according to the Foundation's philosophy and guidelines for collaborative development;
* providing a repository for the storage of incubation history and information;
* assisting a Podling's Mentor in discharging her/his duties;
* regularly evaluating projects under its purview for the purposes of recommending to the Sponsor whether the project should:
** graduate from incubation;
** continue to receive guidance and support within the Incubator; or
** be terminated.

To enable effective management of the process of incubation from the
point of view of the PMC and from the point of view of members of a
project under incubation, a set of policies and procedures are
described below that identify roles and responsibilities of
participants throughout the incubation lifecycle.

A project going through the Incubator will therefore be required to
regularly report to the Incubator PMC. This will help the PMC in its
role of reviewing the status of a project under incubation.

Finally, the Incubator PMC is the ASF body with the greatest level of
expertise and experience in the Incubation process. They provide a
store of knowledge that can be called on by the Mentor or a Podling
during (or even after) the incubation process.

Individuals may be nominated to join the IPMC after a vote which
passes.
Additionally, any Member of the Apache Software Foundation may join
the IPMC by request.

See also: link:http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html#management[How Apache Works]

== Chair of the Incubator PMC
The person appointed by the link:#board[Board] to have primary
responsibility for oversight of the Incubator Project, its policies,
and policy implementation.

== Candidate
A Candidate is a project proposed for incubation. A Candidate
shall meet the following minimum criteria:

* affiliated with a named link:#Champion[Champion]

Optionally, a candidate may:

* declare an affiliation with an existing Apache Project in which case the project will become the *Sponsor*;
* specify requirements that may be anticipated during incubation; and/or
* provide a summary of the project relationship/dependencies (existing or planned with existing Apache Projects/Products).

Naturally, projects will need more than this in order to graduate from
incubation status.

A candidate project compliant with the above criteria may be proposed
by the Champion to the Sponsor for acceptance as a Podling.
Acceptance of a candidate shall be subject to the formal voting
method of the Sponsor. Should that vote be accepted, the Sponsor will
request that the Incubator PMC accept the candidate as a Podling
under incubation. The Sponsor shall assign several Mentors, who must
Incubator PMC members.

== Champion

A candidate project shall be sponsored by an
link:http://www.apache.org/foundation/index.html[Officer]
or
link:http://www.apache.org/foundation/members.html[Member]
of the Foundation. The Champion assists the candidate on their
initial submission to a Sponsor. While private conversations are not
generally encouraged within the Apache community, the Champion's
relationship with the Candidate should allow for this in order to
educate the Candidate about the Apache Way and prepare the project
for the questions and issues likely to be raised by the community.


Before incubation begins, the Champion is expected to:

* help with any process/ASF related hurdles before the Candidate enters incubation
* help find the right people in the ASF to speak with
* help to find Mentors
* drive the process of entering the Incubator, leading to a vote to accept the proposed podling

== Sponsor

The Sponsor is the entity within the ASF that makes the determination
that a candidate would make a worthy addition to the ASF, and agrees
to take on the candidate in question (or in the case of the Incubator
PMC, assist it in finding a home) should it complete the incubation
process.

A Sponsor will be one of:

* A Top Level Project within the ASF. In this case, the project in question has agreed that the
candidate is a good fit for their project, and will take on the candidate as a sub-project upon
successful completion of Incubation.
* The Incubator PMC. In this case, the Incubator PMC agrees that the
project in question will make a good addition to the ASF, but there
is no clear "owner" of the candidate should it successfully complete
incubation.
In most cases, the Incubator PMC is the correct Sponsor (Candidates should
discuss this with their Champion).

[NOTE]
====
Note that a Sponsor is more than just a final resting place for a
candidate that successfully completes incubation. The Sponsor, by
taking on a candidate, is indicating that they believe the candidate
will make a worthy addition to the ASF, and takes responsibility for
assisting the podling through the Incubation process. The Sponsor is
therefore expected to be actively involved in the incubation process
and assist where necessary, giving the podling the best possible
chance of success. In addition, an entity that is a Top Level Project
should be involved in the Candidate's incubation in order to educate
the Candidate about practices that are specific to that TLP and about
other relevant projects within the TLP.

However, while the Sponsor is expected to be actively involved, it is
formally represented by the Mentors. The Mentors are the individuals
accountable to the Incubator PMC for ensuring the incubation process
is correctly followed. In cases where the Mentors are not fulfilling
their responsibilities, the Sponsor (in particular its Chair) will be
expected to remedy the situation.
====

== Responsibilities of the Sponsor
- to provide initial approval for a Candidate to be accepted as a Podling
- to nominate Mentors for the incubation process

== Mentor
Mentors are chosen by the Sponsor to actively monitor the
podling, guide the podling in
link:http://apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html[the Apache Way],
and report its status
to the Sponsor and the Incubator PMC. All Mentors must be members of the
Incubator PMC. A Mentor has the following responsibilities
toward the Incubator PMC, the Sponsor, and the community of the assigned
Podling.

=== Responsibilities toward Podling Community
- to ensure that Incubator PMC decisions and/or issue are dealt with in
a timely manner and ensure that decisions or resolutions affecting
the Podling are communicated promptly and expeditiously;
- to represent the interests of the Podling on the Incubator PMC;
- to liaise between the ASF Secretary and the Podling on matters
concerning CLA submission and acknowledgements;
- to liaise between the ASF Infrastructure team and the Podling on
matters concerning infrastructure support (mailing lists, version control
establishment, account establishment, etc.);
- to assist the Podling on matters concerning the resolution of license
transfers, copyright assignments, and/or software grants where
applicable; and
- to provide where and as appropriate, guidance on matters concerning
Apache policies and practices.

=== Responsibilities toward the Incubator PMC

- monitoring the Podling through the incubation process;
- evaluating the compliance of the Podling with Incubator and ASF policies
and procedures;
- assessment of the Podling status with respect to continuation/exit
strategy;
- to provide updates to the Incubator PMC and Sponsor on the status of
license grants (where and as appropriate) and other relevant legal
information pertaining to the Podling.

=== Responsibilities toward the Sponsor
- provide status to the Sponsor as to the progress of the podling

== Committers

All committers on podlings should be familiar with link:http://www.apache.org/dev/#committers[Developer Information for Committers].

The candidate shall declare an initial set of committers. On
acceptance of a candidate project, the assigned Mentors shall be given
access to the Podling's repository for the duration of the
incubation process. In some cases, the Mentors may be part of the
initial set of declared committers, but this is not a requirement of
the Incubation process.

In association with its Mentor and Champion, a Podling community is
largely free to get on with the stuff they want to do (code,
architecture, product, solutions, etc.) with minimal disruption
related to the incubator process.

However, you need to make sure of a number of things:

- keep your Mentors informed - they are reporting to the PMC and
generally speaking "no news is bad news". Of course, conducting
business on the project's mailing lists is one important way to do
this.
- make sure your Champion is continuously in-the-loop and has the
latest and greatest information about your project
- actively seek and recruit committers to your project - preferably
linking you with existing Apache communities
- make sure your decision making process is visible and accountable

These activities are not unique to projects in the Incubator. For
example, existing Apache Projects have regular reports made by their
PMC Chair to the link:#board[Board].

During the incubation, the committers will be expected to show how,
as a group, they are upholding the ideals of the Apache community. In
particular, as the Podling evolves it is anticipated that the Podling
will establish procedures for the introduction of new committers
through a process consistent with established Apache practices.