proposed module: Emeritus Module Owners

[Mitchell Baker]

Hello

Benjamin Smedberg pinged me to say that he would find it useful if I
were to implement the idea of Emeritus Module Owners. I also suspect
this would help existing module owners feel recognized and thus better
about passing on ownership when they should. Thanks to Benjamin for the
push to get this done.

So I'm proposing a new module: Emeritus Module Owners. I'm proposing
this is a very factual status, and not a qualitative measure of how well
one did performed the role. The latter seems a receipt for trouble and
then paralysis.

Here the proposal:

1. Description of the role of Emeritus Module Owners. I propose
adding this description to the Mozilla Modules and Module Owners page at
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/module-ownership/


An Emeritus Module Owner is a former module owner who has handed over
ownership to someone new. The ability to develop new leaders is
important to health of Mozilla and our mission. It’s also very
important to recognize when someone else is the best leader of an area
or activity that one has previously owned, and then to transfer
authority smoothly. This is how we will remain robust and relevant as
an organization that outlives any one of us.

The status of Emeritus Module Owner is a factual status. It is not a
qualitative decision about the quality of one’s service as a Module
Owner, or about the effectiveness of how ownership of the Module was
passed on.

On the other hand, Emeritus Module Owners have experienced a very
particular and important part of the a Module's cycle of activities --
new leaders gaining authority. And of course, the quality of how an
Emeritus Module owner passes on ownership is an important part of his or
her legacy with the Module. Emeritus Module Owners will vary in their
skill in developing and executing a succession plan. When those sort of
qualitative understandings are needed then other owners, peers and
contributors to the Module should be consulted.

2. Template for Directory of Emeritus Module Owners.

Module Name:
Date became the module owner:
Date stopped being the module owner:
Prior module owner (if any):
Successor module owner (if any, some modules may have a natural
lifespan):


3. And actually, I see that at some point we made a "Former Module
Owners" description at our list of project roles, but we haven't done
more with it that I know of.
(https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/roles/). I propose
deleting the paragraph at this page. Point 1 above adds Emeritus Module
Owners to the description of the Module system which puts all the info
re module owners in one place.

4. Implementation Topics:
a. Over time there are a large number of Emeritus Module Owners. In
fact, success in building mozilla into a long term (say 100 year)
organization requires this. We expect we will probably end up
categorizing our Emeritus Module Owners by the year in which module
ownership was passed on, e.g., “the cohort of 2015.”

b. Populating the list. We have a wiki page, which can be edited and
added to by anyone, but we require that additions be made either by the
previous or the subsequent module owner, and not by the person
themselves. That provides much of the necessary checking and
confirmation in the very act of editing.

For example, say I am a potential EMO. I would then need to find the
person who made me a MO or the person who succeeded me, and ask them to
make the edit. This would involve negotiating the correct values for
the fields between the two people, and the other person would then make
the edit, thereby confirming the agreement of the two parties.
This works much better than having people add themselves, and
incorporates some fact checking. (Thanks to Gerv for thinking up this
mechanism)

mitchell

[Gregory Szorc]

On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 11:59 AM, Mitchell Baker <mitc...@mozilla.com>
wrote:

I wholeheartedly support the nature of this proposal, which is all about
preserving deserved recognition and respecting people.

My only suggestion is why stop at module owners. Can we find a way to
recognize emeritus peers as well?

As a module owner, I've always found it difficult to ask people to rescind
their peer status because the public record of their achievement and role
is practically lost. I feel like I'm asking someone to erase their name and
accomplishments from history. And just removing them from the wiki to avoid
that exchange isn't a compassionate alternative (it can even be passive
aggressive).

For a while, some modules on the wiki listed emeritus peers. I'm almost
certain I added this attribution for a few build peers when I asked them to
rescind peer status after a long inactivity period. (Credit for starting
this convention belongs to someone else and I'm not sure who). Sadly, this
emeritus data was lost from the wiki a year or two ago (I suspect it had to
do with the refactor to the more formal wiki templates we now employ.) I'd
love to see it return in addition to emeritus module owners recognition.

gps

[Justin Dolske]

On 10/17/15 12:59 PM, Gregory Szorc wrote:

> My only suggestion is why stop at module owners. Can we find a way to
> recognize emeritus peers as well?

