Glad to welcome the new TSC. 

Just my two cents in this ongoing email.

Should all paying members also have some small voting opportunity in addition to code contributors. Its their money that fuels some of the work. While its technical, there is plrnty of commercial interest in this noble work.

Mohan

On Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 12:37 AM Shawn Amundson <amundson@...> wrote:

On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 12:32 PM Vipin Bharathan <vipinsun@...> wrote:

...

This goes back to the idea that only code contributions matter- please broaden your outlook on what "technical contributions" are. Also this signed list will be extremely difficult to maintain. Right now, even the equivalent of a "touch" (I am exaggerating here) can get you into the rolls. Which is OK.

 

...

No, let's not broaden it. Let's not try and lessen the value of the hard work done by developers. Code contributions are what moves the projects forward. If you are doing architecture or design work that makes it into the code, but someone else did the coding and commits, yes, you contributed. Probably your designs should have been committed to git as RFCs or similar. If you can't make that connection, it should not be considered the same thing. Meeting attendance, for example, is irrelevant.

-Shawn

On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 12:32 PM Vipin Bharathan <vipinsun@...> wrote:

...

This goes back to the idea that only code contributions matter- please broaden your outlook on what "technical contributions" are. Also this signed list will be extremely difficult to maintain. Right now, even the equivalent of a "touch" (I am exaggerating here) can get you into the rolls. Which is OK.

 

...

No, let's not broaden it. Let's not try and lessen the value of the hard work done by developers. Code contributions are what moves the projects forward. If you are doing architecture or design work that makes it into the code, but someone else did the coding and commits, yes, you contributed. Probably your designs should have been committed to git as RFCs or similar. If you can't make that connection, it should not be considered the same thing. Meeting attendance, for example, is irrelevant.

-Shawn

From my experience of the people elected, the TSC looks like a good TSC.

I think we should enlarge the TSC as a tactical manoeuvre (which may not work) to nudge Hyperledger towards a more project-diverse TSC.

The preponderance of IBM employees is a symptom of the dominance of Fabric in Hyperledger and the relative dominance of IBM in the Fabric project as other's have pointed out. One can only vote for those one knows and Fabric contributors are a highly connected subset of Hyperledger. The solution (he says blithely) is for other projects to become more relevant (to those inside and outside Hyperledger), attract more contributors, and then to apply more democracy. Which is to say I don't think medicating the imbalance of the TSC directly is probably the right way to go.

However it is not a given that the positive feedback above will happen on its own given the inertia associated with project adoption, public mindshare, etc. It is hard to know where the momentum is with Hyperledger in this respect but some small interventions now might pay dividends later.

It's worth questioning whether having greater project/company diversity on the TSC is even a Good Thing. It's not like IBM or Fabric people are a homogeneous block. However I would suggest:

- Diversity of ideas - I think the well rehearsed ideas about avoiding groupthink etc apply here. Different projects are exploring different parts of the space of distributed ledgers useful to have these ideas injected.

- Representation of projects - so long as Hyperledger is a multiple project umbrella it is useful to have representation on decision-making boards that affect projects. The TSC may not be a house of representatives but seems that function is there

- Politics - occasionally decisions come up that have more commercial/ideological significance (i.e. whether to accept a new project), this is where a balance of forces are important particularly amongst cooperating competitors

- Competence - it is difficult for people with no exposure to a project's code or design outside of surveying it in order to answer a question coming to the TSC to decide on finely balanced technical matters. Usually the right thing to do is for the TSC to defer to those with more context. But having people experienced with a greater range of projects means those people can help spread that context to other TSC members aided by an existing relationship with those other TSC members.

For my part I was planning to stick around the TSC meetings and list despite no longer being a  member, the general prospect of which was noted by Mark and Arnaud on a previous call. However I would note that in the same way that getting elected to the TSC was a spur to apportion more of my time and effort to Hyperledger, losing the franchise does remove some of that impetus (although rather less since now I feel more involved) so even if TSC votes are rather consensual after discussions (as Arnaud noted) I would not discount the effect of the responsibility of being a bona fide TSC member as a human motivator to do more work.

