Re: [gentoo-project] Re: Burden of proof

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 2:16 PM, Luca Barbato <lu_zero@g.o> wrote:
> On 02/04/2018 16:54, Daniel Robbins wrote:
>>
>> Mgorny oversees comrel, that is the problem. And this is not exactly
>> "news"
>> to anyone -- this is a known, chronic issue on the project that for
>> whatever reason has not been addressed.
>
> Comrel members are listed [here][1]

I'm replying here mainly to clarify how things work for those who may
not understand.

To be fair the Council does oversee comrel, sort-of.

To some extent Council oversees everything.  For QA this is formalized
with the lead being confirmed by Council.  There has been discussion
of doing the same with Comrel, though I don't think this has happened
yet.

It should be understand by all that the Council has power
collectively, but not individually.  Individual Council members do not
have any special authority.  Collectively a majority of the Council
can pass resolutions which are authoritative.  Now, sometimes those
resolutions empower individuals (often Council members) to do certain
actions to implement changes, so to that extent there can be
individual power exercised.  However, in general Council members try
to make it clear when this is the case, and should always be able to
point back to a Council vote.

Council members don't have any special authority as individuals to go
and ask projects to do certain things.  In this sense they're actually
weaker than positions like QA/Comrel, especially their leads.\

The Trustees operate similarly, though Officers have more of an
individual role (and sometimes the same people wear both hats).

In my experience Comrel looks to the Council for some level of
guidance, but for the most part Council members who aren't in Comrel
have no idea what specific cases they're working on unless there is an
appeal.  I don't think anybody is so beholden to their role on Comrel
that they're quaking in fear at the idea of upsetting a Council
member.  The reality is that most elected to Council tend to be chosen
because they aren't seen as letting grudges influence decisions, and
most seem to regard Comrel as a pretty thankless job.

I will also generally say that for Comrel to take any kind of serious
action against somebody (bans, removal of dev status, etc) there needs
to be a pretty severe infraction.  It has only happened once or twice
in the last 5 years or so to my knowledge, and not without
controversy.  There are some who argue that this was too much, and
others who argue that it isn't enough.  I tend to fall more in the
latter camp, but when individuals are seen to behave in undesirable
ways with little being done, I think that this should be seen more as
the norm than any kind of special treatment.  I don't think that is a
good thing, but this is a topic that hasn't been easy to find a
balance with, and I don't know that mine is the majority opinion.

-- 
Rich