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On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 6:34 AM, Patrick Lauer <patrick@g.o> wrote: |
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> On 07/04/14 08:59, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote: |
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>> |
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>> The potential for "conflict of interests" is the reason any candidate |
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>> that is a member of ComRel (in the past devrel) gets flagged, so that |
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>> voters are aware of that. That is the same reason Trustees are flagged. |
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>> This fear of a ComRel "cabal" in my view seems to have been born of a |
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>> fear or distrust of some developers, mostly more recent developers, that |
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>> either don't know or don't understand ComRel and tend to see if as a |
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>> "old men club" that is "closed" to them. I think it's a pity such a |
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>> sentiment was born and has grown. |
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> |
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> Blame your predecessors who followed a scorched earth policy - it'll |
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> take lots of time to gain trust |
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> |
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Honestly, I'd be a proponent of making ComRel more transparent in |
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terms of its constitution. It deals with sensitive issues and I don't |
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have a problem with the details of what they do being held in |
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confidence unless the parties involved want them to be public. |
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However, there is no need for the actual organization of the team to |
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be non-open. |
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I'll just toss out some ideas and maybe some will be helpful. Please |
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note that I'm not suggesting that anybody is really trying to keep |
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secrets here - it is just easier to have a discussion and not write up |
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minutes than it is to announce things on lists, and so things probably |
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happen that way. |
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1. Announced elections, membership changes, etc. When these things |
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happen, publish it on -project, or at least on the team page. Make it |
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easy for everybody to see what is going on with the |
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membership/leadership of ComRel. There is no need for the annual lead |
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election to be secret. |
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2. Announced and open regular meetings. Meetings could have an open |
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and a closed component if actual cases are to be discussed. Things |
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like policy can be discussed in the open. I don't know how meetings |
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are held now, but the closed part can happen wherever things happen |
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today, and the open part could be in #gentoo-meetings or such with |
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published logs. Maybe you meet for 30 minutes in the open and then 30 |
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minutes closed. Or maybe every other meeting is open. Figure out |
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what works for the team, but with the goal of giving the community |
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more insight and influence over anything which isn't personal. The |
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Trustees routinely deal with closed bugs that contain personal or |
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financial details we don't want on the Internet, but any actual |
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decisions are in the open. So, everybody can see that we're spending |
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$500 on some server, without seeing scans of checks and credit card |
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numbers. |
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3. This is a bigger change, but I'd advocate doing with ComRel what |
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was done last year with QA. Have the team self-governing for the most |
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part, but with the Council having to confirm the lead and basically |
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having the effective ability to take over if necessary. I'd highly |
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discourage the Council ever doing that, but I'd look at it a bit like |
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being able to Impeach or Recall an elected official - just a way to |
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have accountability and the mandate that goes along with that. |
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All of that goes far beyond whether there is overlap in Council/team membership. |
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QA has basically been doing all three of these and I think it has been |
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a good change. Sure, not everybody agrees with everything the new |
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team has been doing, but the fact is that at least everybody knows |
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what is going on, who is in charge, and how they got to be in charge. |
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I think those are steps in the right direction. |
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Rich |
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