+1. The trend with Firefox and Toolkit over the last few years has been
to favor a flat structure with many peers, over specialized modules with
a few specific owners. There are still defacto domain-experts, but this
helps reduce confusion over who to ask for reviews, especially when a
change is not particularly domain-specific.

It would be valuable to recognize Emeritus Peers (Peers Emeritus?),
especially given that they are effectively peers as the term has been
used in the past or other areas of the project.

Justin

[David Rajchenbach-Teller]

On 17/10/15 21:59, Gregory Szorc wrote:

> I wholeheartedly support the nature of this proposal, which is all about
> preserving deserved recognition and respecting people.
>

> My only suggestion is why stop at module owners. Can we find a way to
> recognize emeritus peers as well?

Good idea.

Cheers,
David


--
David Rajchenbach-Teller, PhD
Performance Team, Mozilla

[Myk Melez]

> Gregory Szorc <mailto:g...@mozilla.com>
> 2015 October 17 at 12:59

> I wholeheartedly support the nature of this proposal, which is all about
> preserving deserved recognition and respecting people.
>
> My only suggestion is why stop at module owners. Can we find a way to
> recognize emeritus peers as well?

The semi-independent Bugzilla project has recognized "Former Developers"
for a long time on its Meet the Team page.

https://www.bugzilla.org/developers/profiles.html

It's an effective way to recognize those folks for their contributions
while still directing inquiries about the project to the "Current
Developers" who can better answer questions today.

And peers also share many of the module responsibilities with owners.
But owners have the "awesome responsibility of command" and the unique
burden of developing their peers into worthy replacements and then
knowing when to step aside. So it's worth recognizing them specially.


Regarding the proposal itself, initially it seemed strange to collect
emeritus owners into their own module, because it would dissociate them
from the modules they formerly owned. I would have expected the status
to be an attribute on each module, much as some current owners/peers are
marked "inactive" today.

But after sitting with it a bit, it makes more sense as a recognition of
project leadership (both in the assumption of an ownership role and in
its relinquishment). And it could also be a resource for new/emerging
leaders who are looking for mentors or role models. So I think it's a
good idea.

-myk

[Mitchell Baker]

On 10/20/15 9:04 AM, Myk Melez wrote:

Regarding the proposal itself, initially it seemed strange to collect emeritus owners into their own module, because it would dissociate them from the modules they formerly owned. I would have expected the status to be an attribute on each module, much as some current owners/peers are marked "inactive" today.

But after sitting with it a bit, it makes more sense as a recognition of project leadership (both in the assumption of an ownership role and in its relinquishment). And it could also be a resource for new/emerging leaders who are looking for mentors or role models. So I think it's a good idea.

-myk

Cool!  And I'm thinking that if we are going to recognize peers as well, then perhaps each module template should have another field, which is a link to the Emeritus Owners and Peers.  I'm not sure logistically if we can have a module and these separate links which change in tandem ... so we might have to pick one.

ml

[Mike Hoye]

On 2015-10-20 12:04 PM, Myk Melez wrote:
>
> I would have expected the status to be an attribute on each module,
> much as some current owners/peers are marked "inactive" today.

This touches on the only suggestion I had, that former owners and peers
be able to mark themselves "active" or "inactive", to telegraph their
interest in continued participation.


- mhoye

[Mitchell Baker]

Nice idea, I like that!

ml

[Mitchell Baker]

One other process I'm thinking we should implement is a discussion when
a Module Owner leaves employment, esp leaving employment at Mozilla. At
this discussion we would discuss things like:

-- how they came to be module owner (were they involved as a volunteer?
is their involvement all stemming from employment status?)
-- their new role -- how much time will they have? can they dedicate
enough attention to be the owner?
-- perhaps set a period of time after the end of employment to review this.
-- add the mechanism Mike mentioned -- where people can indicate if they
are active or inactive Emeritus Owners. That way one could step down as
Owner and still indicate one is active in the module.


then we could think about extending this to peers as well.

