Node.js Foundation Technical Steering Committee (TSC) Meeting 2018-02-21

[mhdawson]

Time

UTC Wed 21-Feb-2018 17:00 (05:00 PM):

Timezone	Date/Time
US / Pacific	Wed 21-Feb-2018 09:00 (09:00 AM)
US / Mountain	Wed 21-Feb-2018 10:00 (10:00 AM)
US / Central	Wed 21-Feb-2018 11:00 (11:00 AM)
US / Eastern	Wed 21-Feb-2018 12:00 (12:00 PM)
London	Wed 21-Feb-2018 17:00 (05:00 PM)
Amsterdam	Wed 21-Feb-2018 18:00 (06:00 PM)
Moscow	Wed 21-Feb-2018 20:00 (08:00 PM)
Chennai	Wed 21-Feb-2018 22:30 (10:30 PM)
Hangzhou	Thu 22-Feb-2018 01:00 (01:00 AM)
Tokyo	Thu 22-Feb-2018 02:00 (02:00 AM)
Sydney	Thu 22-Feb-2018 04:00 (04:00 AM)

Or in your local time:

• http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Node.js+Foundation+Technical%20Steering%20Committee%20(TSC)+Meeting+2018-02-21&iso=20180221T17
• or http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=05PM+UTC%2C+Feb+21%2C+2018+in+local+time

Links

• Minutes Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TCUadaWiq8jTC4hHK1-c_OekF9OzCJVTXqIrVwLv0rc/edit

Agenda

Extracted from tsc-agenda labelled issues and pull requests from the nodejs org prior to the meeting.

nodejs/node

• src: delete proccess.env values set to undefined #18158

_{[EDIT: https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/17062 removed by @Trott]
[EDIT: https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/18131 removed by @Trott per @jasnell]}

nodejs/TSC

• Tracking issue for updating TSC on Board Meetings #476
• Strategic Initiatives - Tracking Issue #423

Invited

• Anna Henningsen @addaleax (TSC)
• Сковорода Никита Андреевич @ChALkeR (TSC)
• Colin Ihrig @cjihrig (TSC)
• Daniel Bevenius @danbev (TSC)
• Evan Lucas @evanlucas (TSC)
• Franziska Hinkelmann @fhinkel (TSC)
• Gibson Fahnestock @gibfahn (TSC)
• Jeremiah Senkpiel @Fishrock123 (TSC)
• James M Snell @jasnell (TSC)
• Joyee Cheung @joyeecheung (TSC)
• Matteo Collina @mcollina (TSC)
• Michael Dawson @mhdawson (TSC)
• Myles Borins @MylesBorins (TSC)
• Ali Ijaz Sheikh @ofrobots (TSC)
• Rod Vagg @rvagg (TSC)
• Michaël Zasso @targos (TSC)
• Sakthipriyan Vairamani @thefourtheye (TSC)
• Trevor Norris @trevnorris (TSC)
• Rich Trott @Trott (TSC)

_{[EDIT: @indutny and @mscdex removed by @Trott]}

Observers

• Timothy Gu @TimothyGu (observer)

Notes

The agenda comes from issues labelled with tsc-agenda across all of the repositories in the nodejs org. Please label any additional issues that should be on the agenda before the meeting starts.

Joining the meeting

Uberconference; participants should have the link & numbers, contact me if you don't.

Public participation

We stream our conference call straight to YouTube so anyone can listen to it live, it should start playing at https://www.youtube.com/c/nodejs+foundation/live when we turn it on. There's usually a short cat-herding time at the start of the meeting and then occasionally we have some quick private business to attend to before we can start recording & streaming. So be patient and it should show up.

Many of us will be on IRC in #node-dev on Freenode if you'd like to interact, we have a Q/A session scheduled at the end of the meeting if you'd like us to discuss anything in particular. @nodejs/collaborators in particular if there's anything you need from the TSC that's not worth putting on as a separate agenda item, this is a good place for that

[Trott]

Removing nodejs/node#17062. It was referred to the Release WG. Looks like it's only on the agenda because nobody removed the tsc-agenda label.

[Trott]

(Also removing @mscdex and @indutny. Can you update your template, @mhdawson?)

[Trott]

I'd like to find a different way to handle regular updates that doesn't involve tracking issues that are permanently on the agenda. Having permanent agenda items perpetuates the idea that the meetings are where things happen and where things should happen. The meeting should be the last resort for anything. We should strive for needing fewer meetings, not latch onto the meeting as an easy way to distribute information.

[Trott]

Last time, we deferred acting on nodejs/node#18158 until we could have @TimothyGu at a meeting. But I don't think this time slot works for him. In fact, it's possible none of the current time slots work for him, although he indicated that his schedule will be changing several weeks from now.

So that brings up a few things:

• Do we want to schedule something at a different time with @TimothyGu? (We'd want @targos there as well.) Honestly, not sure what we expect to get out of having him attend that we can't get out of the thread in the issue tracker, but scheduling an ad hoc meeting is an option.