Thinking about some of Todd's criticisms of the technical import of things discussed at the TSC. I would argue that things such as project lifecycle are relevant to the technical output of Hyperledger given software engineering is a team sport. I'd agree they are not deeply technical as defining a consensus interface or standardising on a choice of stream cipher might be. I too would like to see more deeply technical matters considered at the TSC, however I think the reason this is hard is the same as mentioned in the 'competence' bullet-point above. We generally need to be way more up inside each other's projects.

@Vipin Bharathan

> There are well known techniques for this. We need to adopt them.

What are they?

> This is in addition to "who gets to participate in the election" which should be "everyone that contributes technical artifacts to Hyperledger"

How about a roll of credits stored as lines in a plain text file of the form `Date of contribution - nature of contribution` which could be stored in the repo and for which each commit adding a credit would need to be signed by a project maintainer or possibly existing contributor? This would put the definition of a contribution under the control of projects themselves.

Silas

On Mon, 9 Sep 2019 at 02:38, VIPIN BHARATHAN <vip@...> wrote:

Hi Brian/Todd/Bob/all,

It is unfortunate that the happy incidence of having gender diversity is tied  to the debate about over-representation of a single firm on the TSC. The result is more diversity in one dimension as we lose diversity in another.

A 33%  turnout is not good for both.  It has been shown that in a low turnout election, committed and well organized groups dominate. 

If gender diversity was the result of a 60+% turnout, it would have appeared "more real".

A 60+% turnout would have been better to justify the domination of a single firm on the TSC.  

Increasing turnout is also needed for truer democracy in general. Increasing turnout is quite difficult in this age of cynicism and apathy. How do we break through the ice? A question that needs to be answered through concrete steps for stimulating turnout in the next election. I had provided some pointers to the election officer, maybe a little too late. There are well known techniques for this. We need to adopt them.

This is in addition to "who gets to participate in the election" which should be "everyone that contributes technical artifacts to Hyperledger"; including the contributors on the wiki and the SIG participants in my view. The github query does not measure technical artifacts. I could contribute a single spelling correction in github and be included very easily; whereas someone who contributes only an extensive technical blog or article is excluded; if they are not on a Working Group list.

Best,

Vipin

 

Vipin Bharathan

Enterprise Blockchain Consultant

vip@...

---

From: tsc@... <tsc@...> on behalf of Todd Little via Lists.Hyperledger.Org <todd.little=oracle.com@...>
Sent: Saturday, September 7, 2019 1:45 PM
To: tsc@... <tsc@...>
Cc: tsc@... <tsc@...>
Subject: Re: [Hyperledger TSC] Congratulations to the members of the 2019-2020 TSC!

 

Hi Brian,

Thanks for your well reasoned response.  I don't want to drag this down into a rat hole or spilt milk debate.  I was merely trying to point out the irony of lack of diversity in the TSC vs the other Hyperledger bodies.  The governing body by it's membership definition forces diversity and allows anyone with sufficient financial resources to have a seat at the table.  For Hyperledger projects to exit incubation they must show sufficient diversity of contributors, although that can be hard to measure as Ry has discovered in this last election process.  So it just seems a little odd to me that there aren't any diversity requirements for the TSC.  What would your response be if after the TSC elections next year, every member was employed by some organization that wasn't even a member of Hyperledger?  It is theoretically possible and given the voting process, i.e., who can vote, completely feasible.

You are correct in that the TSC members are individuals and not companies, but everyone one of them knows who butters their bread.  I also sense that there is some dissatisfaction over the common use of Hyperledger as some single thing when the reference is really referring to Fabric.  Fabric and Hyperledger when talking about projects are often used interchangeably.  For good or bad, this is likely a result of IBM's significant contributions to Fabric, and the ability for Fabric to run without specific hardware (sorry Mic!).  Having nearly half the TSC membership made up of individuals (not lost on me) working for one company (hopefully not lost on you), seems specious at best and doesn't help elevate the other Hyperledger projects to be on par with Fabric.

I also wonder at times about the role of the TSC as it seems that much of the TSC time is spent on things that aren't technical, at least not deeply so.  Is the whole project lifecycle debate a technical debate?  The current discussions about working groups and their roles really a technical issue the TSC should be debating?  I also wonder about what control or sway the TSC has on any project or should have on any project.  Are the Hyperledger projects just a bunch of technology projects with little intersection and no goal of convergence?  I mean every blockchain needs identity, but what is happening in the platforms to consolidate around an identity project such as Indy?  Likewise there are lots of issues around privacy and confidentiality, yet the privacy and confidentiality working group has serious concerns about what if any impact their work will have on the platforms.  If there is no impact, why should we continue the working group?  If there is no impact, what makes something a Hyperledger project other than the blessing of the TSC?  And why would a project want to join Hyperledger other than for the marketing value it brings if joining has effectively zero impact on the project direction?