What do you think?

ml

On 10/20/15 9:30 AM, Mike Hoye wrote:

[Aaron Klotz]

I like this a lot, but I'd also suggest that we expand this idea beyond
merely just leaving employment to also encompass other changes in
employment, such as managerial promotions.

If one's employment status changes such that that person is no longer
able to effectively serve as an owner/peer due to other
responsibilities, this review process could also be valuable.

On 10/20/2015 12:54 PM, Mitchell Baker wrote:
> One other process I'm thinking we should implement is a discussion
> when a Module Owner leaves employment, esp leaving employment at
> Mozilla. At this discussion we would discuss things like:
>
> -- how they came to be module owner (were they involved as a
> volunteer? is their involvement all stemming from employment status?)
> -- their new role -- how much time will they have? can they dedicate
> enough attention to be the owner?
> -- perhaps set a period of time after the end of employment to review
> this.
> -- add the mechanism Mike mentioned -- where people can indicate if
> they are active or inactive Emeritus Owners. That way one could step
> down as Owner and still indicate one is active in the module.
>
>
> then we could think about extending this to peers as well.
>
> What do you think?
>
> ml
>
> On 10/20/15 9:30 AM, Mike Hoye wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance

[Jet Villegas]

When a Module Owner is also a Mozilla employee who then leaves Mozilla, it
seems prudent that their Module Ownership is relinquished. There are some
Modules for which Ownership has to be a full Time job. Steven Michaud's
recent departure seems like a good example of how to do that right.

There have been instances where a Module Owner is asked to relinquish
Module Ownership for other reasons. In those cases, I think Emeritus status
and continued Module involvement should be subject to review and approval.

--Jet




On Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 9:54 AM, Mitchell Baker <mitc...@mozilla.com>

wrote:

> One other process I'm thinking we should implement is a discussion when a
> Module Owner leaves employment, esp leaving employment at Mozilla. At this
> discussion we would discuss things like:
>
> -- how they came to be module owner (were they involved as a volunteer?
> is their involvement all stemming from employment status?)
> -- their new role -- how much time will they have? can they dedicate
> enough attention to be the owner?
> -- perhaps set a period of time after the end of employment to review this.
> -- add the mechanism Mike mentioned -- where people can indicate if they
> are active or inactive Emeritus Owners. That way one could step down as
> Owner and still indicate one is active in the module.
>
>
> then we could think about extending this to peers as well.
>
> What do you think?
>
> ml
>
> On 10/20/15 9:30 AM, Mike Hoye wrote:
>

[Mike Hoye]

On 2015-10-20 2:02 PM, Jet Villegas wrote:
> When a Module Owner is also a Mozilla employee who then leaves Mozilla, it
> seems prudent that their Module Ownership is relinquished. There are some
> Modules for which Ownership has to be a full Time job.

I believe that this is a conversation for the module owner and their
peers to have, and shouldn't forcibly be a condition of employment. I
really don't think we want to cross those streams.


- mhoye

[Mitchell Baker]

this is why i suggest a discussion be required. it could be that the
Owner role in a particular module can be done effectively by someone no
longer an employee; it could be that it can't. so requiring a
discussion seems like a "best practice" to me.

And also I like the idea of coming back to this a set time later, say 4
weeks. This gives a bit of experience to the decision, and lets both
the no-longer-an-employee Owner and the rest of the module contributors
evaluate with that experience.

And I like your idea of Emeritus folks being able to self-identify as
active, so that their interest in contributing remains apparent.

mitchell

[Gervase Markham]

On 20/10/15 19:02, Jet Villegas wrote:
> When a Module Owner is also a Mozilla employee who then leaves Mozilla, it
> seems prudent that their Module Ownership is relinquished.

