[gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[hasufell]

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While I appreciate devrel being more active in serious situations (I
actually proposed that in another thread), I question the way Devrel
is constituted.

How was devrel formed? Who started it? What's the procedure of getting in?

I have no answer to the first two question, but the last question is
easy: It's like getting into any other project. Speak with them.

And that, is a serious problem. Devrel should not be a regular
project. It holds the power of conflict resolution and of disciplinary
action (and that is a lot of power). Why should anyone trust their
judgement? How can we prevent that people with good intents, but
without the required judgement and social skills, get into devrel?
Simple answer: we can't.

Who controls devrel?
Simple answer: no one.
The only thing that can stop devrel is the council, which has some
kind of veto right. But that is not enough to guarantee that an entity
with that kind of power/authority/responsibility consists of people
who are capable of that task.
It's a self-maintaining project without any logical connection between
the legitimation of the project and the legitimation of the members.
There is no rotation of members which is absolutely crucial for a
position like that.

What is a possible solution?
Let the council elect all members. That way the power still comes from
the dev community, although they do not vote devrel directly. The
council should vote anonymously, so that no connection between council
member and elected devrel member can be drawn which could otherwise
affect the election of the council.
This system should prevent people from thinking two steps ahead when
voting the council.

What does that solve?
An elected Devrel answers to the council and if someone abuses his
authority even in a minor way, it will not just be an internal project
thing, but council will have to kick that member.
Also, since this process is more democratic, it is more legitimate and
introduces some common sense and judgement about who actually is devrel.

Who controls the council?
Well, devrel not, but we do.

Power should always emerge from the bottom of a community.
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Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[Petteri Räty]

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On 19.6.2013 23.18, hasufell wrote:
> While I appreciate devrel being more active in serious situations (I
> actually proposed that in another thread), I question the way Devrel
> is constituted.
> 
> How was devrel formed? Who started it? What's the procedure of getting in?
> 

The project is old:

revision 1.1
date: 2003-07-14 00:49:03 +0300;  author: seemant;  state: Exp;
first version of project description page

While I have been here for a better part of the decade, older farts (in
dev time) are needed to comment on who started it.

> 
> What is a possible solution?
> Let the council elect all members. That way the power still comes from
> the dev community, although they do not vote devrel directly. The
> council should vote anonymously, so that no connection between council
> member and elected devrel member can be drawn which could otherwise
> affect the election of the council.
> This system should prevent people from thinking two steps ahead when
> voting the council.
>

The council can already do that if they so choose. Granted if this
process was made explicit it could have some influence on the turnover.
In practice so far oversight has not been a problem (though since for
quite a few years I have been part of both bodies the two have been
quite connected).

Regards,
Petteri


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Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[hasufell]

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On 06/19/2013 10:43 PM, Petteri R￤ty wrote:
> On 19.6.2013 23.18, hasufell wrote:
>> While I appreciate devrel being more active in serious situations
>> (I actually proposed that in another thread), I question the way
>> Devrel is constituted.
>> 
>> How was devrel formed? Who started it? What's the procedure of
>> getting in?
>> 
> 
> The project is old:
> 
> revision 1.1 date: 2003-07-14 00:49:03 +0300;  author: seemant;
> state: Exp; first version of project description page
> 
> While I have been here for a better part of the decade, older farts
> (in dev time) are needed to comment on who started it.
> 
>> 
>> What is a possible solution? Let the council elect all members.
>> That way the power still comes from the dev community, although
>> they do not vote devrel directly. The council should vote
>> anonymously, so that no connection between council member and
>> elected devrel member can be drawn which could otherwise affect
>> the election of the council. This system should prevent people
>> from thinking two steps ahead when voting the council.
>> 
> 
> The council can already do that if they so choose. Granted if this 
> process was made explicit it could have some influence on the
> turnover. In practice so far oversight has not been a problem
> (though since for quite a few years I have been part of both bodies
> the two have been quite connected).
> 

If they choose... that means the current form of control over devrel
is only of a _reactive_ nature. That nature is also necessary, but
that is not how "control" is defined in the context I was explaining
in the first post.

What happens if power has been abused and damage is already done? The
council can just pick up the pieces then, revert decisions (if
possible) and try to deescalate.
Then people will ask... who is responsible? Why was there no explicit
election?
That might even lead to devrel losing respect. People will think they
just have that power because they came first.
It's not just about saying retroactively that someone wasn't fit for
devrel after he messed up, it's about saying who IS fit. Then people
know why that person got that kind of authority.

Also... we still don't have any rotation, except when devs resign from
that project.

