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

[Steve Long <slong@rathaus.eclipse.co.uk>]

Ferris McCormick wrote:

> On Mon, 2008-05-19 at 14:41 +0000, Richard Freeman wrote:
>> Alistair Bush wrote:
>> >  It really isn't the Councils decision and the only thing they can do
>> >  to get themselves out of this situation is to hold an election.
>> >  Firstly, even tho this is absolutely minor , GLEP 39 has been
>> >  "breached" and it details what
>> >  the solution is for that breach.  Therefore that solution, a new
>> >  council via an election, _must_ be performed.
>> >
>> 
>> Uh - the word "must" is a bit strong.  Why "must" an election be
>> performed? GLEP 39 is a document several years old, that probably
>> pre-dates half of the devs here, and most likely most of the ones that
>> were around weren't really envisioning that it be used in this way today.
>> 
> 
> I can't find the original choices archived on any of my systems, but as
> best as I recall, we knew what we were voting for and intended it to be
> used exactly as written.
I have always read its intent as ensuring the required monthly meetings are
not slacked upon. The additional meeting, with a week's notice given at the
tail end of a long meeting, does not strike me as an egregious slack.

I appreciate the policy is explicit: I disagree that the intent ("to cut
slacking") was to provoke an election in such an instance as now, when
monthly meetings have not failed to happen.

> Policy says we must hold an election for a new Council within one month
> of the violation.  No matter how you wish to read it or argue it, this
> leaves us about 28 days and counting.
> 
> (GLEP 39 is a bit less that 3 years old.  I suppose that qualifies as
> "several", but it's hardly ancient.)
> 
> ........... SNIP .............
>> 
>> The council was elected because they already had the respect of most
>> gentoo
>> devs.  That isn't going to change simply because a few people missed a
>> meeting.
> 
> Probably not.  But suppose we compound this and figure out a way to get
> around our written policy.  What of respect then, Hmm?  And by the way,
> this early election does reset the clock, so whoever gets elected will
> have a 12 month term starting presumably on or before 15 June.
>
As you say it was written 3 years ago. Ciaranm mentioned that the background
was a Council that never turned up for most meetings. The circumstance is
very different, and I would argue the intent of the Policy was not to force
an election, with all the associated work and loss of code time, when the
Council is not slacking.

No one here is arguing that we have a slacking Council, similar to the "bad
old days", are they?

I agree with with Rich Freeman's points about the difference between
machines and humans: humans spot when the policy needs fine-tuning. In this
case, i think the policy should just be changed to only apply to monthly
meetings, for the specific case of triggering an election. Not for awarding
slacker marks, for which there should be a required notice to a m-l, with a
defined period, say 7 days. (So if there was no ml notification of this
last special meeting, forget about it and chalk it up to experience.)


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