Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: [gentoo-dev-announce] Council constituent meeting 30 July 2013 at 19:00 UTC

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 6:35 PM, Rick "Zero_Chaos" Farina
<zerochaos@g.o> wrote:
> The council really doesn't have the ability to just instantly vote on
> things outside of a meeting.  The transparency of the body requires
> announcements about meetings, and their topics, with a reasonable amount
> of notice.  It simply isn't possible to maintain these things and have
> the flexibility to instantly vote on things.  Emergency action can be
> taken by many bodies, devrel, userrel, but the council is not expected
> to be the "quick fix" for things.

I find it interesting that the Trustees, which are a legally regulated
body, can take action between meetings, but we feel that the Council,
which is not a legally regulated body, cannot.  Legally the foundation
can even take action without any of the trustees present (it just
requires a LOT of members to support it).

I'm not suggesting that we should just issue rapid decisions in the
middle of a flamewar.  However, if we feel that all sides of a debate
have spoken we can perhaps announce a pending decision on -dev,
evaluate any responses, and then vote.  Council members who do not
feel sufficient time has passed to evaluate the situation can vote to
postpone the decision.  In order to pass a majority would still be
needed, so if 2 people vote aye, 3 vote nay, and 2 vote delay, then we
delay until one side or the other obtains a majority (as with any
body, the default is basically no action until there is a majority in
favor).

I don't suggest that this should be the ideal method of operation.  I
just see it as an option.  It wasn't even my idea...

Rich