Another thing: what do we do if devrel blocks actions against it's own
members? Because that's what gentoo projects have partly evolved
into... a group of buddies. I don't have much of a problem with that
in general, as it can improve effectivenes from some standpoints, but
this is not about a regular project.
I don't even claim that current devrel is not fit or that they just
form their group of buddies, but why should we not try to minimize
those possibilities?

If we want them to use the sledgehammer, it should be clear who gets
that sledgehammer and why. Make it explicit, rule out uncertainties.
Rotate that role, so people don't lose focus.
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Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[William Hubbs]

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On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 11:41:17PM +0200, hasufell wrote:
> On 06/19/2013 10:43 PM, Petteri R￤ty wrote:
> > On 19.6.2013 23.18, hasufell wrote:
> >> What is a possible solution? Let the council elect all members.
> >> That way the power still comes from the dev community, although
> >> they do not vote devrel directly. The council should vote
> >> anonymously, so that no connection between council member and
> >> elected devrel member can be drawn which could otherwise affect
> >> the election of the council. This system should prevent people
> >> from thinking two steps ahead when voting the council.
> >> 
> > 
> > The council can already do that if they so choose. Granted if this 
> > process was made explicit it could have some influence on the
> > turnover. In practice so far oversight has not been a problem
> > (though since for quite a few years I have been part of both bodies
> > the two have been quite connected).
> > 
> 
> If they choose... that means the current form of control over devrel
> is only of a _reactive_ nature. That nature is also necessary, but
> that is not how "control" is defined in the context I was explaining
> in the first post.
> 
> What happens if power has been abused and damage is already done? The
> council can just pick up the pieces then, revert decisions (if
> possible) and try to deescalate.
> Then people will ask... who is responsible? Why was there no explicit
> election?
> That might even lead to devrel losing respect. People will think they
> just have that power because they came first.
> It's not just about saying retroactively that someone wasn't fit for
> devrel after he messed up, it's about saying who IS fit. Then people
> know why that person got that kind of authority.

who is "fit" is always going to be subjective. is it just someone who
has been in gentoo for a while? is it someone who has had professional
experience in conflict resolution e.g. a manager?

You aren't going to be able to detect who might abuse power until after
it is done, so I don't really see a way to guarantee that a scenario
like that will never happen.

> Also... we still don't have any rotation, except when devs resign from
> that project.

Rotation is another issue entirely. Do we want forced rotation? Do we
want to force people to resign from devrel after x amount of time?

> Another thing: what do we do if devrel blocks actions against it's own
> members? Because that's what gentoo projects have partly evolved
> into... a group of buddies. I don't have much of a problem with that
> in general, as it can improve effectivenes from some standpoints, but
> this is not about a regular project.

The council can override anything devrel does, including forcing
someone off of devrel if they think that person has gotten out of line,
so I don't see a problem here.

> I don't even claim that current devrel is not fit or that they just
> form their group of buddies, but why should we not try to minimize
> those possibilities?
> 
> If we want them to use the sledgehammer, it should be clear who gets
> that sledgehammer and why. Make it explicit, rule out uncertainties.
> Rotate that role, so people don't lose focus.

That is done, the lead gets to use the sledgehammer under certain
circumstances [1], and the lead is selected by the project members
yearly under glep 39 just like any project.

William

[1] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/policy.xml

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Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[Alexis Ballier]

On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:18:49 +0200
hasufell <hasufell@gentoo.org> wrote:
[...]
> Who controls devrel?
> Simple answer: no one.

And this is good IMHO. Judiciary should be an independent power.

> The only thing that can stop devrel is the council, which has some
> kind of veto right. But that is not enough to guarantee that an entity
> with that kind of power/authority/responsibility consists of people
> who are capable of that task.

It might be good to have a way to demote someone from devrel if he is
abusing his powers. It can probably already be done by talking to other
devrel members. So far, I've never seen any need for it.

> It's a self-maintaining project without any logical connection between
> the legitimation of the project and the legitimation of the members.
> There is no rotation of members which is absolutely crucial for a
> position like that.

I don't see why there should be a rotation: Such a rotation might just
make people try to get as much as they can from their new powers until
they are "rotated". If people are seriously involved with devrel,
handle impartially conflicts and are able to resolve them, why
replacing them?

> What is a possible solution?
> Let the council elect all members. That way the power still comes from
> the dev community, although they do not vote devrel directly. The
> council should vote anonymously, so that no connection between council
> member and elected devrel member can be drawn which could otherwise
> affect the election of the council.
> This system should prevent people from thinking two steps ahead when
> voting the council.