Respectfully,
Todd

Silas,

Thanks for your thoughtful note. I agree pretty much completely with all that you wrote.

I was also very pleased to read that you intend to stay engaged. You always bring a great perspective.

Cheers,

Chris

On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 7:40 AM Silas Davis via Lists.Hyperledger.Org <silas=monax.io@...> wrote:

From my experience of the people elected, the TSC looks like a good TSC.

I think we should enlarge the TSC as a tactical manoeuvre (which may not work) to nudge Hyperledger towards a more project-diverse TSC.

The preponderance of IBM employees is a symptom of the dominance of Fabric in Hyperledger and the relative dominance of IBM in the Fabric project as other's have pointed out. One can only vote for those one knows and Fabric contributors are a highly connected subset of Hyperledger. The solution (he says blithely) is for other projects to become more relevant (to those inside and outside Hyperledger), attract more contributors, and then to apply more democracy. Which is to say I don't think medicating the imbalance of the TSC directly is probably the right way to go.

However it is not a given that the positive feedback above will happen on its own given the inertia associated with project adoption, public mindshare, etc. It is hard to know where the momentum is with Hyperledger in this respect but some small interventions now might pay dividends later.

It's worth questioning whether having greater project/company diversity on the TSC is even a Good Thing. It's not like IBM or Fabric people are a homogeneous block. However I would suggest:

- Diversity of ideas - I think the well rehearsed ideas about avoiding groupthink etc apply here. Different projects are exploring different parts of the space of distributed ledgers useful to have these ideas injected.

- Representation of projects - so long as Hyperledger is a multiple project umbrella it is useful to have representation on decision-making boards that affect projects. The TSC may not be a house of representatives but seems that function is there

- Politics - occasionally decisions come up that have more commercial/ideological significance (i.e. whether to accept a new project), this is where a balance of forces are important particularly amongst cooperating competitors

- Competence - it is difficult for people with no exposure to a project's code or design outside of surveying it in order to answer a question coming to the TSC to decide on finely balanced technical matters. Usually the right thing to do is for the TSC to defer to those with more context. But having people experienced with a greater range of projects means those people can help spread that context to other TSC members aided by an existing relationship with those other TSC members.

For my part I was planning to stick around the TSC meetings and list despite no longer being a  member, the general prospect of which was noted by Mark and Arnaud on a previous call. However I would note that in the same way that getting elected to the TSC was a spur to apportion more of my time and effort to Hyperledger, losing the franchise does remove some of that impetus (although rather less since now I feel more involved) so even if TSC votes are rather consensual after discussions (as Arnaud noted) I would not discount the effect of the responsibility of being a bona fide TSC member as a human motivator to do more work.

Thinking about some of Todd's criticisms of the technical import of things discussed at the TSC. I would argue that things such as project lifecycle are relevant to the technical output of Hyperledger given software engineering is a team sport. I'd agree they are not deeply technical as defining a consensus interface or standardising on a choice of stream cipher might be. I too would like to see more deeply technical matters considered at the TSC, however I think the reason this is hard is the same as mentioned in the 'competence' bullet-point above. We generally need to be way more up inside each other's projects.

@Vipin Bharathan

> There are well known techniques for this. We need to adopt them.

What are they?

> This is in addition to "who gets to participate in the election" which should be "everyone that contributes technical artifacts to Hyperledger"

How about a roll of credits stored as lines in a plain text file of the form `Date of contribution - nature of contribution` which could be stored in the repo and for which each commit adding a credit would need to be signed by a project maintainer or possibly existing contributor? This would put the definition of a contribution under the control of projects themselves.

Silas

On Mon, 9 Sep 2019 at 02:38, VIPIN BHARATHAN <vip@...> wrote:

Hi Brian/Todd/Bob/all,

It is unfortunate that the happy incidence of having gender diversity is tied  to the debate about over-representation of a single firm on the TSC. The result is more diversity in one dimension as we lose diversity in another.

