Go package management committee

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Peter Bourgon

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Aug 26, 2016, 2:24:44 PM8/26/16
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As a reminder, in July I started the Go Packaging Proposal doc[0] with
the goal “To produce, have accepted, and implement a complete proposal
which addresses the concern of package management.” Thanks to everyone
who’s signaled interest. That process involves creating a small
committee to drive the proposal from start to finish.

In forming the committee I’ve focused on three important points—

1. First and foremost, that the design and discussion process, and
ultimate technical solution, should be driven by a data- and
user-needs-centric methodology.

2. That the schedule outlined in the process doc should be adhered to
as closely as possible. That means design-complete by end September,
and proposal-complete by end October, so that any possible language or
tooling changes can make the 1 November feature freeze for Go 1.8.

3. Each member should have or make time to devote to this process, so
that both points above are feasible :)

A committee size of four I believe most effectively balances a variety
of voice and opinion, and an ability to effectively decide and act.
After a great deal of consultation with, and feedback from, key
members of the Go language and package management/vendoring
communities, I'm happy to announce that Andrew Gerrand, Edward Muller,
Jessie Frazelle, and Sam Boyer have all agreed to serve on the package
management committee.

Andrew needs no introduction, as he's been leading the Go community
advocacy efforts from within the Go team since nearly the very
beginning. Andrew brings an unmatched perspective on the current state
and evolution of the Go language and tooling, and will be instrumental
in shepherding any possible language or tooling changes through the
proposal process.

Ed has been maintaining the godep project for the past two years, and
brings a pragmatic and user-centric perspective to the committee.

Jessie has been on the Go package management front lines for years,
originally with Docker and now with Kubernetes. I can't think of
anyone better to represent the needs of large Go projects and
organizations.

Sam may be best known in the Go community for his article "So you want
to write a package manager[1]." With his background and work on the Go
Package Solver, Sam brings theoretical depth and rigor to the
committee.

Keeping the committee small was absolutely essential, but it quickly
became apparent that several unquestionably qualified individuals,
whose efforts and experience would be critical to our success, would
be excluded. We decided that an advisory group, while not part of the
original Process doc, would enable the committee to remain small and
nimble, while leveraging the value, effort, and experience of a larger
group. The maintainers of popular package management tools Glide (Matt
Farina), govendor (Daniel Theophanes) and gb (Dave Cheney), as well as
Steve 'spf13' Francia (Hugo, Cobra) have all graciously agreed to
support in this role. Their job will be to help compile user and
domain research, and to represent user needs whenever the committee
needs input. Matt and Steve in particular have been hard at work on an
updated tool survey and user requirement doc; details forthcoming.
Both I and the committee are incredibly grateful to each of them for
their support.

I'll act as secretary, note-taker, and communications director for the
committee on an as-needed basis, to free them from the overhead. If
you have any questions about the process, please direct them to me.
And stay tuned for links to research and design Google Docs.

[0] https://docs.google.com/document/d/18tNd8r5DV0yluCR7tPvkMTsWD_lYcRO7NhpNSDymRr8
[1] https://medium.com/@sdboyer/so-you-want-to-write-a-package-manager-4ae9c17d9527#.iqtluxnrr
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