So that the council controls everything: they nominate the judges
(devrel) and are the appeal court. I consider this even worse.

Alexis.

Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 8:50 PM, Alexis Ballier <aballier@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> So that the council controls everything: they nominate the judges
> (devrel) and are the appeal court. I consider this even worse.

The council is elected.  No sane organization (democratic or corporate
or whatever) just has a self-appointing judiciary.  I'm not convinced
we even need an independent judiciary, but nations that have
independent judiciaries still have elected representatives appoint
them.  They also often have a means for elected officials to overturn
their decisions (at least in the direction of pardons).

Corporations have elected boards appoint executives who appoint the
members of HR/Security.  Democracies elect representatives who appoint
members of the judiciary.

My feeling is that QA and Devrel should be council appointed.  They
can of course recommend their own members, and Council can give
whatever deference they feel is appropriate to the recommendation.

If you wouldn't trust somebody to appoint QA/Devrel members, then you
shouldn't be electing them to the Council.  Likewise, if you wouldn't
trust somebody to not just seize control of the entire distribution
(infra, DNS, bank accounts, the Gentoo name, firing the Council, etc)
you shouldn't be electing them to the Trustees (a few years ago our
sole remaining Trustee was contemplating basically just turning the
entire distro over to a benevolent dictator (our founder), who legally
wouldn't be accountable to anybody including the Council (or even the
devs in general depending on whether the bylaws were modified)).
These are real governing bodies that essentially have all the powers
you don't want to give to anybody (well, save unelected QA/Devrel team
members) whether you like it or not (at least within the boundaries of
the Foundation charter/bylaws).

I agree with hasufell's recommendation, although I would extend it to
QA as well.  QA and Devrel are "special" projects and should probably
be accountable to the Council.  I think they should be largely
self-governing much as infra is (even though infra is fairly dependent
on the trustees for funding/etc).  It isn't about control so much as
accountability and mandate.  I'd of course recommend that the Council
should be hands-off as long as things are going well, and there really
isn't anything that suggests they wouldn't be (certainly this has been
the trend with both the Council and Trustees).

Part of me is thinking that we should just write up this proposal as a
GLEP and go from there.  By all means devs should register their
opinions on it as it firms up, and we can leave it to the new Council
to decide how to handle it.

Rich

Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[Alexis Ballier]

On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:00:48 -0400
Rich Freeman <rich@thefreemanclan.net> wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 8:50 PM, Alexis Ballier <aballier@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > So that the council controls everything: they nominate the judges
> > (devrel) and are the appeal court. I consider this even worse.
> 
> The council is elected.  No sane organization (democratic or corporate
> or whatever) just has a self-appointing judiciary.  I'm not convinced
> we even need an independent judiciary, but nations that have
> independent judiciaries still have elected representatives appoint
> them.  They also often have a means for elected officials to overturn
> their decisions (at least in the direction of pardons).

Self-appointing, probably not, but the judiciary often does its
pre-selection before asking or proposing members to the officials (e.g.
with a competition). The officials nominate them afterwards: It sounds
much more like the council can oppose to nominating a devrel member or
a new lead, or even demote someone under a request, all of which I
think it actually has the power to do.

[...]
> My feeling is that QA and Devrel should be council appointed.  They
> can of course recommend their own members, and Council can give
> whatever deference they feel is appropriate to the recommendation.

It depends what you mean by appointing. If it's a yes/no vote on
proposal of the groups then why not.

> If you wouldn't trust somebody to appoint QA/Devrel members, then you
> shouldn't be electing them to the Council. 

I could give you a few names I would certainly like to see on council
because they have a very good overview of the technical issues council
usually discusses but whom I wouldn't see in devrel matters :)

Alexis.

Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[Sean Amoss]

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On 06/19/2013 11:17 PM, Alexis Ballier wrote:
[...]
> 
> I could give you a few names I would certainly like to see on council
> because they have a very good overview of the technical issues council
> usually discusses but whom I wouldn't see in devrel matters :)
> 
> Alexis.
> 

Agreed. These two duties require two completely different skill sets and
yet have a lot of control and impact on the direction of the distribution.

One thing I have not seen mentioned yet is the possibility of separating
these functions out to two individual, high-level, groups: a
council/board that ONLY handles technical decisions and a devrel that
handles the social issues and direction of Gentoo; both elected by
developers.

We need a group that not only reacts to devrel issues, but will actively
steer the Gentoo culture to create an accountable group of developers
and a better experience for all.

