[gentoo-project] [RFC] Asynchronous Council

[Michał Górny]

Hello,

This is the idea I'd like to submit for the first meeting of the new
Council.  I'd like to hear your feedback first.

TL;DR: Council requests should always be discussed publicly
on the mailing lists.  Council members should vote on them via bugs when
the discussion finishes.  Meeting should focus on loose discussion
without decision making.


The problem
===========
Currently, most of the Council decisions are made during the monthly
meetings.  This causes a few problems.

Firstly, it is hard to 'fit' the public discussion just for the meeting.
 If it doesn't conclude before the meeting, Council is either operating
with partial feedback or defers the matter another month.  If it
concludes earlier, things get forgotten.

Secondly, sometimes new arguments are brought during the Council
meeting.  This often means that the Council has either to defer
the matter further to give people a chance to update their feedback,
or make decisions without giving people not present at the meeting to
reply.

Thirdly, this means that some people end up being inconvenienced to
appear at the meetings to support their cause.  These meetings may
easily end up very late for some people, and it doesn't help when they
end up being very long because of the ongoing discussion.


Proposed solution
=================
Roughly, the proposal would be that:

1. All public matters are discussed on the appropriate mailing lists.

2. A request to the Council is made via filing a bug.  If the request is
suitable for public debate, the discussion is linked in the bug.
 Otherwise, appropriate restrictions are set on it and the discussion is
carried on the bug.

3. Council members participate in the discussion, possibly acting
as moderators as well (i.e. asking people for clarifications,
encouraging them to express their opinions, keeping the discussion
on topic).

4. If necessary, Council members may also discuss the matters via IRC,
possibly during ad-hoc meetings.  However, the result of these
discussions must be brought to the mailing lists for feedback.

5. When the discussion settles (either reaching a conclusion or
saturating all the arguments), the Council votes on the bug.

6. Decisions are announced on the -dev-announce mailing lists.
If multiple votes are carried simultaneously, multiple decisions can be
announced in one mail.


What about the meetings?
========================
The Council can continue to meet monthly with the two common agenda
items: reiteration of open bugs and open floor.  The former can serve
as a synchronization mechanism for other requests.  The latter provides
the community an opportunity to find all of the Council members
available at the same time.


How does that improve things?
=============================
Most importantly, all the discussion is carried off in public.
The privileged position of people attending Council meetings is removed.
 Decisions aren't made in the middle of public discussion, or long after
it settled.  Council members bring their arguments to the debate
earlier.

Since the Council is no longer bound by the monthly cycle, decisions can
be made faster if there is overall agreement.  If decisions need being
deferred, there is no longer implicit one month delay.  People don't
have to find time to attend to meetings in case they needed to answer
some questions.

The meetings become shorter, on one hand saving Council members' time,
on the other making it possible for developers to participate in open
floor without waiting for all agenda items to be processed.


WDYT?

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny