State of the FIG

[Michael Cullum]

N.B. I make this post only partially as a secretary, so is not strictly neutral, but appealing to all member projects using my professional opinion.

Hi all,

No matter what side of any discussion you may be standing, I think we all agree that the past few days have been a dark patch on the FIG and the only thing that has come out of it is a loss of respect and interest in the PHP FIG, from member projects and the community.

It was agreed that something needed fixing a number of months ago and Larry and myself set about working on the new FIG 3.0 proposal which has, so far, received very little public criticism and I've heard support for it from many a member and community member. In this proposal, the FIG is dramatically refocused to focus on the specifications themselves, and not the politics surrounding it. We redefined a member project to include any project or even organisation who are significant PHP stakeholders and we lowered the barrier to entry to be a member project. We also removed all the project activity requirements so that projects do not have to actively participate regularly. We delegated the responsibility to a panel of 12 individuals to vote upon specifications on behalf of the FIG brand and the member projects whilst also giving the community a say in their selection. We formalized the Working Group structure so that the people who have knowledge on a topic, get a say on specifications in that problem space without giving every FIG member an equal vote.

Yet this week, we're seeing a discussion on whether or not a member project should be expelled because of misleading the FIG and the wider community by download/survey count rigging, topics to remove voting members who are inactive and a number of resignations by member projects. This doesn't reflect well on the PHP FIG at all, and in fact, it means the FIG has less respect in the wider PHP community.

In an organisation like the PHP FIG, there will always be politics, but the problem comes when the politics becomes the focus of the organisation instead of the specifications and goal of interoperability between frameworks/packages/libraries. It is a disappointing fact that whilst there is a brand new PSR that's just beginning to be worked on (PSR-14 Event Manager), there is a proposal for standardizing middlewares and PSR-13/12 should hopefully be in review within the next few months, those PSRs, the core of this group’s work, have received almost no attention compared the the ~50 emails in the past couple of days alone relating to internal group politics.

There is now a vote ongoing for whether Dracony should be a member (expelling vs nullification is just a semantic point). We have locked the discussion because it was just turning into one side versus another, if someone comes up with a revelation that changes the situation then that's fine but for now the same points are being rehashed. Let's have a vote on this, so everyone can have their say, then it's been decided upon and can we please leave it in the past.

Looking forward, let's get the FIG 3.0 to a point where people are happy with it. The intentions are to request any last reviews in a week or so, then we'll be putting it to a vote, assuming there are no issues, in June for implementation around August. In the meantime, there is no purpose to expelling inactive projects, because in 3 months time, projects being inactive will be okay. In the same way, I'd urge projects thinking about resigning to hold out for a little while and see what comes of FIG 3.0. I’d also just request that any projects who have resigned in the past 24 hours confirm that it’s still their intention to do so after reading this.

FIG 3.0 might be a magical cure for the FIG's problems, it might not be, but we'll only find out in a few months for sure. I'm just asking everyone to, for now, focus on the PSRs and leave other discussions for once we've got the new structure implemented and has been working for a bit. Then we can always have a structured review of how things are working after a few months.

Let's all pull together, look forward to the future, and see how things go so we can focus on standards, collaboration, cohesion and interoperability instead of internal group politics which doesn't just affect the image and reputation of the PHP FIG group, but also the reputation of the PSRs produced by this group.

Thanks,

Michael Cullum

[Samantha Quiñones]

Just to reiterate some of Michael's point, the FIG is at a very important moment and I really hope that the members who believe in the mission and potential of this group will see this as an opportunity to recommit to the future of the community.

