[gentoo-project] Gentoo Council 2020 / 2021 Election - Questions for Candidates

[gentoo-project] Gentoo Council 2020 / 2021 Election - Questions for Candidates

[Roy Bamford]

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Team,

Its been my impression that this last years council has had a fairly 
easy life compared to previous years. 

Some context ...
The council is now 15 years old. Some concepts were worked out
over a few beers at FOSDEM 2005, formalised over the next six
months and the first council met in quarter 4 2005.

I have memories of the council being set up as a disputes 
resolution body, not a leadership body but that was 15 years ago.

Some questions ...
1. What do candidates see the councils role as in Gentoo today?

2. How do candidates see the role of the Gentoo council 
changing in the short term .. say the next few years?
3. Why is this role change required?

4. How will candidates work to bring this change about during 
their term of office, should they be elected?

Please start new threads for new questions, 


-- 
Regards,

Roy Bamford
(Neddyseagoon) a member of
elections
gentoo-ops
forum-mods
arm64

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council 2020 / 2021 Election - Questions for Candidates

[Mikle Kolyada]

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On 19.06.2020 22:25, Roy Bamford wrote:
> Team,
>
> Its been my impression that this last years council has had a fairly 
> easy life compared to previous years. 
>
> Some context ...
> The council is now 15 years old. Some concepts were worked out
> over a few beers at FOSDEM 2005, formalised over the next six
> months and the first council met in quarter 4 2005.
>
> I have memories of the council being set up as a disputes 
> resolution body, not a leadership body but that was 15 years ago.

Last dispute council had to deal with was in March '17.
I remember, because accusation was directed towards me in particular.
That said, I would not call it disputes body (at least not anymore).
I apologize for what may seem as misinformation on my side,
but as I am involved in another "disputes" body I can not memorize nor
find anything going through the appeal process after this specified time
span.

> Some questions ...
> 1. What do candidates see the councils role as in Gentoo today?


We currently may see the model of fairly minimal community involvement.
Yes, monthly meetings, but with minimal efforts. Fellow developers may
object -
no agenda items, and as a result no activity. I beg to differ. Council
should not be
asked to  review anything, it must create its own agenda, based on the
community
demands,  and existing problems (for sure any council member must be
able to identify these problems first).
I have an honor of working with some of the
long term (and not only) council members in other distro areas. Gladly
they also
admit, that problems "to solve" exist, and we solve them together
(at least the ones I am collaborating with on daily basis).
> 2. How do candidates see the role of the Gentoo council 
> changing in the short term .. say the next few years?

This only depends on the council members themselves. If what I have
described above will be going on for the next few years I am afraid council,
as an entity, may fade into obscurity (potentially reformed).

> 3. Why is this role change required?
Because currently we may see, that council has very little cohesion.
During the term of 2019/2020 I had been personally involved in at
least two debates, where one council member proposed an idea,
without prior consultation with the individuals/teams these debates
were risen about. This resulted in a pretty ridiculous situation - one
council member explaining the other "the basics" (like why this problem
was discussed in the past, why it did not make much sense to rise the topic
over and over again, also that a member who started the topic had to first
talk to the involved parties, and so on and so forth).


> 4. How will candidates work to bring this change about during 
> their term of office, should they be elected?

By not doing all the negatives I have described above, and by doing what
I said each and every council member (in my very opinion) must do.

Care less about politics, care more about prolific activity.

> Please start new threads for new questions, 
>
>



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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council 2020 / 2021 Election - Questions for Candidates

[Brian Dolbec]

On Fri, 19 Jun 2020 20:25:15 +0100
Roy Bamford <neddyseagoon@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Team,
> 
> Its been my impression that this last years council has had a fairly 
> easy life compared to previous years. 
> 
> Some context ...
> The council is now 15 years old. Some concepts were worked out
> over a few beers at FOSDEM 2005, formalised over the next six
> months and the first council met in quarter 4 2005.
> 
> I have memories of the council being set up as a disputes 
> resolution body, not a leadership body but that was 15 years ago.
> 
> Some questions ...
> 1. What do candidates see the councils role as in Gentoo today?

Since I have been around Gentoo since before the council was formed.  I
do not see it really any different than it is currently.  It's primary
role is to help steer Gentoo when competeing technologies come to
fruition that can not be implemented side by side.  Make decisions on a
direction to aim for future and evolving policies.

> 
> 2. How do candidates see the role of the Gentoo council 
> changing in the short term .. say the next few years?

Barring any issues, policiy changes, etc. to be worked out.  We should
be working on other ways to help Gentoo progess and evolve.  Be it
helping poorly staffed projects get recruits.  Promoting Gentoo at
meetups, or initiating new dialog on shelved ideas, inactive/incomplete
GLEPs... or establishing more automation helpers so that more developer
time can spent on imrpoving Gentoo rather than just trying to maintain
the status quo.