I would be very uneasy with this being the default. Module Ownership is
a Mozilla project position, and does not come with or go with employment
by any particular entity, MoCo/MoFo included. This is one of the key
distinctions which makes the Module Ownership system different from the
MoCo org chart.

> There are some
> Modules for which Ownership has to be a full Time job.

That may be so, and it would be prudent to recognise which those are,
but Mozilla Corporation is not the only organization in the world which
might employ Mozilla developers, and if someone is unemployed, they also
have a reasonable amount of time to spare. This needs to be assessed on
a case-by-case basis.

> There have been instances where a Module Owner is asked to relinquish
> Module Ownership for other reasons. In those cases, I think Emeritus status
> and continued Module involvement should be subject to review and approval.

As Mitchell's original post outlined, Emeritus status is a factual
designation, not a subjective anointing. To do the latter would, as she
said, be a recipe for "trouble and then paralysis".

As for "current module involvement", that's not a formal status. If
someone has left under a cloud, it would be within the module owner's
capabilities to simply refuse their patches if they wished.

Gerv

[Jonas Sicking]

On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 6:06 AM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:
>> When a Module Owner is also a Mozilla employee who then leaves Mozilla, it
>> seems prudent that their Module Ownership is relinquished.
>

> I would be very uneasy with this being the default. Module Ownership is
> a Mozilla project position, and does not come with or go with employment
> by any particular entity, MoCo/MoFo included. This is one of the key
> distinctions which makes the Module Ownership system different from the
> MoCo org chart.

Absolutely agree with Gerv here.

That said, I think it would be worth being better at asking departing
employees if they want to retain module ownership/peership.

I think quite often people leaving mozilla end up not staying involved
enough that it makes sense for them to remain owners/peers. So
changing jobs is a good time to ask what their plans are.

But, I definitely think that the default should be that people retain
their module position.

/ Jonas

[Jonas Sicking]

On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 11:59 AM, Mitchell Baker <mitc...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> Hello
>
> Benjamin Smedberg pinged me to say that he would find it useful if I were to
> implement the idea of Emeritus Module Owners. I also suspect this would
> help existing module owners feel recognized and thus better about passing on
> ownership when they should. Thanks to Benjamin for the push to get this
> done.

Hi Mitchell,

I'm definitely in favor of recognizing former owners in a permanent
location. But as others have proposed, I think it's good to recognize
former peers as well as owners.

That said, I have not strong opinions about the formal procedures for
how we go about doing this. But I'm very happy to see that it sounds
like we're deciding to do something in this space.

/ Jonas

[Mitchell Baker]

On 10/21/15 2:17 PM, Jonas Sicking wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 6:06 AM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:

>>> When a Module Owner is also a Mozilla employee who then leaves Mozilla, it
>>> seems prudent that their Module Ownership is relinquished.

>> I would be very uneasy with this being the default. Module Ownership is
>> a Mozilla project position, and does not come with or go with employment
>> by any particular entity, MoCo/MoFo included. This is one of the key
>> distinctions which makes the Module Ownership system different from the
>> MoCo org chart.
> Absolutely agree with Gerv here.
>
> That said, I think it would be worth being better at asking departing
> employees if they want to retain module ownership/peership.
>
> I think quite often people leaving mozilla end up not staying involved
> enough that it makes sense for them to remain owners/peers. So
> changing jobs is a good time to ask what their plans are.
>
> But, I definitely think that the default should be that people retain
> their module position.
>
> / Jonas

I'll make another pitch for my proposal that we have a firm requirement
for a discussion when employee owners leave mozilla, and a follow up at
a set time after that.

ml

[Jet Villegas]

SGTM.

--Jet

On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 2:44 PM, Mitchell Baker <mitc...@mozilla.com>
wrote:

> On 10/21/15 2:17 PM, Jonas Sicking wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 6:06 AM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org>
>> wrote:
>>

>>> When a Module Owner is also a Mozilla employee who then leaves Mozilla,
>>>> it
>>>> seems prudent that their Module Ownership is relinquished.
>>>>

[Johnny Stenback]

This is a great plan IMO (with discussion whenever someone leaves
mozilla). Thanks Mitchell and bsmedberg for pushing for this!

