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

[Richard Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

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?
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