Re: [gentoo-project] Council meeting Sunday 10/June/2018 18:00 UTC

[Andreas K. Huettel]

Am Sonntag, 10. Juni 2018, 17:24:28 CEST schrieb Aaron Bauman:

> No sitting council members may be appointed to the project liaison
> role.  If this individual is under the strict instruction of the council
> this there is no purpose for a dual-hatted individual.  As such, the
> project laision should be capable of disagreement with the council and not
> fear retribution by being unseated.  This position should be highly coveted
> as it will *directly* impact the current and future health of *our*
> project.

Well... The initial intention was the precise opposite - for reason of 
avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy and intermediate steps, my first draft even 
contained "a council member" instead of "a Gentoo developer". You need to take 
into account that whoever does the job will have to become closely involved 
and *present*.

Then again, if there's a suitable candidate, why not, so I loosened the 
restriction to "a Gentoo developer". The only real limitation *for now* would 
be "no Foundation personnel", to avoid legal complications.

> Additionally, the project liaison should be given some avenue of reprisal.
> First thought would be to introduce an all hands developer vote be called to
> unseat that project liaison.
> e.g. council appointed, but developer community removed.

That could be doable, but we need to make sure that this is not an "easy 
process". I.e., if someone goes completely astray, it needs to be possible 
when there is wide support, but only then... Say, 2/3 of yes votes and a 
quorum of 1/2 of all devs...

> Disagreements between the council and
> their appointed liaison should not be simply squashed by introducing a new
> liaison who will blindly do things the way the council wants.

This does not make sense. The liaison is bound to the instructions of the 
counil, so in case of disagreement the council needs to be able to pick a new 
one.

> Ultimately, we *ought* to ensure that it is done the proper way.  Please put
> the proper checks and balances in place.

I'm more worried that at the moment we're all checks and balances (or more 
precisely, unclear areas of responsibility and unclear procedures), so that in 
the end nothing gets done. 

The council members do get elected... Maybe this would even be an argument 
*for* requiring a council member as liaison.

In any case, this is a discussion of details that we still have quite some 
time for. The motion is primarily whether we should approach SPI with the 
intention of becoming an associated project. Then comes the question whether 
they will accept us. And only after that the precise procedures need to be 
agreed upon.

-- 
Andreas K. Hüttel
dilfridge@g.o
Gentoo Linux developer
(council, toolchain, perl, libreoffice, comrel)