> 3. Why is this role change required?

I don't think of the previous answer as a role change.  But something
that should have been always there for council members.  Just a lower
priority when technical issues are needed to be dealt with.


> 
> 4. How will candidates work to bring this change about during 
> their term of office, should they be elected?
> 

I intend to work towards establishing some addtional services that can
help with keywording, pkg bumping, stage building/testing.  Personally
I have experience with buildbot.  But if anyone comes to me with
experience with other build/automation systems and ides how it may help
Gentoo.  Provided that it meets our guidelines, I will research those
and do what I can to make those projects come to fruition.


> Please start new threads for new questions, 
> 
> 

Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council 2020 / 2021 Election - Questions for Candidates

[Thomas Deutschmann]

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On 2020-06-19 21:25, Roy Bamford wrote:
> I have memories of the council being set up as a disputes 
> resolution body, not a leadership body but that was 15 years ago.
> 
> Some questions ...
> 1. What do candidates see the councils role as in Gentoo today?

I don't have a Gentoo history of 15 years yet but from my P.O.V. I don't
see that council's role has or should change. I am actually happy with
the role from the past ~5 years I am actively watching.

And I disagree with the opinion of others, like zlogene, who said or
wishes that council should be more active. Like said many times, for me,
council isn't special. Don't give me your vote if you just want to sit
there and let other people think and decide what should happen in Gentoo.

Sure, council members like any other Gentoo project member can also have
ideas. But from my P.O.V. council members aren't special and should be
threaten the same. So if a council member has an idea, he/she must go
the same route through mailing lists and can't skip all of this to just
discuss and vote on during meetings.

So if *you* have an idea, just share it with the community when council
will ask for agenda items next time. Council will help you towards the
process.


> 2. How do candidates see the role of the Gentoo council 
> changing in the short term .. say the next few years?

Like said above, I don't think the role is changing.


> 3. Why is this role change required?

Like said above, I can't think of why a role change is required.


> 4. How will candidates work to bring this change about during 
> their term of office, should they be elected?

Like said above, I don't think the role must change so I don't know how
I should here.


-- 
Regards,
Thomas Deutschmann / Gentoo Linux Developer
fpr: C4DD 695F A713 8F24 2AA1 5638 5849 7EE5 1D5D 74A5


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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council 2020 / 2021 Election - Questions for Candidates

[Patrick Lauer]

On 2020-06-19 21:25, Roy Bamford wrote:
> Team,
> 
> Its been my impression that this last years council has had a fairly
> easy life compared to previous years.
> 
> Some context ...
> The council is now 15 years old. Some concepts were worked out
> over a few beers at FOSDEM 2005, formalised over the next six
> months and the first council met in quarter 4 2005.
> 
> I have memories of the council being set up as a disputes
> resolution body, not a leadership body but that was 15 years ago.

There were lots of ideas how to organize back then, and most of them 
didn't work out as originally intended. After all we're still the 
equivalent of a herd of cats, everyone doing their thing.
> 
> Some questions ...
> 1. What do candidates see the councils role as in Gentoo today?
The last year or two council has mostly discussed and signed off on 
'disruptive' changes (e.g. new EAPI, changing directory layouts)

I think that's a perfectly reasonable setup.

The conflict resolution thing hasn't been invoked much (or at all), so 
maybe we've figured out how to quietly coexist. Mostly.
> 
> 2. How do candidates see the role of the Gentoo council
> changing in the short term .. say the next few years?
I don't see a need to change things, if there is any change I'd go one 
level up and ask how Gentoo should be changed.

There are lots of ideas, but most of it never gets the critical amount 
of manpower to happen. So instead we keep things going as they are - is 
that bad?
(Personally I have a ton of ideas but a backlog of things to do that'll 
keep me busy for a long time, so most of it will be done when it gets done)

> 3. Why is this role change required?
Malformed question ;)


> 4. How will candidates work to bring this change about during
> their term of office, should they be elected?
Since my goal is to keep things as they are, for now, I've already done 
it ;)

Have fun,

Patrick

Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council 2020 / 2021 Election - Questions for Candidates

[Mikle Kolyada]

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On 23.06.2020 16:55, Thomas Deutschmann wrote:

Hello, Thomas

> On 2020-06-19 21:25, Roy Bamford wrote:
>> I have memories of the council being set up as a disputes 
>> resolution body, not a leadership body but that was 15 years ago.
>>
>> Some questions ...
>> 1. What do candidates see the councils role as in Gentoo today?
> I don't have a Gentoo history of 15 years yet but from my P.O.V. I don't
> see that council's role has or should change. I am actually happy with
> the role from the past ~5 years I am actively watching.
>
> And I disagree with the opinion of others, like zlogene, who said or
> wishes that council should be more active. 

