1.2 This charter briefly describes the mission, history, organization, and processes of the project.
2.2 webservices.apache.org defines a set of components that form the basis of a Web Services Stack. Where appropriate, these components plug into each other using standard APIs (formal, de facto, or proposed). The components must be high performance, reliable, and easy to use. Where inter-related, The components must be part of an underlying architectural orchestration that will allow them to work together without major negotiations or breakage.
2.3 We believe that the best way to define this Web Services architecture is by having both individuals and corporations collaborate on the best possible infrastructure, APIs, code, testing, and release cycles. Components must be vendor neutral and usable as core components for all.
2.4 In order to achieve a coherent architecture between webservices.apache.org components and other components and applications, standards (formal or de facto) will be used as much as possible for both protocols and APIs. Where appropriate, experiences and lessons learned will be fed back to standards bodies in an effort to assist in the development of those standards. We will also encourage the innovation of new protocols, APIs, and components in order to seed new concepts not yet defined by standards.
4.2 The Project. The Apache Web services Project, referred to in this document as "ws.apache.org" or "webservices.apache.org" or "the ws.apache.org project" or "the webservices.apache.org project".
4.3 Subproject. ws.apache.org is comprised of a number of subprojects; a subproject is responsible for a component or application whose scope is well defined.
4.4 Contributor. Anyone who makes a contribution to the development of the ws.apache.org project or a subproject.
4.5 Committer. Each subproject has a set of committers. Committers are contributors who have read/write access to the source code repository.
5.2 The activities of the PMC are coordinated by the Chairperson, who is an officer of corporation and reports to the Apache Board. The Chairperson will, on the request of the Apache Board, provide reports to the Board on issues related to the running of the ws.apache.org project.
5.3 The PMC has the following responsibilities:
a) Accepting new subproject proposals, formally submitting these proposals for committer vote, and creating the subproject (see SUBPROJECTS below). This is done in collaboration with the Incubator (see http://incubator.apache.org).
b) Facilitating code or other donations by individuals or companies in collaboration with the Incubator.
c) Resolving license issues and other legal issues in conjunction with the ASF board.
d) Ensuring that administrative and infrastructure work is completed.
e) Facilitating relationships among projects and subprojects.
f) Facilitating relationships between webservices.apache.org and the external world.
g) Overseeing webservices.apache.org to ensure that the mission defined in this document is being fulfilled.
h) Resolving conflicts within the project.
i) Reporting to the ASF board (through the Chair) on the progress of the project.
5.4 To become a member of the PMC, an individual must be nominated by a contributor, unanimously approved by all PMC members, and approved by a two-thirds majority of committers. In most cases, developers will have actively contributed to development for at least six months before being considered for membership on the PMC. The goal is to keep the membership of the core group at four to seven people in order to minimize the bureaucratic overhead required to keep the project operational.
5.5 In cases where the sub-project is unable to directly provide a representative on the PMC, another member of the PMC will be required to represent that sub-project on the PMC. This will be strongly discouraged. It is preferable that all sub-projects have direct representation on the PMC.
5.6 Once the PMC selection process has completed, the PMC will provide a recommendation to the Apache Board for the position of Chairperson of the PMC.
5.7 This recommendation will be made on the basis of an election held within the PMC. The election will be performed using a simple majority vote of PMC members.
5.8 Upon agreement by the Apache Board, the recommended Chairperson will, if they are not already, be appointed an officer of the corporation. See http://www.apache.org/foundation/bylaws.html for more information.
5.9 In the unlikely event that a member of the PMC becomes disruptive to the process, ceases to make codebase contributions for an extended period, or ceases to take part in PMC votes for an extended period of time, said member may be removed by unanimous vote of remaining PMC members.
5.10 The PMC is responsible for maintaining and updating this charter. Development must follow the process outlined below, so any change to the development process necessitates a change to the charter. Changes must be unanimously approved by all members of the PMC. A contributor may challenge a change to the charter at any time and ask for a vote of all ws.apache.org active committers, in which case a two-thirds majority must approve the change.
6.2 A new subproject proposal is submitted to the PMC, and then accepted by a majority ws.apache.org active committer vote.
6.3 A subproject may be removed by unanimous vote of the PMC, subject to the approval of the ASF board. A contributor may challenge the removal of a subproject at any time and ask for a vote of all active committers, in which case a two-thirds majority must approve the change.
7.2 Developers who make regular and substantial contributions may become committers as described below.
8.2 For the purposes of voting, committers will be classed as "active" or "inactive". Only active committers will be included in the totals used to determine the success or failure of a particular vote.
8.3 Committers remain active as long as they are contributing code or posting to the subproject mailing lists. If a committers has neither contributed code nor posted to the subproject mailing lists in 3 months, the PMC representatives for that subproject will e-mail the committer, the subproject development list, and the PMC mailing list notifying the committer that they are going to be moved to inactive status. If there is no response in 72 hours, the committer will become inactive.
8.4 An inactive status will not prevent a committer committing new code changes or posting to the mailing lists. Either of these activities will automatically re-activate the committer for the purposes of voting.
a) Bug Database -- This is a system for tracking bugs and feature requests.
b) Subproject Source Repositories -- These are several CVS repositories containing both the source code and documentation for the subprojects. Each subproject will have a set of committers to its repository.
c) Website -- An webservices.apache.org website will contain information about the webservices.apache.org project, including documentation, downloads of releases, and this charter. Each subproject will have its own website with subproject information.
d) PMC Mailing List -- This list is for PMC business requiring confidentiality, particularly when an individual or company requests discretion. All other PMC business should be done on the general mailing list.
e) General Mailing List -- This mailing list is open to the public. It is intended for discussions that cross subprojects.
f) Subproject Mailing Lists -- Each subproject should have a devoted mailing list. Many subprojects may wish to have both user and development lists. The individual subprojects may decide on the exact structure of their mailing lists.
12.2 It is recommended that each subproject have a smoke-test system that works at least as a basic integration test.