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On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 8:50 PM, Alexis Ballier <aballier@g.o> wrote: |
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> On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:18:49 +0200 |
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> hasufell <hasufell@g.o> wrote: |
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> [...] |
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>> Who controls devrel? |
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>> Simple answer: no one. |
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> |
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> And this is good IMHO. Judiciary should be an independent power. |
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The council is elected. No sane organization (democratic or corporate |
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or whatever) just has a self-appointing judiciary. I'm not convinced |
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we even need an independent judiciary, but nations that have |
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independent judiciaries still have elected representatives appoint |
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them. They also often have a means for elected officials to overturn |
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their decisions (at least in the direction of pardons). Lifetime appointments |
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make sense when you're talking about basic laws and civil rights which |
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change on a timespan of centuries, but not when you're talking about a |
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computer operating system distribution that changes on a scale of months. |
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|
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Corporations have elected boards appoint executives who appoint the |
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members of HR/Security. Democracies elect representatives who appoint |
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members of the judiciary. |
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|
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My feeling is that QA and Devrel should be council appointed. They |
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can of course recommend their own members, and Council can give |
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whatever deference they feel is appropriate to the recommendation. |
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If you wouldn't trust somebody to appoint QA/Devrel members, then you |
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shouldn't be electing them to the Council. Likewise, if you wouldn't |
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trust somebody to not just seize control of the entire distribution |
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(infra, DNS, bank accounts, the Gentoo name, firing the Council, etc) |
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you shouldn't be electing them to the Trustees (a few years ago our |
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sole remaining Trustee was contemplating basically just turning the |
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entire distro over to a benevolent dictator (our founder), who legally |
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wouldn't be accountable to anybody including the Council (or even the |
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devs in general depending on whether the bylaws were modified)). |
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These are real governing bodies that essentially have all the powers |
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you don't want to give to anybody (well, save unelected QA/Devrel team |
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members) whether you like it or not (at least within the boundaries of |
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the Foundation charter/bylaws). |
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|
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I agree with hasufell's recommendation, although I would extend it to |
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QA as well. QA and Devrel are "special" projects and should probably |
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be accountable to the Council. I think they should be largely |
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self-governing much as infra is (even though infra is fairly dependent |
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on the trustees for funding/etc). It isn't about control so much as |
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accountability and mandate. I'd of course recommend that the Council |
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should be hands-off as long as things are going well, and there really |
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isn't anything that suggests they wouldn't be (certainly this has been |
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the trend with both the Council and Trustees). |
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|
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Part of me is thinking that we should just write up this proposal as a |
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GLEP and go from there. By all means devs should register their |
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opinions on it as it firms up, and we can leave it to the new Council |
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to decide how to handle it. |
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Rich |
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