A 33%  turnout is not good for both.  It has been shown that in a low turnout election, committed and well organized groups dominate. 

If gender diversity was the result of a 60+% turnout, it would have appeared "more real".

A 60+% turnout would have been better to justify the domination of a single firm on the TSC.  

Increasing turnout is also needed for truer democracy in general. Increasing turnout is quite difficult in this age of cynicism and apathy. How do we break through the ice? A question that needs to be answered through concrete steps for stimulating turnout in the next election. I had provided some pointers to the election officer, maybe a little too late. There are well known techniques for this. We need to adopt them.

This is in addition to "who gets to participate in the election" which should be "everyone that contributes technical artifacts to Hyperledger"; including the contributors on the wiki and the SIG participants in my view. The github query does not measure technical artifacts. I could contribute a single spelling correction in github and be included very easily; whereas someone who contributes only an extensive technical blog or article is excluded; if they are not on a Working Group list.

Best,

Vipin

 

Vipin Bharathan

Enterprise Blockchain Consultant

vip@...

---

From: tsc@... <tsc@...> on behalf of Todd Little via Lists.Hyperledger.Org <todd.little=oracle.com@...>
Sent: Saturday, September 7, 2019 1:45 PM
To: tsc@... <tsc@...>
Cc: tsc@... <tsc@...>
Subject: Re: [Hyperledger TSC] Congratulations to the members of the 2019-2020 TSC!

 

Hi Brian,

Thanks for your well reasoned response.  I don't want to drag this down into a rat hole or spilt milk debate.  I was merely trying to point out the irony of lack of diversity in the TSC vs the other Hyperledger bodies.  The governing body by it's membership definition forces diversity and allows anyone with sufficient financial resources to have a seat at the table.  For Hyperledger projects to exit incubation they must show sufficient diversity of contributors, although that can be hard to measure as Ry has discovered in this last election process.  So it just seems a little odd to me that there aren't any diversity requirements for the TSC.  What would your response be if after the TSC elections next year, every member was employed by some organization that wasn't even a member of Hyperledger?  It is theoretically possible and given the voting process, i.e., who can vote, completely feasible.

You are correct in that the TSC members are individuals and not companies, but everyone one of them knows who butters their bread.  I also sense that there is some dissatisfaction over the common use of Hyperledger as some single thing when the reference is really referring to Fabric.  Fabric and Hyperledger when talking about projects are often used interchangeably.  For good or bad, this is likely a result of IBM's significant contributions to Fabric, and the ability for Fabric to run without specific hardware (sorry Mic!).  Having nearly half the TSC membership made up of individuals (not lost on me) working for one company (hopefully not lost on you), seems specious at best and doesn't help elevate the other Hyperledger projects to be on par with Fabric.

I also wonder at times about the role of the TSC as it seems that much of the TSC time is spent on things that aren't technical, at least not deeply so.  Is the whole project lifecycle debate a technical debate?  The current discussions about working groups and their roles really a technical issue the TSC should be debating?  I also wonder about what control or sway the TSC has on any project or should have on any project.  Are the Hyperledger projects just a bunch of technology projects with little intersection and no goal of convergence?  I mean every blockchain needs identity, but what is happening in the platforms to consolidate around an identity project such as Indy?  Likewise there are lots of issues around privacy and confidentiality, yet the privacy and confidentiality working group has serious concerns about what if any impact their work will have on the platforms.  If there is no impact, why should we continue the working group?  If there is no impact, what makes something a Hyperledger project other than the blessing of the TSC?  And why would a project want to join Hyperledger other than for the marketing value it brings if joining has effectively zero impact on the project direction?

Respectfully,
Todd

From my experience of the people elected, the TSC looks like a good TSC.

I think we should enlarge the TSC as a tactical manoeuvre (which may not work) to nudge Hyperledger towards a more project-diverse TSC.

The preponderance of IBM employees is a symptom of the dominance of Fabric in Hyperledger and the relative dominance of IBM in the Fabric project as other's have pointed out. One can only vote for those one knows and Fabric contributors are a highly connected subset of Hyperledger. The solution (he says blithely) is for other projects to become more relevant (to those inside and outside Hyperledger), attract more contributors, and then to apply more democracy. Which is to say I don't think medicating the imbalance of the TSC directly is probably the right way to go.

