The text below is from the perspective of a lab steward (specifically Vipin Bharathan- later we will socialize this among the lab stewards to get a broader view)
Review the language in the labs charter on Sponsors.
Proposers need a Sponsor (i.e. a maintainer of one of the Hyperledger projects, a TSC member or a WG chair);
From the Process To Propose A New Lab
The sponsor(s) are responsible for reviewing the proposal. Sponsors do not have a responsibility beyond this; ongoing work like contributing code or reviews is not tied to their role as sponsors. In reviewing the proposal, the sponsor(s) make sure that the proposal is cogent, and novel (in conception, proposed execution, or interested community). To find sponsors a. the proposers can use their connections to existing projects and ask maintainers b. find working groups or projects with affinities to the proposed lab and pitch the project (good to have the template already filled out) in associated channels and or mailing lists. The WG chairs emails, the maintainers contacts etc. can be found on the wiki or github. Make personal appeals if you can.
This language was created to clarify the role of the Sponsor as well as to guide proposers in finding Sponsors, since we (the lab stewards) had several reports about the friction in finding Sponsors.
Specific cases:
Vipin Rathi about friction in the labs process
AFAIK, the main problem that Vipin Rathi had was in finding a sponsor, as SIG chairs cannot Sponsor a lab. He was a SIG chair, I stepped in to Sponsor the lab as I was eligible as Identity WG chair.
Not all labs follow Apache
About the licensing issue in labs, two projects with no license file, 3 with CC-By-4.0 and of course the one with MIT. All others (37) have Apache 2.0- Sponsors are not setup to catch this, suggest adding this to repolinter.
Governance
Current practice is for sponsors to be involved just at the inception of the lab. If the intention is to hold the sponsors responsible for governance matters, then it has to be stated clearly. This has the potential to drastically shrink the sponsor pool and create even more friction and dry up participation in labs which was meant to be a light weight way to contribute code.
Also sections on contributions, good first issues, timely reviews etc. apply across the board and not just to labs. Let us have a comprehensive and concise doc on these practices for all Hyperledger code.
Some of these are mechanistic, others are social- a community mentor can certainly help with the social angle, but the mechanistic angle (like the license-guidance in the Readme for contributions, what to expect for a turnaround etc.) can be filled by tools like the repolinter or more documentation. Sponsors do not have to be the vehicle for this.