Re: [gentoo-project] Groups under the Council or Foundation: the structure & processes thereof

[Rich Freeman]

On Thu, Oct 13, 2016 at 4:36 PM, Matthew Thode
<prometheanfire@g.o> wrote:
> On 10/13/2016 03:24 PM, Matthias Maier wrote:
>>
>> And what exactly would make the Foundation more appropriate to rule over
>> interpersonal matters of a (disconnected) body of developers?
>>
> Council is for technical decisions, that they rule over 'HR' decisions
> is an overstep.  'HR' is generally close to legal, and thus the foundation.
>

So, this has come up a couple of times.

I disagree that the council is solely for technical decisions today.
Things like CoC have been their domain for a long time, and has been a
common point of debate in discussions of manifestos and such, and just
about every serious Council manifesto I've read tends to touch on
non-technical matters.  Certainly those who vote for the Council have
chosen people who can speak to more than just how eclasses ought to be
factored.  The reality is that a lot of the disputes that have been
settled by the Council in recent years have dealt with conflicts that
are not purely technical in nature.  I think those currently in the
role have generally proven their ability to handle such matters,
though I doubt there are a lot of people on this planet who get up in
the morning looking forward to dealing with interpersonal conflicts.

I'm not saying that we couldn't create a future model where we have a
Council that is solely technical in nature, but that isn't the way it
is today.

I do think that it is important to create a model that makes sense
before focusing on who is in what job title today.  We can always move
people around if the wrong people end up being in the wrong roles.  If
the powers of a position change dramatically that might be a good
reason to hold a new election as part of the transition, etc.

However, the issue still exists that we need to make sure that the
final roles make sense, and that they have the right constituencies.

-- 
Rich