• A separate issue: If Timothy is unlikely to be able to attend any meetings until (say) March or April, does it make sense to put his TSC nomination on hold until then and work to onboard someone else? Alternately, does it make sense to get his schedule information and see if meeting-picker comes up with something for the group that could work for him? (And of course there's always the option to do nothing about it and wait for it to resolve itself as it's not an urgent issue.)

For reference, here's Timothy's objection to that PR: nodejs/node#18158 (review)

There are two other TSC members who have registered opposition to the PR:

• @Fishrock123: src: delete process.env values set to undefined node#18158 (comment)
• @jasnell: src: delete process.env values set to undefined node#18158 (comment)

Additionally, @BridgeAR is opposed (nodejs/node#18158 (comment)).

There are multiple TSC and Collaborator approvals as well, and the PR's author is another TSC member (@targos). It was added to the agenda by @mcollina but he didn't seem to register an opinion on the PR itself. This raises another question:

• Is there anybody who endorses the PR strongly enough that they would want it escalated to the TSC so it can land over the objections? (I guess this question is primarily directed at @targos, but it could be anyone, including @mcollina, although if it's @mcollina, then I'd ask that he register his approval in the pull request thread.)

If no one feels strongly enough about it that they want it over the objections raised, then the TSC need not take it up.

[Trott]

TL;DR on that last comment I left:

I left a comment at nodejs/node#18158 (comment) asking for there to be some GitHub dialogue before the TSC takes this up.

[Trott]

I acknowledge that this comment is an example of the irksome practice of raising a problem without offering a solution. I apologize for that. Uh...solutions...maybe we can have a cron job open an issue in the main issue tracker periodically that @-mentions all the people who should be supplying updates etc.? For example, it could be weekly for the strategic initiatives and monthly for the board thing.

[benjamingr]

@Trott I appreciate you doing this and honestly I don't think that that particular PR is a good case study or that people have strong feelings about it. There weren't any strong feelings (at least that I saw), the facts are pretty well known and it has mostly stagnated. Taking things up to the TSC (for a vote) is a way to deal with stagnation - another way is to default to not landing things.

I don't think there is a very compelling case to raise either way - it's arguably nicer to delete values set to undefined, it's arguably more correct and backwards compatible to set it to undefined - I think the parties involved (feel free to correct me) understand what's at stake and the arguments and people don't really care about that particular PR enough to utilize the consensus seeking process to its fullest.

I think the TSC plays a much more important role when making decisions where there are stronger feelings (or stakes) involved. The other issue discussed for example - "esm: provide named exports for all builtin libraries" is about how Node.js APIs will be export in the future and has a lot of discussion, it's also huge (although that should probably be in nodejs/modules domain at some point).

[mcollina]

I’m traveling this week and I might not be able to attend.

[Trott]

nodejs/node#18131 was put on the agenda by @jasnell (nodejs/node#18131 (comment)).

It's not clear to me if he meant a "possible vote" on the issue as a whole, or on the issue of filtering vs. not filtering. (@jasnell, can you clarify?)

Seems like discussion there is still pretty robust so I wonder if it should be taken off the agenda for now?

Not a single Collaborator has weighed in with a green checkmark approval or a red X request for changes. But since there has been robust conversation, I'd recommend that we don't take this up at the TSC level yet. I think the active conversation is enough evidence to leave it alone for now, but if we want more eyes on it or something, let's instead ping the nodejs/modules team and/or the nodejs/collaborators team to get some definite opinions.

[jasnell]

It should be ok to remove that one from the agenda

[mhdawson]

Should we remove nodejs/node#18158 (comment) from the agenda. I agree that there is no urgent reason for the TSC to make a decision as there does not seem to be anybody strongly pushing for the change.

[mhdawson]

In terms of standing issues, I think we don't have to cause ourselves a lot of work by coming up with a new way to generate them. Instead we should just treat them as being on the agenda unless there are no other issues (ie we can cancel them if they are the only issues on the agenda). Having said that if somebody else has time to put in the effort to automate a better way of handling them then I'm good with that as well.

[Trott]

Should we remove nodejs/node#18158 (comment) from the agenda.

We are prohibited from doing that. From https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/master/GOVERNANCE.md#tsc-meetings:

The meeting chair and the TSC cannot veto or remove [agenda] items.

So unless @mcollina removes it (since he's the one who put it on the agenda in the first place), it must be on the agenda this week.

What we can do is generate consensus ahead of time that we're declining to act on it at this time (so it can be mentioned briefly in the meeting and everyone agrees that there's nothing to say or do). Or generate consensus for tabling the topic until @mcollina can attend. (But still, it must be on the agenda and be raised.) Or generate consensus that we don't need to have a meeting this week if it's the only agenda item.

[mcollina]

nodejs/node#18158 is well described. IMHO It does not need a champion, it just need a vote called on. I don’t think there is much to discuss. If we don’t call for a vote, that is going to sit there for a few months, and there cannot be consensus in this case (either we do it or we do not). May I open a voting issue?