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

[Rich Freeman]

On Sat, Nov 12, 2016 at 8:40 PM, William L. Thomson Jr.
<wlt-ml@××××××.com> wrote:
> On Saturday, November 12, 2016 8:24:12 PM EST Rich Freeman wrote:
>>
>> In either case the person affected can appeal to Council which makes
>> the final decision.
>
> If a problem went from Team Lead, or Leads, to a vote from the entire council.
> An appeal should not be necessary. There should not be an appeal process or
> need. Such things should not occur and everyone should be doing everything
> possible to prevent it. Thus again nothing to appeal.

Sure.  In an ideal world the Council would send out a call for agenda
items each month, and there wouldn't be any, because everybody is
resolving their own issues on their own.

Team leads already try to deal with conflicts within their teams.
Sometimes they're unable to do so.  Maybe the team lead is part of the
problem.

And this is why we have a process for dealing with these sorts of
issues.  They don't always go away on their own.

>
>> I don't really see the need to make the appeal automatic, which is
>> basically what you're advocating.  If the person affected accepts the
>> decision, then it can stand.  If they don't think the decision is
>> right, they can appeal.
>
> I do not see your obsession with this appeal. Do you really want to waste more
> of the councils time?

What would you prefer that the Council spend their time on?  The main
purpose of the Council is to deal with cases where individual projects
aren't able to resolve things on their own, conflicts between
projects, and appeals from Comrel/QA.  It is a democratically elected
governance body.

You seem to be content posting dozens of emails complaining about how
you're being treated, but are apparently unwilling to send one email
to try to get your personal situation resolved.  I'm not sure how you
think you're saving anybody time.

> I am not even  council member or developer, but will not
> bring stupid matters to the council to waste others time. Clearly you have a
> different level of respect for others time on a TECHNICAL project not social.

People aren't robots.  You can't design the perfect algorithm and drop
a bunch of people into the mix and watch them happily go about their
jobs.  Part of leadership is dealing with social issues and not merely
technical ones.

When there are problems you can't always solve them by writing more
rules either.

>
> Given your blatant view of the status quo and your comments is a very large
> part why I feel any appeal is futile. I seriously hope there is different
> leadership on the Council. One that is more open minded to changing the status
> quo. Which clearly you are seeking to preserve and further restrict so the
> state quo remains.

I'm all for changing the status quo, as I've posted, and indeed posted
two years ago in the email I linked earlier in the thread.  I'm just
not in favor of changing it into what you seem to advocate.  I don't
really know of any large FOSS project that just lets people mistreat
each other as long as their code is fine.  I don't think that such an
approach is likely to maintain an environment where people want to
participate.

> Rich nothing personal, but I vehemently disagree with how you view most
> things. Your helping to take Gentoo in a very bad direction. Albeit with good
> intentions. Given your public view, appeal to you is pointless.

It isn't like somebody died and put me in charge.  I just get one
vote, and I'm subject to re-election annually in this role.  Appeals
are decided by the Council as a whole, and deal with the specifics of
a case and not just general policy.

Now, if the whole subject of your appeal is that you don't think that
the Code of Conduct should apply to you, well, then sure I'm not going
to agree with that.  I'll still look at the particulars of your
situation and decide if I think Comrel is doing the right thing, and
I'm sure the other Council members will do the same.  However, I'm not
likely to suddenly decide that the Code of Conduct doesn't matter.

I don't take any of this personally, and I don't begrudge you
disagreeing with me.  You're hardly the first to disagree with my
position on this matter, and I've been upfront about my opinion of the
importance of the code of conduct for a fairly long time:

https://dev.gentoo.org/~rich0/council-manifesto-2013.xml
For anybody reading lists the last few weeks it will be no shock that
I do advocate a change in the status quo when it comes to dealing with
CoC and such. I definitely favor a much more activist Council. That
said, I also grok the zen of minimal interference, and I don't think
that every problem is best solved with an official vote. If elected I
won't be afraid to cast a vote to step in when I think enough is
enough, but I intend to try to work via other channels whenever I can.
[ Note that I was advocating more enforcement of the CoC at the time
on the lists. ]

https://dev.gentoo.org/~rich0/council-manifesto-2014.xml
I would like to see some kind of accountability to Council beyond just
the appeals provision. Perhaps they're appointed, or confirmed, or at
least able to be recalled. Maybe some routine reporting of how things
are going is appropriate. It can be a two-way street as well - how can
Council enable and make these organizations more effective? I think
the change to QA was a positive one, and I'd love to see that
extended.

https://dev.gentoo.org/~rich0/council-manifesto-2015.txt
https://dev.gentoo.org/~rich0/council-manifesto-2016.txt
* Code of conduct is important.  If comrel gives you a hard time, don't
  expect me to just bail you out.  I favor rehabilitation over punishment,
  but there has to be a commitment to change.  If you're struggling with
  conflict, please try to get help with it before it gets to that point.
  I'm always willing to listen.


Anybody who voted for me ought to have read those.  It's perfectly
fine to disagree with me but I'd be neglecting my duties if I didn't
stick to what I said before people voted for me.


-- 
Rich