Re: [gentoo-project] Representation of Gentoo on third-party platforms

[Rich Freeman]

On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 1:17 AM, Daniel Campbell <zlg@g.o> wrote:
> On 11/10/2016 04:01 AM, Rich Freeman wrote:
>
>> So, by putting a restriction on how positions are filled, you
>> potentially block positions from being filled by whoever is best
>> qualified and interested in spending the time.  For example, Robin has
>> been doing excellent work for the last few months trying to get the
>> Foundations books in order, but he's also on Infra, and fairly vital
>> there from what I've seen.  If those slots were mutually exclusive then
>> one team or the other would be deprived of his contributions, at least
>> in the full capacity (maybe he could serve the Foundation without being
>> a formal Trustee, but let's be honest and consider that people who have
>> official titles probably do tend to give it a bit more sustained effort).
>
> That's a good example. I think it's okay to have clearly defined roles
> with cooperation between groups. For instance, if the trustees needs
> some information that's stored on infra and doesn't have access, then
> it makes sense for infra to help them out on that. If they're having
> trouble working out the books, and someone happens to know something, I
> see no problem there, either. But dual memberships isn't what I think is
> healthy for Gentoo, its users, or its volunteers. It spreads our already
> dwindling talent even further, and can prevent new blood from growing
> into more important roles.

The Trustees were already working with Infra when needed long before
Robin started helping with the books, and eventually became a Trustee.

Robin wasn't taking care of the books because he had some special
knowledge as an Infra member.  He doesn't need to be in Infra to
discharge his duties as Treasurer now.

He was taking care of the books because he saw that they weren't being
taken care of, and stepped up to do it. I suppose he could step down
from his role in Infra, but apparently he thinks he has time for both
and is needed in both roles.

Nobody would argue that it is "healthy" for Gentoo.  However, neither
is just having the books sit unmaintained.

> Another thing to worry about is the bus factor of any
> given top-level group. If we need 24 people to have fully-functioning
> top-level projects, then maybe we should be looking into motivating more
> people to get into these positions rather than counting on long-term
> members to simply take up more of the slack and add to their workload.
> In short, asking ourselves why people don't want to step up and take
> these positions, then correcting that.

Well, start asking because this has been an issue for a fairly long
time now.  You do realize that in the past the Trustees were not even
able to field as many candidates in elections as there were open
positions, and that their number had dwindled to something like 2-3
people, and the corporate registration had lapsed, making the front
page of all the usual FOSS news sites, right?

QA also dwindled to basically nothing before Council stepped in to run
the show for a short period of time (I think a Council member operated
as interim lead), and then we got the new GLEP where QA leads are
confirmed by Council.  At the time people were voicing the same sorts
of concerns that you are raising about Comrel (which makes your
statement that, "I hadn't considered those two, mostly because I've
not seen or heard of them going out of line." a bit ironic).

This email comes to mind:
https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/7fc87314224afdcfe9583a963fec3c0e

> In addition, wearing multiple hats can result in decisions or reasoning
> that makes sense in one position, but not in the one that a given person
> is acting in in that moment, e.g. worrying about trademark issues while
> acting as a councilor. :P It's bound to be stressful, so why don't we
> spread that work around?

Well, worrying about CoC enforcement IS the role of the Council, and
I'm not sure why we wouldn't care about the opinion people have about
how we portray ourselves on non-Gentoo media.  I'm also a Foundation
Officer at the moment besides.

And I've been tinkering with the copyright policy because it is
something I started back when I was a Trustee and nobody else seems to
be interested in moving it along.

That's the thing with FOSS.  People have their interests and they work
on the stuff that interests them.  You can't sit and worry about how
stressed they must be with all the volunteering they're doing.  By all
means be supportive, and we should help each other when we can.  But
in the end most of us are here because we get some kind of
satisfaction from what we're doing.  When you tell somebody that they
can't work on X because they're already working on Y, you're probably
more likely to find them working on neither than spending more time on
whatever it is you were trying to get them to spend time on.  You
can't direct the work of volunteers the way you might want to.

So, if Robin wants to fix the mirror sync scripts this week and dig
through old tax returns next week, more power to him.