Sean


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Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[Markos Chandras]

On 20 June 2013 11:44, Sean Amoss <ackle@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 06/19/2013 11:17 PM, Alexis Ballier wrote:
> [...]
>>
>> I could give you a few names I would certainly like to see on council
>> because they have a very good overview of the technical issues council
>> usually discusses but whom I wouldn't see in devrel matters :)
>>
>> Alexis.
>>
>
> Agreed. These two duties require two completely different skill sets and
> yet have a lot of control and impact on the direction of the distribution.

Correct.

>
> One thing I have not seen mentioned yet is the possibility of separating
> these functions out to two individual, high-level, groups: a
> council/board that ONLY handles technical decisions and a devrel that
> handles the social issues and direction of Gentoo; both elected by
> developers.
>
> We need a group that not only reacts to devrel issues, but will actively
> steer the Gentoo culture to create an accountable group of developers
> and a better experience for all.
>
> Sean
>

I agree to everything you said. I am perfectly fine to have DevRel/QA
appointed by the Council.
The council could use these teams to delegate social and technical problems.

--
Regards,
Markos Chandras - Gentoo Linux Developer
http://dev.gentoo.org/~hwoarang

Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[Douglas Dunn]

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In my opinion the devrel project lead or perhaps have 3 leads but should at
least be confirmed by the council, if that can happen and the lead and or
leads can make sure that the other devrel members are upholding the intent
of the coc.  It doesn't take a law degree to enforce the coc, maybe give
individual devrel members the authority to give temporary punishments, but
i think anything permanent should go to the council to at least confirm
devrels suggestion of a permanent punishment.

But imo if the lead of devrel needs confirmed by the council, and the
council has the power to remove the lead, and the final appeal goes to the
council, i dont see much room for the possibility of abuse by devrel.

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Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[Douglas Dunn]

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To expand as i confused myself i meant that the appointment of a new devrel
lead should be required to at least be confirmed by the council
On Jun 20, 2013 7:25 AM, "Douglas Dunn" <djdunn.safety@gmail.com> wrote:

> In my opinion the devrel project lead or perhaps have 3 leads but should
> at least be confirmed by the council, if that can happen and the lead and
> or leads can make sure that the other devrel members are upholding the
> intent of the coc.  It doesn't take a law degree to enforce the coc, maybe
> give individual devrel members the authority to give temporary punishments,
> but i think anything permanent should go to the council to at least confirm
> devrels suggestion of a permanent punishment.
>
> But imo if the lead of devrel needs confirmed by the council, and the
> council has the power to remove the lead, and the final appeal goes to the
> council, i dont see much room for the possibility of abuse by devrel.
>

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Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[William Hubbs]

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On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 07:25:55AM -0400, Douglas Dunn wrote:
> In my opinion the devrel project lead or perhaps have 3 leads but should at
> least be confirmed by the council, if that can happen and the lead and or
> leads can make sure that the other devrel members are upholding the intent
> of the coc.  It doesn't take a law degree to enforce the coc, maybe give
> individual devrel members the authority to give temporary punishments, but
> i think anything permanent should go to the council to at least confirm
> devrels suggestion of a permanent punishment.
 
If the council has to approve a major action devrel takes against a
developer, there is no point in that developer appealing to the council.

> But imo if the lead of devrel needs confirmed by the council, and the
> council has the power to remove the lead, and the final appeal goes to the
> council, i dont see much room for the possibility of abuse by devrel.

I don't see why the council couldn't remove the devrel lead if they felt
it necessary.

Here are some thoughts I have wrt this situation:

1. The QA and Devrel projects are directly accountable to the council.
This protects against abuse of power since the council can remove people
from these projects if they determine that power is being abused.

2. The leads of these projects should be selected by the projects like
any other project, but confirmed by the council.

3. Since the leads are confirmed by the council, I don't think it is
necessary for them to go back to the council for approval for actions
they take.

4. Both of these projects require unique skill sets that most developers
may not have, so I don't think electing members of these projects is a
good idea.

5. Any actions these projects take can be appealed to the council (This
follows from point 1).

Thoughts?