However it is not a given that the positive feedback above will happen on its own given the inertia associated with project adoption, public mindshare, etc. It is hard to know where the momentum is with Hyperledger in this respect but some small interventions now might pay dividends later.

It's worth questioning whether having greater project/company diversity on the TSC is even a Good Thing. It's not like IBM or Fabric people are a homogeneous block. However I would suggest:

- Diversity of ideas - I think the well rehearsed ideas about avoiding groupthink etc apply here. Different projects are exploring different parts of the space of distributed ledgers useful to have these ideas injected.

- Representation of projects - so long as Hyperledger is a multiple project umbrella it is useful to have representation on decision-making boards that affect projects. The TSC may not be a house of representatives but seems that function is there

- Politics - occasionally decisions come up that have more commercial/ideological significance (i.e. whether to accept a new project), this is where a balance of forces are important particularly amongst cooperating competitors

- Competence - it is difficult for people with no exposure to a project's code or design outside of surveying it in order to answer a question coming to the TSC to decide on finely balanced technical matters. Usually the right thing to do is for the TSC to defer to those with more context. But having people experienced with a greater range of projects means those people can help spread that context to other TSC members aided by an existing relationship with those other TSC members.

For my part I was planning to stick around the TSC meetings and list despite no longer being a  member, the general prospect of which was noted by Mark and Arnaud on a previous call. However I would note that in the same way that getting elected to the TSC was a spur to apportion more of my time and effort to Hyperledger, losing the franchise does remove some of that impetus (although rather less since now I feel more involved) so even if TSC votes are rather consensual after discussions (as Arnaud noted) I would not discount the effect of the responsibility of being a bona fide TSC member as a human motivator to do more work.

Thinking about some of Todd's criticisms of the technical import of things discussed at the TSC. I would argue that things such as project lifecycle are relevant to the technical output of Hyperledger given software engineering is a team sport. I'd agree they are not deeply technical as defining a consensus interface or standardising on a choice of stream cipher might be. I too would like to see more deeply technical matters considered at the TSC, however I think the reason this is hard is the same as mentioned in the 'competence' bullet-point above. We generally need to be way more up inside each other's projects.

@Vipin Bharathan

> There are well known techniques for this. We need to adopt them.

What are they?

> This is in addition to "who gets to participate in the election" which should be "everyone that contributes technical artifacts to Hyperledger"

How about a roll of credits stored as lines in a plain text file of the form `Date of contribution - nature of contribution` which could be stored in the repo and for which each commit adding a credit would need to be signed by a project maintainer or possibly existing contributor? This would put the definition of a contribution under the control of projects themselves.

Silas

On Mon, 9 Sep 2019 at 02:38, VIPIN BHARATHAN <vip@...> wrote:

Hi Brian/Todd/Bob/all,

It is unfortunate that the happy incidence of having gender diversity is tied  to the debate about over-representation of a single firm on the TSC. The result is more diversity in one dimension as we lose diversity in another.

A 33%  turnout is not good for both.  It has been shown that in a low turnout election, committed and well organized groups dominate. 

If gender diversity was the result of a 60+% turnout, it would have appeared "more real".

A 60+% turnout would have been better to justify the domination of a single firm on the TSC.  

Increasing turnout is also needed for truer democracy in general. Increasing turnout is quite difficult in this age of cynicism and apathy. How do we break through the ice? A question that needs to be answered through concrete steps for stimulating turnout in the next election. I had provided some pointers to the election officer, maybe a little too late. There are well known techniques for this. We need to adopt them.

This is in addition to "who gets to participate in the election" which should be "everyone that contributes technical artifacts to Hyperledger"; including the contributors on the wiki and the SIG participants in my view. The github query does not measure technical artifacts. I could contribute a single spelling correction in github and be included very easily; whereas someone who contributes only an extensive technical blog or article is excluded; if they are not on a Working Group list.

Best,

Vipin

 

Vipin Bharathan

Enterprise Blockchain Consultant

vip@...

---

From: tsc@... <tsc@...> on behalf of Todd Little via Lists.Hyperledger.Org <todd.little=oracle.com@...>
Sent: Saturday, September 7, 2019 1:45 PM
To: tsc@... <tsc@...>
Cc: tsc@... <tsc@...>
Subject: Re: [Hyperledger TSC] Congratulations to the members of the 2019-2020 TSC!