--Samantha Quiñones

[Paul Jones]

> On May 11, 2016, at 14:43, Michael Cullum <m...@michaelcullum.com> wrote:
>
> Larry and myself set about working on the new FIG 3.0 proposal ... In this proposal, the FIG is dramatically refocused to focus on the specifications themselves, and not the politics surrounding it. We redefined a member project to include any project or even organisation who are significant PHP stakeholders and we lowered the barrier to entry to be a member project. We also removed all the project activity requirements so that projects do not have to actively participate regularly. We delegated the responsibility to a panel of 12 individuals to vote upon specifications on behalf of the FIG brand and the member projects whilst also giving the community a say in their selection. We formalized the Working Group structure so that the people who have knowledge on a topic, get a say on specifications in that problem space without giving every FIG member an equal vote.

In my opinion, the problems solved by this new proposal were caused by previous proposals, namely the intervening bylaws, especially the modifications to membership rules. The group, as far as I can tell, was operating *effectively* to produce PSRs, though perhaps without as much *efficiency* as some would have liked.

Further, the 3.0 proposal seems more like a reconstitution, or a reformation, rather than a continuation. It strikes me that adopting such a measure best lends itself best to a new start or a separate organization, thereby to drop the history of FIG (both good and bad) and to let the new organization stand on its own, without benefit or baggage of the group as it stands now.


--

Paul M. Jones
http://paul-m-jones.com

[Adam Culp]

IMO, though I respect the effort put forth by some, recent proposals are perhaps expecting too much of the FIG. The FIG was intended to create standards that frameworks and libraries could implement to enhance interoperability between themselves. if the larger community decides to follow the standards in their own codebase...so be it.

But I feel we lost sight of that somehow over the past year. Mistakenly, IMO, many seem to "feel" as if these standards should apply, and through extension be impacted, by those not even creating the frameworks and libraries represented.

We've lost sight of a clear direction, and in the latest attempts to regain that position I feel we've lost it even more. Thus we have lost some great voices in the communication to help the FIG continue define relevant standards.

My $0.02.

[Korvin Szanto]

I agree with Michael and Samantha's assessment completely. Let's move forward and get this question of where we want to be as a group hashed out. 

@adam, I don't think you're wrong. I'd say that the fact that FIG v3 repositions the group into a more community oriented standards body has been clearly stated, I think it's just a matter of where we as a group see ourselves going. 

I personally like the idea of being a more inclusive group, and I think that it's wrong to say that the only people effected by interoperability are the people writing frameworks.

Thanks,

Korvin

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[Larry Garfield]

As the PHP community has grown up and become more integrated and
collaborative, the impact of PSR standards has moved beyond
just-frameworks. The "many people" that Adam refers to are not some
cabal within FIG; it's the broader community that alternately adopts FIG
as the PHP-wide standards body, objects that it hasn't become the
PHP-wide standard body, or objects that it is the PHP-wide standards
body without having PHP-wide representation.

The FIG 3 proposal, at its core, is accepting that fact and
re-positioning FIG to account for it. That doesn't need to be a new
organization. Organizations adjust their positioning to account for a
changing world all the time, especially the healthy ones. A "full
reboot" would be counter-productive, and serve no purpose other than to
preserve the "Old FIG". I see little value, to our current members, to
the organization, or to the PHP community, in shutting down FIG just to
reboot it with a new name with the same people and mission. We didn't
need to do that when we formalized the Editor role; we didn't need to do
that when we adopted the name FIG. We don't need to do it to add more
community involvement and improve working groups.

Let me ask this: Does anyone object to the mission statement at the very
beginning of the proposed PR? That is kind of a big deal, and it's a
bit unnerving that no one has even given it a second thought. Does
anyone disagree with that as a summary of FIG's mission? (Currently we
have no mission statement, just an informal and often-disagreed-upon
kinda sorta.)

--
Larry Garfield
la...@garfieldtech.com

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[Michiel Rook]

Larry (and others),

I haven't been as involved with the FIG as I want to, or perhaps should, be.

I applaud your and Michael's efforts regarding the 3.0 proposal and hope
that it turns out to be what this group needs.