- jst

On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 2:43 PM, Jet Villegas <jvil...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> SGTM.
>
> --Jet
>
> On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 2:44 PM, Mitchell Baker <mitc...@mozilla.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 10/21/15 2:17 PM, Jonas Sicking wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 6:06 AM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>

>>>> When a Module Owner is also a Mozilla employee who then leaves Mozilla,
>>>>> it
>>>>> seems prudent that their Module Ownership is relinquished.
>>>>>

>>>> I would be very uneasy with this being the default. Module Ownership is
>>>> a Mozilla project position, and does not come with or go with employment
>>>> by any particular entity, MoCo/MoFo included. This is one of the key
>>>> distinctions which makes the Module Ownership system different from the
>>>> MoCo org chart.
>>>>
>>> Absolutely agree with Gerv here.
>>>
>>> That said, I think it would be worth being better at asking departing
>>> employees if they want to retain module ownership/peership.
>>>
>>> I think quite often people leaving mozilla end up not staying involved
>>> enough that it makes sense for them to remain owners/peers. So
>>> changing jobs is a good time to ask what their plans are.
>>>
>>> But, I definitely think that the default should be that people retain
>>> their module position.
>>>
>>> / Jonas
>>>
>>
>> I'll make another pitch for my proposal that we have a firm requirement
>> for a discussion when employee owners leave mozilla, and a follow up at a
>> set time after that.
>>
>> ml
>>
>>

[Robert Kaiser]

Jonas Sicking schrieb:

+1

KaiRo

[Mitchell Baker]

On 10/20/15 9:04 AM, Myk Melez wrote:

[snip]

>
>
> Regarding the proposal itself, initially it seemed strange to collect
> emeritus owners into their own module, because it would dissociate them
> from the modules they formerly owned. I would have expected the status
> to be an attribute on each module, much as some current owners/peers are
> marked "inactive" today.
>
> But after sitting with it a bit, it makes more sense as a recognition of
> project leadership (both in the assumption of an ownership role and in
> its relinquishment). And it could also be a resource for new/emerging
> leaders who are looking for mentors or role models. So I think it's a
> good idea.
>
> -myk
>

I've sort of come around to your initial thought ... that we collect
emeritus folks in each module. That's mostly because the list of owners
and peers is a bit more to maintain and having the module folks each do
this for their own module is probably best. perhaps we can then make a
list of emeritus folks, as jst has done for owners.


ml

[Randell Jesup]

>This is a great plan IMO (with discussion whenever someone leaves
>mozilla). Thanks Mitchell and bsmedberg for pushing for this!

Ditto.

I went into the list to update a few (add roc to Media Playback owner emeritus),
and discovered a lot of cruft. Serves me right for editing it...

After talking with roc (and ehsan), I've made these changes:

Remove roc as owner of Widget, GTK, View System, and Graphics (was
co-owner). Widget was transferred to Vlad, GTK to KarlT, View System to
mstange, per roc.

I also moved padenot to owner for Web Audio after chatting with ehsan.

I cleaned up a bunch of Peers entries (moved a number to peersemeritus)

I moved timeless to owner-emeritus of xptcall, but did not install a new
owner. Peers are bsmedberg and shaver.... ;-) Josh also still owns
Javascript Debugger Backend (with peers Brendan and Rob Ginda)...

Full details are in the page history.

--
Randell Jesup, Mozilla Corp
remove "news" for personal email

[Randell Jesup]

[resend]

>>This is a great plan IMO (with discussion whenever someone leaves
>>mozilla). Thanks Mitchell and bsmedberg for pushing for this!
>
>Ditto.
>
>I went into the list to update a few (add roc to Media Playback owner emeritus),
>and discovered a lot of cruft. Serves me right for editing it...

Also: I realize I didn't post here first, but did it after-the-fact.
Feel free to revert any of these changes that aren't appropriate; I
didn't intend to sidestep anything important. Roc had no idea he still
owned modules (and I'm sure he's not the only one).