William


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Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[Alexis Ballier]

On Thu, 20 Jun 2013 14:03:30 -0500
William Hubbs <williamh@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 07:25:55AM -0400, Douglas Dunn wrote:
> > In my opinion the devrel project lead or perhaps have 3 leads but
> > should at least be confirmed by the council, if that can happen and
> > the lead and or leads can make sure that the other devrel members
> > are upholding the intent of the coc.  It doesn't take a law degree
> > to enforce the coc, maybe give individual devrel members the
> > authority to give temporary punishments, but i think anything
> > permanent should go to the council to at least confirm devrels
> > suggestion of a permanent punishment.
>  
> If the council has to approve a major action devrel takes against a
> developer, there is no point in that developer appealing to the
> council.
> 
> > But imo if the lead of devrel needs confirmed by the council, and
> > the council has the power to remove the lead, and the final appeal
> > goes to the council, i dont see much room for the possibility of
> > abuse by devrel.
> 
> I don't see why the council couldn't remove the devrel lead if they
> felt it necessary.
> 
> Here are some thoughts I have wrt this situation:
> 
> 1. The QA and Devrel projects are directly accountable to the council.
> This protects against abuse of power since the council can remove
> people from these projects if they determine that power is being
> abused.
> 
> 2. The leads of these projects should be selected by the projects like
> any other project, but confirmed by the council.
> 
> 3. Since the leads are confirmed by the council, I don't think it is
> necessary for them to go back to the council for approval for actions
> they take.
> 
> 4. Both of these projects require unique skill sets that most
> developers may not have, so I don't think electing members of these
> projects is a good idea.
> 
> 5. Any actions these projects take can be appealed to the council
> (This follows from point 1).
> 
> Thoughts?

+1

Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[Rich Freeman]

On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 3:03 PM, William Hubbs <williamh@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 2. The leads of these projects should be selected by the projects like
> any other project, but confirmed by the council.

I agree with much of what you posted, but this one bit keeps coming up
and I'm not sure how well it will work.  What happens if the two can't
agree?  Devrel appoints a lead and council doesn't confirm.  Who runs
Devrel until the the new lead is selected?  What if the two cannot
reach agreement?

Maybe just spell that out - Devrel selects and council confirms, and
if by so many days after the election of a new council agreement
hasn't been reached then the council can appoint?

I think all are agreed that Council/Trustees/etc should generally be
hands-off, and in reality this is how they have been operating all
along.  However, I think it still makes sense to keep these bodies at
the top of the chain of command.  It isn't really healthy to define
ambiguous command structures (though our Council/Trustees division
obviously raises this issue already).

Rich

Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn]

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Hash: SHA1

William Hubbs schrieb:
> Here are some thoughts I have wrt this situation:
> 
> 1. The QA and Devrel projects are directly accountable to the council. 
> This protects against abuse of power since the council can remove
> people from these projects if they determine that power is being
> abused.
> 
> 2. The leads of these projects should be selected by the projects like 
> any other project, but confirmed by the council.
> 
> 3. Since the leads are confirmed by the council, I don't think it is 
> necessary for them to go back to the council for approval for actions 
> they take.
> 
> 4. Both of these projects require unique skill sets that most
> developers may not have, so I don't think electing members of these
> projects is a good idea.
> 
> 5. Any actions these projects take can be appealed to the council (This 
> follows from point 1).
> 
> Thoughts?

These rules sound all ok, but which real problem are they intended to solve?

Is there an actual documented instance where QA or devrel abused their
power, and which could have been prevented by council confirmation? I am
aware of wltjr's case, but even from his perspective it sounded more like
bullying than abuse of power.

If not, what indication exists that makes such abuse of power appear likely
in the future?

If such a thing has never occured, and there is nothing which indicates
that it is going to occur, then I think we can drop the rule #2 as it
introduces only unnecessary bureaucracy. If we start seeing actual abuse of
power then requiring approval of Council for QA/devrel leads or actions can
be reconsidered.


Best regards,
Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn

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Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[William Hubbs]

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On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 10:07:25PM +0200, Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn wrote:
> These rules sound all ok, but which real problem are they intended to solve?

Don't ask me, I was just going through the thread trying to come up with
something that most people would agree with. As far as I am aware there
isn't a problem with devrel/qa abusing power.

> If not, what indication exists that makes such abuse of power appear likely
> in the future?
 
 I haven't seen one myself.

> If such a thing has never occured, and there is nothing which indicates
> that it is going to occur, then I think we can drop the rule #2 as it
> introduces only unnecessary bureaucracy. If we start seeing actual abuse of
> power then requiring approval of Council for QA/devrel leads or actions can
> be reconsidered.
 
If you drop rule 2 from that list, the way I see it, you are just
stating how we are operating now which is fine with me.

