Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:107134
MIME-Version: 1.0
References: <CAOwTYAu5vCGMw4Dp0v90fGD9OGm6X0dc42iJV35bk1Df_yr_2w@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAOwTYAu5vCGMw4Dp0v90fGD9OGm6X0dc42iJV35bk1Df_yr_2w@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2019 06:35:55 +0300
Message-ID: <CAJW__o2zGs_s0NRznZiG5Wb5NSeRMDzitS5457hGg_xMJ3B0dQ@mail.gmail.com>
To: Joe Watkins <krakjoe@php.net>
Cc: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>, Rasmus <rasmus@php.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Defining the PHP Group
From: kalle@php.net (Kalle Sommer Nielsen)

Hi Joe

Den s=C3=B8n. 15. sep. 2019 kl. 08.48 skrev Joe Watkins <krakjoe@php.net>:
>
> Morning internals,
>
> There is confusion among the community, and contained in the documented
> history of PHP on the wider internet.
>
> The Wikipedia states that PHP is developed by the PHP Group, in saying th=
is
> it is (must be) referring to internals as a whole, but our own
> documentation names members of the group - who aren't even around mostly.
>
> I think we need to clarify what exactly is the purpose of the PHP Group
> today, does anyone want to attempt to do that ?

This is speculation/my interpretation, so take this with a grain of
salt; I think The PHP Group was the project governance back in the
day, but with PHP's ever so vastness and expansion, new developers
come in, old developers go all the time, I don't think this ever got
to be what it was meant to be. Now a days it mostly seems to serve as
a legacy of the past.

Given the recent clarification from Rasmus, I do not think the name
has any meaning anymore besides being a fancy name that holds the
copyright, whereas the copyright probably should be updated to be:
"Copyright (C) The PHP Project", on the PHP.net website, license et
al. Besides this I cannot think of a place where I have seen a
definition of "The PHP Group" or seen it active besides its recent
mention of being an "authoritative" power (which clearly is not the
case as there is no legal ramification to hold this statement true).

(I picked "The PHP Project" over "The PHP Development Team" which is
also commonly used to include everyone who contributes time and
resources to PHP).

> Whatever it's purpose, if it has one, we need to make clear at this time
> that there are no vetos: As Rasmus clarified, PHP is driven by the people
> who write PHP: No member of any group or company, historical or otherwise=
,
> has any veto powers, they cannot, and they must not behave as if they do.
>
> I would like to update the introduction to the Voting RFC:
>
> The development of PHP is community driven by the RFC process described i=
n
> this document. Anyone may initiate an RFC for any subject. At the end of
> the RFC process a vote is held among PHP developers to determine if the
> proposal is to be accepted.
>
> Should a proposal be accepted, the developers of PHP are committed to
> making the change.
>
> In some circumstances, merging an implementation into the source code of
> PHP may be delayed because of shortcomings in that implementation. In the=
se
> cases, resolution of these shortcomings is the responsibility of the
> proposer.
>
> Should a proposal be accepted without an implementation, it is the
> responsibility of the proposer to provide one.
>
> Does anyone object to any of those words ?
>
> Do we need to vote on changing the introduction (I'm happy to start an rf=
c
> for this, if necessary) ?

I got no objection to adding it, but perhaps an RFC should be more in
the direction of a "Mission statement" of sorts, stating what the
project is, what our goals are, who steers the direction etc. This
could be a decent start to sorting out the strings.



--=20
regards,

Kalle Sommer Nielsen
kalle@php.net