Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] Special meeting [WAS: Council meeting summary for 8 May 2008] (fwd)

Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] Special meeting [WAS: Council meeting summary for 8 May 2008] (fwd)

[Ferris McCormick]

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On Mon, 2008-05-19 at 14:41 +0000, Richard Freeman wrote:


> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 10:39:02 -0400
> From: Richard Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>
> To: Alistair Bush <ali_bush@gentoo.org>
> Cc: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] Special meeting [WAS: Council
>      meeting summary for 8 May 2008]
> 
> Alistair Bush wrote:
> >  It really isn't the Councils decision and the only thing they can do to get
> >  themselves out of this situation is to hold an election. Firstly, even tho
> >  this is absolutely minor , GLEP 39 has been "breached" and it details what
> >  the solution is for that breach.  Therefore that solution, a new council via
> >  an election, _must_ be performed.
> >
> 
> Uh - the word "must" is a bit strong.  Why "must" an election be performed? 
> GLEP 39 is a document several years old, that probably pre-dates half of the 
> devs here, and most likely most of the ones that were around weren't really 
> envisioning that it be used in this way today.
> 

I can't find the original choices archived on any of my systems, but as
best as I recall, we knew what we were voting for and intended it to be
used exactly as written.  Now, the date on GLEP 39 (metastructure
proposal) is September, 2005.  What I do have archived is the slate of
candidates for the first Council elected under this structure.  It is
dated 2005-08-01.  So there should really be no question but that the
policy predates the GLEP and thus the GLEP just reflects the policy
chosen by the developer base.

Policy says we must hold an election for a new Council within one month
of the violation.  No matter how you wish to read it or argue it, this
leaves us about 28 days and counting.

(GLEP 39 is a bit less that 3 years old.  I suppose that qualifies as
"several", but it's hardly ancient.)

........... SNIP .............
> 
> The council was elected because they already had the respect of most gentoo 
> devs.  That isn't going to change simply because a few people missed a meeting.

Probably not.  But suppose we compound this and figure out a way to get
around our written policy.  What of respect then, Hmm?  And by the way,
this early election does reset the clock, so whoever gets elected will
have a 12 month term starting presumably on or before 15 June.

>  
................. SNIP ..................
> 
> >
> >  In fact, whose duty is it too call the election? Decide when any election is
> >  to take place?
> 

Council, I think, to implement the policy governing Council.  It's like
any other Council election, just happening in May instead of
August/September, and compressed from 2 months into 1.

> Hmm - I suspect that would again be the council - since everybody already looks 
> to them for leadership.  Why don't we see what their perspective is?  If you 
> feel strongly about new elections try contacting one of them directly and 
> talking about it.  Most council members have gotten where they are because 
> folks think they have a good head on their shoulders - they're likely to listen 
> to you.  If they hear lots of people calling for a new election I suspect that 
> they'd go ahead and hold one.  I think that those who are concerned about this 
> issue would get further in this way than by kicking up a storm on a mailing 
> list (not that open discussion is a bad thing).  Don't be surprised if they 
> don't take action on the basis of one communication, but if they hear from lots 
> of devs they'd probably take it seriously.

Uh, the new election requirement is from existing policy.  It's not
really a popularity contest of some sort.  And it's not based on what
Council members want to do.  If that were the case, there would be no
point in having policies at all, would there?  And as for contacting
them directly, I thought that's what we were doing by discussing the
matter in this thread.

Regards,
Ferris
-- 
Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) <fmccor@gentoo.org>
Developer, Gentoo Linux (Devrel, Sparc, Userrel, Trustees)

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[gentoo-project] Re: Re: [gentoo-dev] Special meeting [WAS: Council meeting summary for 8 May 2008] (fwd)

[Steve Long]

Ferris McCormick wrote:

> On Mon, 2008-05-19 at 14:41 +0000, Richard Freeman wrote:
>> Alistair Bush wrote:
>> >  It really isn't the Councils decision and the only thing they can do
>> >  to get themselves out of this situation is to hold an election.
>> >  Firstly, even tho this is absolutely minor , GLEP 39 has been
>> >  "breached" and it details what
>> >  the solution is for that breach.  Therefore that solution, a new
>> >  council via an election, _must_ be performed.
>> >
>> 
>> Uh - the word "must" is a bit strong.  Why "must" an election be
>> performed? GLEP 39 is a document several years old, that probably
>> pre-dates half of the devs here, and most likely most of the ones that
>> were around weren't really envisioning that it be used in this way today.
>> 
> 
> I can't find the original choices archived on any of my systems, but as
> best as I recall, we knew what we were voting for and intended it to be
> used exactly as written.
I have always read its intent as ensuring the required monthly meetings are
not slacked upon. The additional meeting, with a week's notice given at the
tail end of a long meeting, does not strike me as an egregious slack.