I completely agree with the bus factor and we definitely should be
trying to get new blood involved as much as possible (as I recall
Robin was taking applications for an assistant a while back).
However, that isn't quite the same as telling people they can't work
on things they want to work on.

> At no point should _any_ process be effectively a NOOP. That's a clear
> sign of corruption and/or incompetence. If appeals are to be NOOP,
> under any circumstance, then there isn't an appeal process, period. Any
> overseeing group _must_ be prepared to take a second look at a case, or
> take new evidence into consideration while reassessing a decision.

Certainly.

Perhaps NOOP was the wrong word.  I wasn't suggesting that the
governing body would be a rubber stamp.  I was merely suggesting that
in the ideal state the outcome of an appeal is a thorough
investigation followed by a decision that the original body did their
job correctly.  That obviously wouldn't happen quite 100% of the time,
but if the lower body is doing the job right it should be the typical
outcome.

In appeals to Council so far (both from QA and Comrel, at least during
my terms) the Council has completely reviewed all the materials
available, solicited additional input, and so on.

> If I understand correctly, you're saying that some attention, even if
> it's from someone in another pivotal role, is better than no attention
> at all. If that's the case, I think we're aiming too low. We need to
> ask ourselves "Is comrel good for Gentoo?" "Is it improving Gentoo in
> any tangible or measurable way?" "What do we lose by getting rid of it?"
>
> Given that you indicated comrel hasn't been terribly active, and I've
> not seen any cases where it's been necessary, I think it's prime for
> removal. I'm open to being wrong about that, but current policy prevents
> comrel being accountable to even simple questions like the ones I asked.

Well, in at least the appeals I've heard of Comrel cases, the Council
has decided that it was necessary.

If it felt otherwise it could simply have overturned the cases.

The issue is that people sometimes cause problems, and while it is
fortunate that this is rare, there has been a need to sometimes deal
with that going all the way to the beginning.  Now, back when Gentoo
was MUCH smaller the solution was that a few of the founders probably
traded an IRC message or two and then just booted them, with little to
no formal process at all.  They were basically
Council+Trustees+Comrel+QA+Infra all in one.  Comrel has evolved as
we've become more democratic and grown larger, as have the other
groups.

I'm open to the suggestion that there could be a better way, but
Comrel is generally dealing with stuff that rises above the level of
things that IRC Ops typically deal with.

Now I get that there is open debate over whether "Assholes are ruining
your project" is actually true, but I tend to be in the camp that they
are, and I haven't been too ashamed about being up-front about that
historically so hopefully people who have elected me to Council aren't
too surprised by that.

> I hope it's understandable that some may not have faith or trust in such
> entities and situations. Things are boiling down to "<group> is fine,
> and do a good job; trust us, we're council." I hope I don't have to
> explain what's wrong with that.

So, how would you propose winning over those "some" with a policy
change?  I don't think we can just make all the cases public for both
legal and practical reasons.  Having the lead confirmed by Council and
publishing anonymous stats periodically have been suggested, and seem
pretty likely to happen relatively soon.  What more could be done
short of making individual disputes public?

> I appreciate that someone in the relevant groups is actually
> communicating about it, even if we disagree. It shows that there's some
> willingness to understand and maybe some sort of solution can be found
> in common ground between us.

I like how the CoC puts it, actually (and I had no hand in writing it):
* Respectfully disagree with or challenge other members.

Respectful disagreement is a behavior in the section with behaviors we
encourage and affirm.  While I don't find these discussions
particularly pleasant I do think they're likely to lead to positive
change.  The fact that you seem ignorant of the past concerns with QA
after it being the topic of a similar debate in the past just
demonstrates that it can happen.  Unfortunately Comrel is another
order of magitude in terms of the sensitivity/controversy of decisions
made so I'm not so naive to think that those decisions will ever be
completely uncontroversial.  However, I do support doing what can be
done.

And from my conversations with other Council members all are generally
on-board with Comrel reform in general.  They probably just feel that
the email threads are somewhat repetitive, and I can't really blame
them for that as I find myself questioning whether I ought to reply
every time.  For the most part I try to do so only when adding
something at least somewhat new.  When you do hear silence I wouldn't
interpret it as "they don't care" so much as they don't have anything
new to add.

-- 
Rich