While not suggesting a reboot, I do suggest a rename of the organization
to something like PHP Standards Community, PHP Standards Group, PHP
Standards Body, ... as I feel that that the "Framework Interopability" part
of the name doesn't cover the proposed mission statement (which I agree
with).

regards,

Michiel

[Dracony]

Micheal, can you please stop with the assertions like:

> download/survey count rigging

Because it seems what you are trying to do is subtly further push your side of the argument. The discussion thread was locked, and I respected that, I didn't create a new one, and am actually contributing to stopping the drama. If you want to continue accusing me of stuff on the FIG mailing list, please let's get a separate thread for that again.

[Robert Hafner]

Dracony- you should really do yourself a huge favor and just stop responding to this stuff. Hell, turn your internet off for a month and come back later. There’s nothing you can say at this point that will help your cause.

Michael- I agree. This is clearly a new organization being described and it should probably unload form the baggage that FIG has.

Rob

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[Joe Ferguson]

Hi Dracony, What Michael actually said was ‘we’re seeing a discussion on whether or not a member project should be expelled because of misleading the FIG and the wider community by download/survey count rigging’. He wasn’t saying you did or didn’t, but that there was a discussion on whether or not you had. Michael hasn’t accused you of or asserted anything. As secretaries we actually even agreed that Michael was actually in the least biased position of the three of us regarding this matter and was going to be the secretary to handle the vote counting on the nullification vote. If you feel this is unfair feel free to let us know (in...@php-fig.org forwards to all three of us) and Samantha or I will take it over but we discussed it amongst us and felt Michael was best placed/neutral on this. Thanks,

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- Joe Ferguson
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MemphisPHP.org

[Roman Tsjupa]

I would really prefer if he said so himself tbh. Sorry if Im a bit jumpy with the responses, but the whole thing keeps me stressed for almost a week now.

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[Michael Cullum]

As above (I spoke with Joe and Samantha before Joe replied earlier), I was referring simply to the discussion, I wasn't saying you had or had not. That's not for me to judge nor comment on.

Let's try and get back on-topic now please.

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[Adam Culp]

Please see my reply at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/php-fig/h3wrQePdzfc/jkw9LmvDDgAJ which also carries relevance to this thread.

On Wednesday, May 11, 2016 at 3:43:27 PM UTC-4, Michael Cullum wrote:

[Márk Sági-Kazár]

Hi all,

I wasn't really active in the list for quite a long time now (about a year or so) and especially I tried to avoid following any discussions related to the "State of the FIG". I had quite a few arguments for doing so:

- The group started to fall apart. When it all started, it was purely about creating good standards useful for everyone. Discussions became much less technical and much more personal.
- The group started to increase: new members were accepted, which itself is not wrong. But this again made the technical work less important.
- Politics started to gain much more importance: what is allowed, what is not, who is allowed to commit to repos, etc.

About one year ago (when PSR-7 was finally out) me and a friend of mine were talking about the FIG and imagined a future, where the "original" members will simply quit and create "Not the FIG, but something else". Does it sound familiar? Because something like that is happening right now. (People are leaving the FIG right now caliming they don't have time, I would like to see some stats of their time from the last few years compared to now. Although it is probably true that they don't have time (who has?), it's just a casus belli and I don't really think it's the real cause).

All in all: in my opinion it became much more important for the group HOW things happen instead of WHAT happens.

Another major problem which made me moving away from the FIG was that nevertheless everyone claimed that the FIG was about projects and not people, this was simply not true (there were quite a few discussions about that as well). Maybe it was at the very beginning, but it became false over time. We all saw rejected applications because of representative's behavior. We all saw the harsh discussions between disagreeing people. Having the best technical solution quickly became a secondary thing.

