Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2014-04-08

[Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On Mon, Apr 7, 2014 at 8:36 AM, Tom Wijsman <TomWij@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 7 Apr 2014 07:49:47 -0400
> Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> I would recommend that QA consider some questions that at least seem
>> to be poorly understood (perhaps the process should be on the wiki):
>> 1.  When should a QA member seek action regarding something in the
>> tree? 2.  Does a QA member need to seek approval for their actions,
>> and when? 3.  When seeking approval, how should a QA member do so?
>> How long do they need to wait for a reply before taking action?
>> 4.  How should the sought action be clearly communicated to those
>> whose approval is sought, and how should approval or disapproval be
>> communicated?
>
> There are answered by GLEP 48[1] or by how we already operate:

"how we already operate" isn't a documented practice.  I wouldn't
bring it up if there wasn't apparent confusion.

>
> 1.  As stated in "[...] look out for the best interests of all
> developers, as well as our users. [...] ensure developers have the
> information they need, and that packages are maintained. [...] ensure
> tree policies are respected [...]".

So, if any individual in QA on their own feels that taking an action
in the name of QA furthers these goals, they may do so?

>
> 2. No, "In the case of disagreement among QA members the majority of
> established QA members must agree with the action. [...]".

My question is whether they need to seek approval, and when.  I can
read the GLEP just fine.  I'm not sure what you mean by, "No."  Are
you saying they don't need to seek approval before taking action?
Honestly, this kind of ambiguity is exactly what I want us to avoid
when we get into the operations of QA.  It is better to say, "no,
pre-approval of individual QA actions is not needed because..." or
"no, pre-approval of individual actions IS needed because..."  Short
answers to complex questions lead to interpretation.

I think it is an important thing to clarify.  Are you suggesting a
workflow where any individual in QA can take an action they feel is
necessary, and then the rest of QA only comes into it if somebody
notices and disagrees, at which point the action gets undone?  Or is
the workflow that when somebody wants to take an action they first run
it past the team?

>
> 3. A mail to qa@gentoo.org and/or an agenda item, wait until a vote
> or lead decision has been made; we already do things like this.

Well, clearly nobody waited for a vote on this one.  At least, I can
find no record of a vote approving the mask on the new virtuals.  If
this is only done after a QA action is taken if there is disagreement,
then we should clarify what happens in the meantime (does the mask/etc
stay in place for a few weeks?).  I think the importance of clarifying
when individuals should act on their own becomes more important if any
team discussion only comes after the fact.  If team discussion happens
before actions are taken then there is less risk of inconsistent
actions, but of course more latency before action can be taken.

>
>> [...] A good practice is to clearly state a motion/proposal/etc, and
>> then have everybody clearly say they approve or do not approve it.
>
> This is already done in meetings; however, note that this is impossible
> when nobody is around at night hours in the weekend outside a meeting.

The Trustees do this sort of thing all the time.  Log a bug, document
a proposal, and individuals leave their votes in comments.  Generally
it is done for things that are more routine and don't require
discussion.  It has been suggested for the Council but so far the need
hasn't arisen.

I think it is important to have a way to deal with issues outside of
meetings for a team like QA which is much closer to the daily
operations of Gentoo.  For another example from the Trustees, the
Foundation grants Infra an annual budget and when they need to make
purchases they just log bugs and the Treasurer approves them and cuts
checks without any need for all the Trustees to vote.  If something
bigger than a RAID drive failure comes up then they put in a funding
request like anybody else.

> Thanks, I appreciate your efforts to help us out but I believe we've
> already beyond that step months ago; the QA team's operations are fine,
> the problem lies elsewhere. Yet, I will try to mitigate it next time.

The thing that bothers me about this particular case is that I've
heard several on QA mention that they intended to express disagreement
with zero_chaos's actions, but that their intent was never clearly
stated as outright disapproval and was interpreted as just "be careful
/ think twice / etc" advice.  It wasn't clear that their approval was
needed before taking action, and their disapproval wasn't explicit
either.

I don't want to suggest that if QA spots a rootkit in a package that
they need to wait for a monthly meeting to do something about it.
Common sense needs to prevail.  However, when the house isn't on fire
it wouldn't hurt to have a somewhat orderly way to go about
interventions.

I don't think you need a perfect set of rules either.  Any guideline
is going to be subject to interpretation, and I'm not into crucifying
people over that.  The goal though is to push back the grey areas
reasonably far, and then rely on good attitudes and common sense to
get us through the rest.

I really don't want to beat up on QA here.  I think you guys are
generally doing great work.  I just think that there is probably a
little room for improvement/transparency.

Rich