I agree with the "council is not holier than thou idea",
although you misunderstood my initial though, please see
the next par.

> Like said many times, for me,
> council isn't special. Don't give me your vote if you just want to sit
> there and let other people think and decide what should happen in Gentoo.

Is not this happening now?

Most of the ideas / decisions that affect the *daily* developers life is
sourced from comrel or qa teams after community collaboration.
 Surely, council is still voting for things like gleps or the general
tree licensing,
but I do not see the most of them involved in the creation or changes
process.
I can exhibit few more complex examples if you want me to.



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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council 2020 / 2021 Election - Questions for Candidates

[Max Magorsch]

I, for one, do see the Gentoo Council as an opportunity to actively
work on ideas to improve the whole distribution as well as the
developer experience for everyone. I agree with others, who have
already mentioned that the Council should not just come up with ideas
and enforce them afterwards. Instead, the ideas should be discussed
publicly. Because after all, everything the Council does should serve
the distribution and the community. So in sum, I imagine the Council
to help to identify currently existing problems, look for possible
solutions and afterwards discuss them with the community.
Apart from that, I also see the opportunity for the Council to promote
Gentoo at different events to get recruits and help understaffed
projects as Brian also already mentioned.

Before I continue to concretize this thought, a few words about my
work for Gentoo, for everyone who does not know me: I have mainly been
working on developer services and the infrastructure within Gentoo so
far. For instance, I'm one of the persons to blame for problems with
packages.g.o, planet.g.o, mirrorstats.g.o, the new archivestest.g.o or
the like. Apart from that, I'm working on the second version of the
Tyrian theme to unify our outer appearance, and I'm doing some further
internal infrastructure work. Finally, I am also still working towards
a unified code and automation platform like Gitlab or Gitea (in
combination with another automation platform).

So how do I concretely imagine my work for the Council? Should I be
elected, my idea for the Council is to identify and document the
status quo first. That is, what are we already doing well and what
might be currently existing problems. Afterwards, I would like to help
to find possible solutions for the existing problems and discuss them
publicly.
One concrete project I would especially like to move forward is the
unified code and automation platform I've already mentioned above.

That's my vision for the Council and the reason I have accepted the
nomination. Other candidates might have different views. However, if
you share mine, I am looking forward to getting down to action and
start working on it during the next year.

-M

Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council 2020 / 2021 Election - Questions for Candidates

[Aaron Bauman]

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On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 08:25:15PM +0100, Roy Bamford wrote:
> Team,
> 
> Its been my impression that this last years council has had a fairly 
> easy life compared to previous years. 
> 
> Some context ...
> The council is now 15 years old. Some concepts were worked out
> over a few beers at FOSDEM 2005, formalised over the next six
> months and the first council met in quarter 4 2005.
> 
> I have memories of the council being set up as a disputes 
> resolution body, not a leadership body but that was 15 years ago.
> 
> Some questions ...
> 1. What do candidates see the councils role as in Gentoo today?
>

I see the council as the technical leadership of the distribution.
Mostly, this is when "disputes" must be resolved and our elected council
decides on the appropriate course of action. Additonally, they review
and decide which proposals (i.e. GLEP's etc) should be implemented or
further refined, deliberated, etc. Often, this involves disputes amongst
developers over the "correct" way to do things.

> 2. How do candidates see the role of the Gentoo council 
> changing in the short term .. say the next few years?

I don't believe it needs to change.

-- 
Cheers,
Aaron

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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council 2020 / 2021 Election - Questions for Candidates

[Joonas Niilola]

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On 6/26/20 4:40 AM, Max Magorsch wrote:
> far. For instance, I'm one of the persons to blame for problems with
> packages.g.o, planet.g.o, mirrorstats.g.o, the new archivestest.g.o or
> the like. Apart from that, I'm working on the second version of the

These "problems" mysteriously vanished after you got on board ;) you've
done great work there!

-- juippis



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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council 2020 / 2021 Election - Questions for Candidates

[Thomas Deutschmann]

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Hi Mikle,

first of all, no need to defend. I think it's very good to have
diversity. And it's perfectly fine if one candidate wants to be more
active (in which case I would like to ask him or her why he or she
wasn't active before like you don't have to be member of the council to
bring yourself into Gentoo and mgorny is a perfect *positive* example
how you would do that) and another believe he/she should be more passive.


