From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1GHhpi-0004HD-1K for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Mon, 28 Aug 2006 14:11:22 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.7/8.13.6) with SMTP id k7SEAXf0004336; Mon, 28 Aug 2006 14:10:33 GMT Received: from fizeau.zen.co.uk (fizeau.zen.co.uk [212.23.8.67]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.7/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k7SE8dXu008586 for ; Mon, 28 Aug 2006 14:08:39 GMT Received: from [212.23.3.142] (helo=rutherford.zen.co.uk) by fizeau.zen.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1GHeDr-0002TE-Jb for gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org; Mon, 28 Aug 2006 10:20:03 +0000 Received: from [62.3.120.141] (helo=spike) by rutherford.zen.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1GHeDq-0003Pw-Vx for gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org; Mon, 28 Aug 2006 10:20:03 +0000 Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 11:20:02 +0100 From: Roy Bamford Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Democracy: No silver bullet To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org References: <44ECF00D.7050107@gentoo.org> <1156678084l.9833l.0l@spike> In-Reply-To: (from 1i5t5.duncan@cox.net on Sun Aug 27 22:37:45 2006) X-Mailer: Balsa 2.3.13 Message-Id: <1156760402l.9835l.1l@spike> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; DelSp=Yes; Format=Flowed Content-Disposition: inline X-Originating-Rutherford-IP: [62.3.120.141] Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by robin.gentoo.org id k7SE8dXu008586 X-Archives-Salt: 8b7fd339-8752-4192-9ffb-3641073d5c2b X-Archives-Hash: f9482d168647355cbd114d9da4db86d7 On 2006.08.27 22:37, Duncan wrote: > Roy Bamford posted > 1156678084l.9833l.0l@spike, [snip] > > > If the council are to undertake the management of Gentoo, its terms > > of reference need to be drastically altered to allow them to > > undertake the management process defined above. > > > > In short, Gentoo has a top level power vacuum, allowing what > > amounts to the 'power struggle 'we see today. > > This is the best reading of the situation I've seen, IMO. Good work! > > Whether changing the rules to allow the council to manage > appropriately is politically doable or not remains an open question, > and I'm not even sure I'd back it myself if it is possible, but > that's the best description of where we are at that I've seen, which > means we've gone along way toward accomplishing the first step in any > good debate, a proper definition of the issue. > > -- > Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. > "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- > and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman > > -- > gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list > > Changing the councils terms of reference is the easy bit. My understanding is that under the present rules, it needs a GLEP to be approved by the council, However, the rules only permit things to happen. In a volunteer organisation, management is a particularly thankless task, it can't be done with a carrot and a stick, the stick does just not exist and the carrot is a bit small too. Luckily 90% of management decisions can be purely arbitrary - all that matters is that a decision is made. In most of these cases, its fine to allow the recommendation from the teams to prevail, they will be doing the work after all. Its the other 10% that cause all the friction, where some individuals or group are going to be upset whatever decision is made. If the ruling body (Council ?) were a proactive planning body, rather than a reactive adjudication body, many of these things would we seen coming - they would not be the surprises they are today, which is what upsets protagonists. Planning is not really the councils job. I've just convinced myself that what's needed is a new Gentoo wide project - Gentoo Planning that takes input from all the teams as to what they want to do by when and collates it in an attempt to spot potential conflicts. Gentoo Planning can then alert the parties to allow a discussion to take place and refer any failures to agree to the council. Its more admin - and I hate admin ... but to trot out an old adage, "if you don't have a plan, then plan to fail" is very true. All this proposal amounts to is formalising the communications amongst the teams - maybe a gentoo-planning mailing list would be adequate, to which all teams posted plans and progress reports on a regular basis and which was compulsory reading. Regular being defined by each team from time to time, depending on planned activity. Maybe gentoo-planning is a devrel subproject, since its concernded ? Regards, Roy Bamford -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list