 

Hi Brian,

Thanks for your well reasoned response.  I don't want to drag this down into a rat hole or spilt milk debate.  I was merely trying to point out the irony of lack of diversity in the TSC vs the other Hyperledger bodies.  The governing body by it's membership definition forces diversity and allows anyone with sufficient financial resources to have a seat at the table.  For Hyperledger projects to exit incubation they must show sufficient diversity of contributors, although that can be hard to measure as Ry has discovered in this last election process.  So it just seems a little odd to me that there aren't any diversity requirements for the TSC.  What would your response be if after the TSC elections next year, every member was employed by some organization that wasn't even a member of Hyperledger?  It is theoretically possible and given the voting process, i.e., who can vote, completely feasible.

You are correct in that the TSC members are individuals and not companies, but everyone one of them knows who butters their bread.  I also sense that there is some dissatisfaction over the common use of Hyperledger as some single thing when the reference is really referring to Fabric.  Fabric and Hyperledger when talking about projects are often used interchangeably.  For good or bad, this is likely a result of IBM's significant contributions to Fabric, and the ability for Fabric to run without specific hardware (sorry Mic!).  Having nearly half the TSC membership made up of individuals (not lost on me) working for one company (hopefully not lost on you), seems specious at best and doesn't help elevate the other Hyperledger projects to be on par with Fabric.

I also wonder at times about the role of the TSC as it seems that much of the TSC time is spent on things that aren't technical, at least not deeply so.  Is the whole project lifecycle debate a technical debate?  The current discussions about working groups and their roles really a technical issue the TSC should be debating?  I also wonder about what control or sway the TSC has on any project or should have on any project.  Are the Hyperledger projects just a bunch of technology projects with little intersection and no goal of convergence?  I mean every blockchain needs identity, but what is happening in the platforms to consolidate around an identity project such as Indy?  Likewise there are lots of issues around privacy and confidentiality, yet the privacy and confidentiality working group has serious concerns about what if any impact their work will have on the platforms.  If there is no impact, why should we continue the working group?  If there is no impact, what makes something a Hyperledger project other than the blessing of the TSC?  And why would a project want to join Hyperledger other than for the marketing value it brings if joining has effectively zero impact on the project direction?

Respectfully,
Todd

Hi Brian/Todd/Bob/all,

It is unfortunate that the happy incidence of having gender diversity is tied  to the debate about over-representation of a single firm on the TSC. The result is more diversity in one dimension as we lose diversity in another.

A 33%  turnout is not good for both.  It has been shown that in a low turnout election, committed and well organized groups dominate. 

If gender diversity was the result of a 60+% turnout, it would have appeared "more real".

A 60+% turnout would have been better to justify the domination of a single firm on the TSC.  

Increasing turnout is also needed for truer democracy in general. Increasing turnout is quite difficult in this age of cynicism and apathy. How do we break through the ice? A question that needs to be answered through concrete steps for stimulating turnout in the next election. I had provided some pointers to the election officer, maybe a little too late. There are well known techniques for this. We need to adopt them.

This is in addition to "who gets to participate in the election" which should be "everyone that contributes technical artifacts to Hyperledger"; including the contributors on the wiki and the SIG participants in my view. The github query does not measure technical artifacts. I could contribute a single spelling correction in github and be included very easily; whereas someone who contributes only an extensive technical blog or article is excluded; if they are not on a Working Group list.

Best,

Vipin

 

Vipin Bharathan

Enterprise Blockchain Consultant

vip@...

---

From: tsc@... <tsc@...> on behalf of Todd Little via Lists.Hyperledger.Org <todd.little=oracle.com@...>
Sent: Saturday, September 7, 2019 1:45 PM
To: tsc@... <tsc@...>
Cc: tsc@... <tsc@...>
Subject: Re: [Hyperledger TSC] Congratulations to the members of the 2019-2020 TSC!

 

Hi Brian,

Thanks for your well reasoned response.  I don't want to drag this down into a rat hole or spilt milk debate.  I was merely trying to point out the irony of lack of diversity in the TSC vs the other Hyperledger bodies.  The governing body by it's membership definition forces diversity and allows anyone with sufficient financial resources to have a seat at the table.  For Hyperledger projects to exit incubation they must show sufficient diversity of contributors, although that can be hard to measure as Ry has discovered in this last election process.  So it just seems a little odd to me that there aren't any diversity requirements for the TSC.  What would your response be if after the TSC elections next year, every member was employed by some organization that wasn't even a member of Hyperledger?  It is theoretically possible and given the voting process, i.e., who can vote, completely feasible.