William


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Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[hasufell]

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Hash: SHA1

On 06/20/2013 12:44 PM, Sean Amoss wrote:
> On 06/19/2013 11:17 PM, Alexis Ballier wrote: [...]
>> 
>> I could give you a few names I would certainly like to see on
>> council because they have a very good overview of the technical
>> issues council usually discusses but whom I wouldn't see in
>> devrel matters :)
>> 
>> Alexis.
>> 
> 
> Agreed. These two duties require two completely different skill
> sets and yet have a lot of control and impact on the direction of
> the distribution.
> 
> One thing I have not seen mentioned yet is the possibility of
> separating these functions out to two individual, high-level,
> groups: a council/board that ONLY handles technical decisions and a
> devrel that handles the social issues and direction of Gentoo; both
> elected by developers.
> 

Hm, that's actually what I proposed in the very first place in
#gentoo-dev, but people felt uncomfortable about devs electing those
who should kick their butt (well, not only, but that's definitely a
devrel responsibility as well).
The question came up if that could even lead to deals being made and
devrel members unsure and biased to take disciplinary action against
those who elected them.
If we think about this possibility, then an anonymous election is a
must here as well.

Having the council do that, is more indirect, but will solve the
mentioned concerns.
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Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 8:50 PM, Alexis Ballier <aballier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:18:49 +0200
> hasufell <hasufell@gentoo.org> wrote:
> [...]
>> Who controls devrel?
>> Simple answer: no one.
>
> And this is good IMHO. Judiciary should be an independent power.

The council is elected.  No sane organization (democratic or corporate
or whatever) just has a self-appointing judiciary.  I'm not convinced
we even need an independent judiciary, but nations that have
independent judiciaries still have elected representatives appoint
them.  They also often have a means for elected officials to overturn
their decisions (at least in the direction of pardons).  Lifetime appointments
make sense when you're talking about basic laws and civil rights which
change on a timespan of centuries, but not when you're talking about a
computer operating system distribution that changes on a scale of months.

Corporations have elected boards appoint executives who appoint the
members of HR/Security.  Democracies elect representatives who appoint
members of the judiciary.

My feeling is that QA and Devrel should be council appointed.  They
can of course recommend their own members, and Council can give
whatever deference they feel is appropriate to the recommendation.

If you wouldn't trust somebody to appoint QA/Devrel members, then you
shouldn't be electing them to the Council.  Likewise, if you wouldn't
trust somebody to not just seize control of the entire distribution
(infra, DNS, bank accounts, the Gentoo name, firing the Council, etc)
you shouldn't be electing them to the Trustees (a few years ago our
sole remaining Trustee was contemplating basically just turning the
entire distro over to a benevolent dictator (our founder), who legally
wouldn't be accountable to anybody including the Council (or even the
devs in general depending on whether the bylaws were modified)).
These are real governing bodies that essentially have all the powers
you don't want to give to anybody (well, save unelected QA/Devrel team
members) whether you like it or not (at least within the boundaries of
the Foundation charter/bylaws).

I agree with hasufell's recommendation, although I would extend it to
QA as well.  QA and Devrel are "special" projects and should probably
be accountable to the Council.  I think they should be largely
self-governing much as infra is (even though infra is fairly dependent
on the trustees for funding/etc).  It isn't about control so much as
accountability and mandate.  I'd of course recommend that the Council
should be hands-off as long as things are going well, and there really
isn't anything that suggests they wouldn't be (certainly this has been
the trend with both the Council and Trustees).

Part of me is thinking that we should just write up this proposal as a
GLEP and go from there.  By all means devs should register their
opinions on it as it firms up, and we can leave it to the new Council
to decide how to handle it.

Rich

Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[Samuli Suominen]

