On Fri, Feb 21, 2020 at 9:39 PM Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
On Fri, 2020-02-21 at 22:11 +0000, Roy Bamford wrote:
> On 2020.02.21 09:19, Michał Górny wrote:
> > On Thu, 2020-02-20 at 22:24 +0100, Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn wrote:
> > > Alec Warner schrieb:
> > >
> > > > I'm a little bit concerned that this addresses the symptoms
> > instead of the  problem. Have you shared your concerns with comrel
> > regarding their lack of  timely communication on reported issues? Do
> > they even share the same goals  you enumerated?
> > > > My strawperson argument is that:
> > > >   - (0) The council will elect some lead.
> > > >   - The lead will never write reports (or write them but stop.)
> > > >   - The lead will get removed per policy.
> > > >   - Council will elect a new lead.
> > > >   - GOTO 0
> > >
> > > My suggestion is in that case of missed report deadline, Council
> > asks for
> > > volunteers from the developer community to step up, and appoints two
> > of them
> > > to go through ComRel records and produce the transparency report.
> > >
> > > Regular independent review of ComRel activity is what NeddySeagoon
> > and I
> > > originally suggested and discussed with ComRel a while back. But
> > they seemed
> > > completely against it, so we eventually dropped it.
> > >
> >
> > All things considered, maybe creating a separate 'revision' group
> > would
> > be better, independently of the reports.  Either split ComRel in two,
> > or
> > appoint something independent.  Let 'core' ComRel do their work, while
> > the 'revision' group merely monitor their activities without getting
> > directly involved in the process.
>
> This 'revision' group alread exists. Its called the Gentoo council.
> Unless, that is, council have no oversight of comrel?

No, that's not how things work.  You don't have an appeal body
proactively look into what all projects are doing.

I think by definition this is reactive. Comrel publishes a report[0], and the Council[1] reviews it. Could it lead to horrific fishing expeditions? Sure. But there is always risk in oversight. Building an ideal system is not possible; there are trade offs in engineering and there are tradeoffs in organizational structure and accountability.

In some new system where there is oversight of comrel we will have people who can peek into the decision making process and:
 - leak private details
 - potentially reverse decisions
 - potentially force action with incomplete information (e.g. to meet some arbitrary deadline to "make cases be resolved faster."

These are all potential risks. Will they happen? Hard to know without trying.

-A

[0] FWIW the Trustees are also potentially interested in the report.
[1] The council can always delegate it to someone. Accountability (I am accountable for X) and Responsibility (I will literally do X) are not the same thing.
 

--
Best regards,
Michał Górny