> Most of the ideas / decisions that affect the *daily* developers life is
> sourced from comrel or qa teams after community collaboration.
>  Surely, council is still voting for things like gleps or the general
> tree licensing,
> but I do not see the most of them involved in the creation or changes
> process.

That's a good example I think. *I* don't believe that council members
have to actually write GLEPs just because they are part of the council.
If you have an idea I think it's normal that you will start working on
this and start writing the proposal. Sure, you will probably allow
others to join and help you. But expecting that you just post the idea
to the mailing list and that others, especially the council, should pick
this up and discuss *your* idea *for* you and do all the rest is not the
way I see council's role.


-- 
Regards,
Thomas Deutschmann / Gentoo Linux Developer
C4DD 695F A713 8F24 2AA1 5638 5849 7EE5 1D5D 74A5


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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council 2020 / 2021 Election - Questions for Candidates

[William Hubbs]

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On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 08:25:15PM +0100, Roy Bamford wrote:
> 1. What do candidates see the councils role as in Gentoo today?
 
I have always seen the council as the technical leaders of the
distribution. It handles the final approval if necessary for
cross-project changes that affect the distribution as a whole. one
example, it approves gleps (except changes to glep 39 which would be a
 community wide vote). Another example is eapis.
 
 Another role of the council is to handle appeals from qa or comrel.

> 2. How do candidates see the role of the Gentoo council 
> changing in the short term .. say the next few years?
> 3. Why is this role change required?
> 
> 4. How will candidates work to bring this change about during 
> their term of office, should they be elected?

I'm not really sure there needs to be a change in the role of the
council.

William


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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council 2020 / 2021 Election - Questions for Candidates

[William Hubbs]

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On Fri, Jun 26, 2020 at 01:40:27AM +0000, Max Magorsch wrote:
> I, for one, do see the Gentoo Council as an opportunity to actively
> work on ideas to improve the whole distribution as well as the
> developer experience for everyone. I agree with others, who have
> already mentioned that the Council should not just come up with ideas
> and enforce them afterwards. Instead, the ideas should be discussed
> publicly. Because after all, everything the Council does should serve
> the distribution and the community. So in sum, I imagine the Council
> to help to identify currently existing problems, look for possible
> solutions and afterwards discuss them with the community.

I agree with this, anything the council does should be discussed
publically before action is taken. Someone else said that agenda items
should be discussed on -project before the meeting and voted on during
the meeting. I tend to agree with this.

> Apart from that, I also see the opportunity for the Council to promote
> Gentoo at different events to get recruits and help understaffed
> projects as Brian also already mentioned.
 
 This is not specifically a council function; I see it as more a pr team
 function. I am open to helping with it as a council member, but I'm not
 quite sure what the council can do.

> Before I continue to concretize this thought, a few words about my
> work for Gentoo, for everyone who does not know me: I have mainly been
> working on developer services and the infrastructure within Gentoo so
> far. For instance, I'm one of the persons to blame for problems with
> packages.g.o, planet.g.o, mirrorstats.g.o, the new archivestest.g.o or
> the like. Apart from that, I'm working on the second version of the
> Tyrian theme to unify our outer appearance, and I'm doing some further
> internal infrastructure work. Finally, I am also still working towards
> a unified code and automation platform like Gitlab or Gitea (in
> combination with another automation platform).
 
I'm on board with some kind of platform like this.
I have experience administering gitlab, so I could assist with it if we
go that route. I've also offered some updates to the gitea package, so I
have been becoming familiar with it lately as well.

> So how do I concretely imagine my work for the Council? Should I be
> elected, my idea for the Council is to identify and document the
> status quo first. That is, what are we already doing well and what
> might be currently existing problems. Afterwards, I would like to help
> to find possible solutions for the existing problems and discuss them
> publicly.
> One concrete project I would especially like to move forward is the
> unified code and automation platform I've already mentioned above.

I am interested in this project as well. We need to keep in mind that
the platform we use needs to support multiple user interfaces; for
example it should not force you to use the web to interact with it.
Along this line, we should re-visit the wiki for the same reason.

William


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Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council 2020 / 2021 Election - Questions for Candidates

[William Hubbs]

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On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 08:25:15PM +0100, Roy Bamford wrote:
> 1. What do candidates see the councils role as in Gentoo today?
 
 The council is the technical leadership body of Gentoo. It approves
 cross-project changes for the distribution. Also, it has a secondary
 role of accepting appeals from comrel or qa if necessary.

> 2. How do candidates see the role of the Gentoo council 
> changing in the short term .. say the next few years?
> 3. Why is this role change required?
> 
> 4. How will candidates work to bring this change about during 
> their term of office, should they be elected?
 
 Off the top of my head, I'm not sure the role of the council needs to
 change.

Thanks,

William

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