Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: [gentoo-commits] gentoo commit in xml/htdocs/proj/en/qa: index.xml

[Rich Freeman]

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 9:05 AM, Dane Smith <c1pher@g.o> wrote:
> Perhaps do council appointments if the lead steps down / if the team
> calls for a re-appointment (there would need to be rules for this part.
> I don't want to see a new "appointee" merely because the lead upset one
> person. Perhaps if more than 50% of the team or like 10 other developers
> are asking for a new lead or some such foo.)
>
> ...
>
> Lastly, given that it will be the lead for a given team, I think that
> team should have the ability to pick their "candidates" to go to
> council, and maybe just give Council the vote on who gets it. Or, have
> council appoint people they think are fit, and the team can vote from
> there. Either way I think would work alright.

I also dislike the general election idea, for the reasons you state.

I think the ideal process is something like:

1.  Teams put forth recommendations for who THEY would like to see as
the lead, perhaps with more than one choice.
2.  The Council is free to pick any lead they like, and change that
lead any time they like.
3.  However, the Council is encouraged that unless there is a big
reason not to do so, they just accept or choose from the team's
nominations, and only do so annually.

I don't like the concept of the council only getting to ratify a
decision already made by the team.  This will just lead to more
bickering on the lists about the wrong people being on the team or
whatever and the fox being in charge of the henhouse or whatever.

The Council has a mandate, because they are elected.  You can disagree
with the Council, but you can't argue that their decisions don't have
SOME kind of backing simply because they have been selected by the dev
community as a whole.  By giving the Council ultimate authority (and
accountability) that mandate then is conferred upon the team leads for
QA, Devrel, etc.

This is not unlike how any business or similar concern is run.  Teams
usually know best how they should be run, but they still fall under
the board or whatever and as long as they're doing a good job boards
generally just rubber-stamp their recommendations.  When things go
wrong, then the board takes a more active role, even to the point of
completely overriding the team if that is what it takes to fix things
- but usually they just put somebody in charge that they feel will
handle things.

Government isn't a good example as it tends to be dominated by
cronyism, and I think there is general agreement that this is NOT how
we want things to work.  The council should not generally fiddle with
every little thing QA does, or whatever, but they can step in when the
issue is serious.

Rich