On 20/06/13 05:03, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 8:50 PM, Alexis Ballier <aballier@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:18:49 +0200
>> hasufell <hasufell@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> [...]
>>> Who controls devrel?
>>> Simple answer: no one.
>>
>> And this is good IMHO. Judiciary should be an independent power.
>
> The council is elected.  No sane organization (democratic or corporate
> or whatever) just has a self-appointing judiciary.  I'm not convinced
> we even need an independent judiciary, but nations that have
> independent judiciaries still have elected representatives appoint
> them.  They also often have a means for elected officials to overturn
> their decisions (at least in the direction of pardons).  Lifetime appointments
> make sense when you're talking about basic laws and civil rights which
> change on a timespan of centuries, but not when you're talking about a
> computer operating system distribution that changes on a scale of months.
>
> Corporations have elected boards appoint executives who appoint the
> members of HR/Security.  Democracies elect representatives who appoint
> members of the judiciary.
>
> My feeling is that QA and Devrel should be council appointed.  They
> can of course recommend their own members, and Council can give
> whatever deference they feel is appropriate to the recommendation.
>
> If you wouldn't trust somebody to appoint QA/Devrel members, then you
> shouldn't be electing them to the Council.  Likewise, if you wouldn't
> trust somebody to not just seize control of the entire distribution
> (infra, DNS, bank accounts, the Gentoo name, firing the Council, etc)
> you shouldn't be electing them to the Trustees (a few years ago our
> sole remaining Trustee was contemplating basically just turning the
> entire distro over to a benevolent dictator (our founder), who legally
> wouldn't be accountable to anybody including the Council (or even the
> devs in general depending on whether the bylaws were modified)).
> These are real governing bodies that essentially have all the powers
> you don't want to give to anybody (well, save unelected QA/Devrel team
> members) whether you like it or not (at least within the boundaries of
> the Foundation charter/bylaws).
>
> I agree with hasufell's recommendation, although I would extend it to
> QA as well.  QA and Devrel are "special" projects and should probably
> be accountable to the Council.  I think they should be largely
> self-governing much as infra is (even though infra is fairly dependent
> on the trustees for funding/etc).  It isn't about control so much as
> accountability and mandate.  I'd of course recommend that the Council
> should be hands-off as long as things are going well, and there really
> isn't anything that suggests they wouldn't be (certainly this has been
> the trend with both the Council and Trustees).
>
> Part of me is thinking that we should just write up this proposal as a
> GLEP and go from there.  By all means devs should register their
> opinions on it as it firms up, and we can leave it to the new Council
> to decide how to handle it.

I agree (to every point)

The way devrel can be seen now when enforcing a decision without the 
council authorization gives automatic impression of an group of 
individuals trying to blackmail you, instead of the impression of 
distribution trying to push you into correct direction.
Like, for example, if devrel had been council elected back when we had 
the ChangeLog debacle, we wouldn't have had a ChangeLog debacle.

- Samuli

Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[Thomas Raschbacher (Gentoo)]

Hi.

I thought I also share my thoughts/opinions on this (I was going to 
write in between othe peoples quotes of others quotes .. then decided I 
just quickly sum it up (Yes most of it has probably been brought up 
already, but finding that in various Emails is a pain ;)).

Anyway I've been around for quite a while (some time in 2001) and 
mostly keep out of the "big" discussions/arguments as I prefer not to 
get involved in other peoples arguments. I did read most of it though 
and seen many good devs leave because of arguments/...

But to get to the point:

I do think the council needs to have (and as someone mentioned, it 
probably has) the right to demote/kick devrel members for abuse of 
power.
However I don't think that devrel should be appointed by the council.
Maybe voted in a similar way as the council is, but that might be 
overkill - i do not know how much effort it is to set up elections, but 
I guess it isn't too bad?
Or to simplify things a bit: how about there is a vote amongst all devs 
for the devrel lead and otherwise people can apply to devrel team and we 
have to trust the lead we voted for?

Just my 2c,
   Thomas R

Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[Anthony G. Basile]