I appreciate the policy is explicit: I disagree that the intent ("to cut
slacking") was to provoke an election in such an instance as now, when
monthly meetings have not failed to happen.

> Policy says we must hold an election for a new Council within one month
> of the violation.  No matter how you wish to read it or argue it, this
> leaves us about 28 days and counting.
> 
> (GLEP 39 is a bit less that 3 years old.  I suppose that qualifies as
> "several", but it's hardly ancient.)
> 
> ........... SNIP .............
>> 
>> The council was elected because they already had the respect of most
>> gentoo
>> devs.  That isn't going to change simply because a few people missed a
>> meeting.
> 
> Probably not.  But suppose we compound this and figure out a way to get
> around our written policy.  What of respect then, Hmm?  And by the way,
> this early election does reset the clock, so whoever gets elected will
> have a 12 month term starting presumably on or before 15 June.
>
As you say it was written 3 years ago. Ciaranm mentioned that the background
was a Council that never turned up for most meetings. The circumstance is
very different, and I would argue the intent of the Policy was not to force
an election, with all the associated work and loss of code time, when the
Council is not slacking.

No one here is arguing that we have a slacking Council, similar to the "bad
old days", are they?

I agree with with Rich Freeman's points about the difference between
machines and humans: humans spot when the policy needs fine-tuning. In this
case, i think the policy should just be changed to only apply to monthly
meetings, for the specific case of triggering an election. Not for awarding
slacker marks, for which there should be a required notice to a m-l, with a
defined period, say 7 days. (So if there was no ml notification of this
last special meeting, forget about it and chalk it up to experience.)


-- 
gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-project] Re: Re: [gentoo-dev] Special meeting [WAS: Council meeting summary for 8 May 2008] (fwd)

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Mon, 19 May 2008 19:25:14 +0100
Steve Long <slong@rathaus.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
> No one here is arguing that we have a slacking Council, similar to
> the "bad old days", are they?

A Council that conveniently fails to turn up when discussing things
that either don't interest them or that might make them look bad? A
Council holding secret meetings and conspiring with the devrel lead
behind the rest of devrel's backs? A Council that simultaneously says
"yes, we were behind musikc's actions" and "no, it was solely musikc's
decision"? That's a lot like the old days.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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Re: [gentoo-project] Re: Re: [gentoo-dev] Special meeting [WAS: Council meeting summary for 8 May 2008] (fwd)

[William L. Thomson Jr.]

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On Mon, 2008-05-19 at 19:50 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Mon, 19 May 2008 19:25:14 +0100
> Steve Long <slong@rathaus.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
> > No one here is arguing that we have a slacking Council, similar to
> > the "bad old days", are they?
> 
> A Council that conveniently fails to turn up when discussing things
> that either don't interest them or that might make them look bad? A
> Council holding secret meetings and conspiring with the devrel lead
> behind the rest of devrel's backs? A Council that simultaneously says
> "yes, we were behind musikc's actions" and "no, it was solely musikc's
> decision"? That's a lot like the old days.

Did the old days lack a foundation or other ruling body other than the
council? If so then it's of no surprise why past problems resurface.

IMHO seems since it's inception the Foundation has never stood on it's
own two feet. Which I think allot of the other problems all indirectly
stem from. Lack of organization, leads to problems and chaos.

-- 
William L. Thomson Jr.
amd64/Java/Trustees
Gentoo Foundation


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Re: [gentoo-project] Re: Re: [gentoo-dev] Special meeting [WAS: Council meeting summary for 8 May 2008] (fwd)

[Richard Freeman]

Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Mon, 19 May 2008 19:25:14 +0100
> Steve Long <slong@rathaus.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
>> No one here is arguing that we have a slacking Council, similar to
>> the "bad old days", are they?
> 
> A Council that conveniently fails to turn up when discussing things
> that either don't interest them or that might make them look bad? 