You are correct in that the TSC members are individuals and not companies, but everyone one of them knows who butters their bread.  I also sense that there is some dissatisfaction over the common use of Hyperledger as some single thing when the reference is really referring to Fabric.  Fabric and Hyperledger when talking about projects are often used interchangeably.  For good or bad, this is likely a result of IBM's significant contributions to Fabric, and the ability for Fabric to run without specific hardware (sorry Mic!).  Having nearly half the TSC membership made up of individuals (not lost on me) working for one company (hopefully not lost on you), seems specious at best and doesn't help elevate the other Hyperledger projects to be on par with Fabric.

I also wonder at times about the role of the TSC as it seems that much of the TSC time is spent on things that aren't technical, at least not deeply so.  Is the whole project lifecycle debate a technical debate?  The current discussions about working groups and their roles really a technical issue the TSC should be debating?  I also wonder about what control or sway the TSC has on any project or should have on any project.  Are the Hyperledger projects just a bunch of technology projects with little intersection and no goal of convergence?  I mean every blockchain needs identity, but what is happening in the platforms to consolidate around an identity project such as Indy?  Likewise there are lots of issues around privacy and confidentiality, yet the privacy and confidentiality working group has serious concerns about what if any impact their work will have on the platforms.  If there is no impact, why should we continue the working group?  If there is no impact, what makes something a Hyperledger project other than the blessing of the TSC?  And why would a project want to join Hyperledger other than for the marketing value it brings if joining has effectively zero impact on the project direction?

Respectfully,
Todd

Please please please let's not call them SIGs! For the sake of avoiding confusion with the existing SIGs and their reporting structure.   I realize that we use WG in a slightly non-standard way compared to other orgs, but if we have ongoing persistent cross-project thematically-organized groups, let's keep calling them Working Groups, OK?  Adding time-bound tightly scoped Task Forces is fine (and what we're already doing, essentially).  Too much semantic thrash makes it difficult to keep everyone on board, is my main point.

I am for considering cutting down on the number of Working Groups by rebooting from zero and re-chartering.  I believe if we set the expectation that the working groups be driven by the projects themselves - that is, the rationale for their formation, the bulk of activity, the work products created - come from active maintainers and developers on the existing projects, and not from people who are not writing code, that will self-regulate the number well and I believe give them more implicit teeth.  Imagine restarting from zero WGs, and saying to add a new one, there must be not just interest but commitment from a majority of projects to have at least a representative attend and use it to coordinate their related efforts.  E.g., if the projects don't care enough about coordinating cross-project around the topic of Architecture or Identity to ensure they are involved and attending the calls and participating in conversations and aligning their dev roadmaps, then don't create it.  We need some form of cross-project info sharing outside the context of TSC calls, thematically scoped and ongoing, but not so many that efforts are diffused or fail to hit critical mass. I think that would address criticisms of the WG model to date.

Brian

On 9/12/19 9:22 AM, Mic Bowman wrote:

per the brief discussion in the TSC this morning, the core proposal from the WG task force is that we replace working groups with technology focused SIGs (where discussions happen) and task forces focused on a short term deliverable (where the deliverable must be completed in less than 6 months, for example). 

the list of proposals is here:

https://wiki.hyperledger.org/display/TF/Working+Group+Task+Force 

please comment (and, while we have withdrawn proposals 1 and 2, please read the discussion on them for context). 

specifically... here's where we're at:

• Proposal 3: Working groups should be dropped.
• Proposal 4: Formalize "task force" as a task-specific group with limited scope and fixed time to complete.
• Proposal 5: A task-force will be required to create a "proposal" and the TSC must approve the proposal.
• Proposal 6: The task-force leader will be required to report on completion of deliverables.
• Proposal 7: A task-force that requires additional time, must request an extension from the TSC.
• Proposal 8: Existing working groups will be converted into a technology focused SIG.

--mic

-- 
Brian Behlendorf
Executive Director, Hyperledger
bbehlendorf@...
Twitter: @brianbehlendorf