I strongly believe that the current situation with PHPixie is because of this non-admitted fact. When PHPixie first sent it's application to the FIG, it was rejected mostly for the behavior of Dracony (only some people made the argument of lack of incluence, and not other personal ones as well). I also made my points in that discussion, and I have to say Roman "learnt" the lesson and changed his attitude, became much more constructive in the list (at least based on what I saw). After that PHPixie has been accepted based in the increased participation in the list and the increased "influence". Skip ahead. Roman is now judged by some alleged actions (from my point of view, none of them has been undoubtedly proven) and based on that some members of the FIG tries to expell PHPixie. I find the personal attacks against Roman disgusting, even he commited any of the actions he is accused with. I don't think it is needed to be proven at all. On the other hand, if PHPixie stats are really fraud, I don't think it is a question, that members should investigate the problem, and based on all evidence agains PHPIXIE, they should expell the project. That's my opinion, everyone can have their own. But the current situation is rather a crusade against Roman than a correct procedure to decide whether PHPixie can remain part of the group or not. (Full disclosure: I don't judge Andrew's intents of investigating PHPixie nor anyone who did the same, the procedure based on that is what I have problem with).

I wanted to write this down, because I believe that these non-spoken things are part of the issues that caused the FIG to be in the state where it is now. I am one of the people who hope that with the upcoming changes called "FIG 3.0" will bring change, but I also think that not considering the issues above for the sake of "political correctness" is a mistake. (not saying though that they are not considered)

I am not trying to make strong statements, not trying to tell you how to do things, this is just a reflection from an outsider.

Kind regards,
Márk Sági-Kazár

[Andrew Carter]

Roman is now judged by some alleged actions (from my point of view, none of them has been undoubtedly proven) and based on that some members of the FIG tries to expell PHPixie.

I believe this may require another thread, but the thread that this was home to has been locked. If anyone wants to respond to this comment, can I instead recommend that they +1 another threading being opened and we continue the discussion there.

I've seen this view point expressed a couple of times, including by an article from a FIG voting member. At the climax of the "drama" some of the evidence produced was buried in the locked thread, so I can understand this. However, the following needs to be made clear to all voting members:

There is proof that the fake confession on the thread was posted by dracony. The headers on the message from a russian webmail service contained an X-Originating-From IP address. I retrieved his IP address using social engineering and they matched. Once he realised what I had done he rapidly posted some excuses to the mailing list and confirmed that the IP address was his.

Again, if you want to respond to this - I request that you first request a new thread being opened to move the discussion there.

Apologies for taking this off topic, but from the sounds of things many voting members aren't aware that he was directly linked to the fraud.

[Márk Sági-Kazár]

The only reason I mentioned this incident as an example because it clearly shows that in this case not the project is the concern of the group, but the representative and his actions. Like I said, if it turns out that PHPixie is a fraud, then it should be considered to be removed from the group. Period. The fact that the representative may or may not be involved (maybe I missed some further proof, I admit I haven't read the whole topic) is not important. Might make sense to prove it as well, but from the group's POV the only thing that should be considered is the project itself. At least that's what the group claimed to do in the past, which is clearly not true (not just in this case, but in several cases in the past). As said, this crusade against Dracony is simply disgusting, even if he was involved in cheating. The FIG is not a court, it's not the police and goes against it's own rules. If something, then this should be included in a CoC.

Since the already locked thread is mostly about Dracony, I would also propose to open a thread and discuss the future of PHPixie within the group. Although there is an ongoing vote, some people are down voting it for political reasons (like missing discussion).

I don't think it's off topic, it's a nice example of the issues with the FIG, but I agree that the concrete things should be discussed in a separate thread.

[Márk Sági-Kazár]

One more thing to add here: Although I strongly believe that in the current case the project should be the subject of discussion, I don't think that behavior like this as a representative is acceptable. (This may not have been clear). However, this would require asking the representative to step down and suggest a substitute. Since the current case involves the project membership, I would rather concentrate on that one instead of humiliating it's representative (even if his actions would at least require to step down as a representative).

Stopped talking about PHPixie, just wanted to make the above correction.