Once.  Most likely another meeting would be on the books to address the 
issue if the distraction of figuring out what to do about GLEP 39 hadn't 
come up.

 > A
> Council holding secret meetings and conspiring with the devrel lead
> behind the rest of devrel's backs? 

As far as I can see - nobody is having secret meetings.  Sure, council 
members run into each other and chat, and maybe agree on things.  That 
isn't really a secret meeting - all organizations do that stuff.  And in 
every organization I've been involved with it isn't considered a 
conspiracy when the board of directors talks to the head of a department 
- that is just called the chain of command.  Just because we all elect 
the council doesn't mean that they need to consult with every dev before 
doing anything, although practices like discussion of topics on -dev in 
advance of meetings are a good thing in general.

 > A Council that simultaneously says
> "yes, we were behind musikc's actions" and "no, it was solely musikc's
> decision"? That's a lot like the old days.
> 

Well, nobody really speaks for "the council" - you have a half-dozen 
devs who all have their own voices.  No shock that they don't say the 
same thing (which might be why the avoid commenting too much directly in 
these threads).

I think the issue here is that a few devs are taking issue with how the 
recent forced retirements were handled, but rather than just dealing 
with that issue we're debating procedural technicalities.

If the issue is the dismissals - then talk about the dismissals.  This 
isn't the US court system where Al Capone goes to jail for forgetting to 
declare his income from illegal activities.  And we don't want to turn 
into Wikipedia where if somebody doesn't like somebody's wording of an 
article we forget discussing the matter at hand and instead debate the 
proper application of policy WP:PILEOFLETTERS and whether it is an 
adequate excuse to just delete the article.

And if we're going to talk about dismissals why don't we let the council 
actually meet and openly discuss the issue and make a decision before we 
condemn them?
-- 
gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-project] Re: Re: [gentoo-dev] Special meeting [WAS: Council meeting summary for 8 May 2008] (fwd)

[Patrick Lauer]

On Monday 19 May 2008 18:50:24 Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Mon, 19 May 2008 19:25:14 +0100
>
> Steve Long <slong@rathaus.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
> > No one here is arguing that we have a slacking Council, similar to
> > the "bad old days", are they?
>
> A Council that conveniently fails to turn up when discussing things
> that either don't interest them or that might make them look bad?
Looks like one person had an unexpectedly long travel, one person had 
connection issues and one person was never notified over a reliable channel.

So that looks to me like Mr. Murphy showing what he can do ... 
Shit happens, now let's make manure out of it so the plants can grow better 
next season.

I'd say that 
(1) the meeting was not agreed on nor announced on the regular channels
(2) a re-election would only confuse things and re-elect the same people
(3) the people involved have shown that they try their best to improve things. 
Trying to kick them at the first sign of human error would not send a good 
signal

My suggestion thus would be, if people insist, to have a vote of no 
confidence. If people really can't live with this small oops then so be it, 
otherwise it'll show that while there has been an oops it's not the end of 
the world. 

> A 
> Council holding secret meetings and conspiring with the devrel lead
> behind the rest of devrel's backs? A Council that simultaneously says
> "yes, we were behind musikc's actions" and "no, it was solely musikc's
> decision"? That's a lot like the old days.
A person not working on gentoo writing 35%+ of all emails on some 
mailinglists? Random insults and starting pointless flamewars?

Looks like the old day. I'm still waiting for the day when you leave 
University and don't have that much time to troll others.

Anyways, this is a debianistic discussion, only discussing things so that 
things will be discussed. I hope people don't waste too much time on politics 
and focus on improving things instead of dissing others and stroking their 
p... ego.
-- 
gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

[gentoo-project] Re: Re: Re: [gentoo-dev] Special meeting [WAS: Council meeting summary for 8 May 2008] (fwd)

[Steve Long]

Ciaran McCreesh wrote:

> On Mon, 19 May 2008 19:25:14 +0100
> Steve Long <slong@rathaus.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
>> No one here is arguing that we have a slacking Council, similar to
>> the "bad old days", are they?
> 
> A Council that conveniently fails to turn up when discussing things
> that either don't interest them or that might make them look bad? A
> Council holding secret meetings and conspiring with the devrel lead
> behind the rest of devrel's backs? A Council that simultaneously says
> "yes, we were behind musikc's actions" and "no, it was solely musikc's
> decision"? That's a lot like the old days.
> 
Saying it's someone's call and that you support them in making that decision
strikes me as the chain-of-command in operation.