On 06/20/2013 01:19 AM, Samuli Suominen wrote:
> On 20/06/13 05:03, Rich Freeman wrote:
>> On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 8:50 PM, Alexis Ballier <aballier@gentoo.org> 
>> wrote:
>>> On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:18:49 +0200
>>> hasufell <hasufell@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>> [...]
>>>> Who controls devrel?
>>>> Simple answer: no one.
>>>
>>> And this is good IMHO. Judiciary should be an independent power.
>>
>> The council is elected.  No sane organization (democratic or corporate
>> or whatever) just has a self-appointing judiciary.  I'm not convinced
>> we even need an independent judiciary, but nations that have
>> independent judiciaries still have elected representatives appoint
>> them.  They also often have a means for elected officials to overturn
>> their decisions (at least in the direction of pardons). Lifetime 
>> appointments
>> make sense when you're talking about basic laws and civil rights which
>> change on a timespan of centuries, but not when you're talking about a
>> computer operating system distribution that changes on a scale of 
>> months.
>>
>> Corporations have elected boards appoint executives who appoint the
>> members of HR/Security.  Democracies elect representatives who appoint
>> members of the judiciary.
>>
>> My feeling is that QA and Devrel should be council appointed. They
>> can of course recommend their own members, and Council can give
>> whatever deference they feel is appropriate to the recommendation.
>>
>> If you wouldn't trust somebody to appoint QA/Devrel members, then you
>> shouldn't be electing them to the Council.  Likewise, if you wouldn't
>> trust somebody to not just seize control of the entire distribution
>> (infra, DNS, bank accounts, the Gentoo name, firing the Council, etc)
>> you shouldn't be electing them to the Trustees (a few years ago our
>> sole remaining Trustee was contemplating basically just turning the
>> entire distro over to a benevolent dictator (our founder), who legally
>> wouldn't be accountable to anybody including the Council (or even the
>> devs in general depending on whether the bylaws were modified)).
>> These are real governing bodies that essentially have all the powers
>> you don't want to give to anybody (well, save unelected QA/Devrel team
>> members) whether you like it or not (at least within the boundaries of
>> the Foundation charter/bylaws).
>>
>> I agree with hasufell's recommendation, although I would extend it to
>> QA as well.  QA and Devrel are "special" projects and should probably
>> be accountable to the Council.  I think they should be largely
>> self-governing much as infra is (even though infra is fairly dependent
>> on the trustees for funding/etc).  It isn't about control so much as
>> accountability and mandate.  I'd of course recommend that the Council
>> should be hands-off as long as things are going well, and there really
>> isn't anything that suggests they wouldn't be (certainly this has been
>> the trend with both the Council and Trustees).
>>
>> Part of me is thinking that we should just write up this proposal as a
>> GLEP and go from there.  By all means devs should register their
>> opinions on it as it firms up, and we can leave it to the new Council
>> to decide how to handle it.
>
> I agree (to every point)
>
> The way devrel can be seen now when enforcing a decision without the 
> council authorization gives automatic impression of an group of 
> individuals trying to blackmail you, instead of the impression of 
> distribution trying to push you into correct direction.
> Like, for example, if devrel had been council elected back when we had 
> the ChangeLog debacle, we wouldn't have had a ChangeLog debacle.
>
> - Samuli
>
Ditto.  I was going to respond in more detail, but there's nothing 
really to add here.   Especially an independent judiciary.  It makes me 
thing police state with no accountability for those who enforce the 
rules.  Imagine if the very people you think are disruptive to the 
community get power on devrel.  I also strongly agree with QA being 
appointed by the council.

-- 
Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D.
Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened]
E-Mail    : blueness@gentoo.org
GnuPG FP  : 1FED FAD9 D82C 52A5 3BAB  DC79 9384 FA6E F52D 4BBA
GnuPG ID  : F52D4BBA

Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[Roy Bamford]

On 06/20/13 01:50:29, Alexis Ballier wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:18:49 +0200
> hasufell <hasufell@gentoo.org> wrote:
> [...]
[snip]
> > It's a self-maintaining project without any logical connection
> between
> > the legitimation of the project and the legitimation of the 
> members.
> > There is no rotation of members which is absolutely crucial for a
> > position like that.
> 
> I don't see why there should be a rotation: Such a rotation might 
> just
> make people try to get as much as they can from their new powers 
> until
> they are "rotated". If people are seriously involved with devrel,
> handle impartially conflicts and are able to resolve them, why
> replacing them?
> 
[snip]
> 
> Alexis.
> 
Rotation serves to renew the mandate.  e.g. Trustees retire by rotation 
every two years. Since 2008, every trustee that has been retired by 
rotation and stood for reelection has been successful.

Rotation does not mean replaced, just the the opportunity for 
replacement exists.

-- 
Regards,

Roy Bamford
(Neddyseagoon) an member of
gentoo-ops
forum-mods
trustees

Re: [gentoo-project] On the way Devrel is constituted

[Michał Górny]

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Hash: SHA512

Dnia 2013-06-19, o godz. 22:18:49
hasufell <hasufell@gentoo.org> napisał(a):

> And that, is a serious problem. Devrel should not be a regular
> project. It holds the power of conflict resolution and of disciplinary
> action (and that is a lot of power). Why should anyone trust their
> judgement? How can we prevent that people with good intents, but
> without the required judgement and social skills, get into devrel?
> Simple answer: we can't.

I think you're overreacting a bit. We're not a country, we're a project
and devrel is not that different from other influential sub-projects
inside Gentoo.

First of all, I believe that devrel controls devrel. That is,
if a single member of devrel does abuse his power, the other members
should be responsible for handling that.

Secondly, there's infra. Unless I'm mistaken, infra holds even more
de-facto power than devrel. Even if whole devrel starts to abuse their
powers, I believe that infra should use their common sense to prevent
that.

Thirdly, there's the community. Seriously, if everything goes wrong,
the community will react. Devrel members should have enough reason to
listen whenever community agrees that their behavior is wrong.
In the worst case, community leaves and there's devrel alone with no
power but to control one another.

- -- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny
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