Re: [gentoo-dev] Monthly Gentoo Council Reminder for January

[Chandler Carruth]

Lance Albertson wrote:
> Yeah, maybe so :-)
>
> Reflecting on this more, I see that most of the council members are a
> very important part of the active Gentoo development model (toolchain,
> etc). They need to keep those roles active as much as possible, then
> help on the council. I guess I view this person as a sole chairmen of
> the board that just focuses on council type duties and roles. I think
> the current council has lots of great people, but they're all busy with
> their subprojects and can't take on a role like this. We really need a
> single voice to bind everything together, but doesn't have total control
> like Daniel did.
>
> Hopefully I'm making sense..
As perhaps a good way of thinking of this, the common term used in 
commitees (as I have interacted with them in various beaurocratic 
situations) is a "non-voting chair". This person would organize, 
schedule, direct, communicate, and facilitate the work of the committee, 
to allow the voting members to more effectively handle the issues 
arising for the committee. The voting members need not take on much of a 
workload to vote and serve on the committee because most (if not all) of 
the time consuming tasks and aspects of the committee are handled by a 
non-voting chair. Simultaneously, the singular nature of the chair is 
less of a concern because they are non-voting. The lack of a vote checks 
their singular power, while still allowing them to very efficiently 
organize and direct information in and out of the committee. *shrug* I'm 
not entirely sure that I agree or disagree with this solution, but 
wanted to give an example of what (I think?) Lance is getting at here.

That said, I do think _some_ direction needs to be given to the project, 
although how best to achieve it is quite fuzzy to me. Lance's 
proposition does have potential, but I worry over the competence and 
dedication of the individual to fill that role.

-Chandler Carruth, yet another gentoo user.
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