And I note you're not saying that you think the Council have been slacking
in the way you outlined in your earlier post as the motivation for this
policy.

Politicking and sniping? Just like the old days; everyone else has moved on.
Why not just concentrate on your Gentoo fork[1]? Or is all this FUD just a
way of slowing down the competition? Well it's been working for 2 or 3
years, I can see why you keep on with the tactic.

I assume you won't be using the Gentoo tree, with its shoddy QA, for
exherbo?

[1] http://www.exherbo.org/


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Re: [gentoo-project] Re: Re: Re: [gentoo-dev] Special meeting [WAS: Council meeting summary for 8 May 2008] (fwd)

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Mon, 19 May 2008 21:53:01 +0100
Steve Long <slong@rathaus.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
> Politicking and sniping? Just like the old days; everyone else has
> moved on. Why not just concentrate on your Gentoo fork[1]? Or is all
> this FUD just a way of slowing down the competition? Well it's been
> working for 2 or 3 years, I can see why you keep on with the tactic.
> 
> I assume you won't be using the Gentoo tree, with its shoddy QA, for
> exherbo?
> 
> [1] http://www.exherbo.org/

Oh dear. It took under a day from the announcement to the first silly
FUD like that to crop up.

http://ciaranm.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/paludis-gentoo-and-exherbo/

I do believe I addressed all your nonsense before you even posted it.
Now please don't do it again. I'm going to be ignoring anything further
along those lines.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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[gentoo-project] Re: Re: Re: Re: [gentoo-dev] Special meeting [WAS: Council meeting summary for 8 May 2008] (fwd)

[Steve Long]

Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> I do believe I addressed all your nonsense before you even posted it.
> Now please don't do it again. I'm going to be ignoring anything further
> along those lines.
> 
No you just focussed on the aside at the end, understandably (while avoiding
the point that, as ever, you expect to use the Gentoo ebuild tree.) The
points I was making:
>> A Council that simultaneously says
>> "yes, we were behind musikc's actions" and "no, it was solely musikc's
>> decision"? That's a lot like the old days.
>> 
> Saying it's someone's call and that you support them in making that 
> decision strikes me as the chain-of-command in operation.

Would you care to comment on that? It is perfectly possible to endorse a
decision made by someone else, while having played no part in the
decision-making process. It's called delegation.

> And I note you're not saying that you think the Council have been slacking
> in the way you outlined in your earlier post as the motivation for this
> policy.

Which is still the case: you're not saying the current Council are slackers.
If you feel they are, please explain how, since they seem to have kept up
with far more meetings than you outlined in your earlier post as being the
bad old days.

Nor was this meeting announced anywhere apart from at the tail end of
another long meeting, and in the summary of said, which understandably
attendees don't usually read.

I for one would much rather see the Council get on with discussing the
devrel issue, than wasting a large amount of scarce time and manpower on an
election. They're not slacking, they messed up: big deal; life's messy
sometimes.


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Re: [gentoo-project] Re: Re: Re: Re: [gentoo-dev] Special meeting [WAS: Council meeting summary for 8 May 2008] (fwd)

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Tue, 20 May 2008 19:53:33 +0100
Steve Long <slong@rathaus.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
> Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> > I do believe I addressed all your nonsense before you even posted
> > it. Now please don't do it again. I'm going to be ignoring anything
> > further along those lines.
> > 
> No you just focussed on the aside at the end, understandably (while
> avoiding the point that, as ever, you expect to use the Gentoo ebuild
> tree.)

Er. No. You are, as always, entirely wrong.

Seriously. Please apologise for your two nonsense posts in this thread
and promise never to try that again.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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Re: [gentoo-project] Re: Re: Re: Re: [gentoo-dev] Special meeting [WAS: Council meeting summary for 8 May 2008] (fwd)

[William L. Thomson Jr.]

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On Tue, 2008-05-20 at 20:30 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Tue, 20 May 2008 19:53:33 +0100
> Steve Long <slong@rathaus.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:

Both of you,

This is OT and personal between you two. Please take elsewhere. Thank
you very much :)

-- 
William L. Thomson Jr.
amd64/Java/Trustees
Gentoo Foundation


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