Re: [gentoo-project] Foundation membership and who can join

[Daniel Campbell]

On 10/13/2016 11:56 AM, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 13, 2016 at 12:35 PM, Matthew Thode
> <prometheanfire@g.o> wrote:
>> Current bylaws state that to become a member you need to petition the
>> trustees for membership to the foundation.  What verification is done by
>> trustees is up in the air.  Members also seem to be members for life
>> unless they remove themselves are are removed by a vote of the trustees.
>>
>> I suggest we use and/or modify the existing staff quiz for use as a
>> guide for who to admit, as 'graded' by trustees.  I also suggest that
>> some for of positive acknowledgement that they will adhere to the CoC
>> would be helpful as well.
>
> We've already talked via IM, but some principles I have which probably
> are worth just airing are:
>
> We should have one standard for people who are "part of Gentoo."
> Let's call them "staff" for the sake of argument.  Staff may or may
> not commit to the tree (which is why I didn't use the term devs,
> though I realize in practice we tend to use the two terms
> interchangeably today).  However, they should be active contributors,
> and there should be some kind of way of cleaning up people who aren't
> active (the bar need not be super high).
>
> Staff should be expected to adhere to the CoC, and should be all
> subject to the same enforcement of it.  Staff should be automatically
> members of the Foundation, and cease to be Foundation members when
> they are no longer staff.  The Foundation should of course have a say
> in the criteria for admission/removal as a result.  However, if we
> want to be "one Gentoo" and stop being a "two headed monster" we need
> to stop having multiple sets of criteria for how is and isn't a
> member/voter/etc.
>
> Developers with commit access are a subset of staff, and their commit
> activity is subject to QA.  Staff who aren't developers are generally
> not in the scope of QA.
>
> There will need to be some teams responsible for administering people
> getting in, and leaving (whether by inactivity, choice, or forcibly).
> There will need to be a governance body with the final say in this.
>
> I think if you start from this set of principles and work the rest
> out, you're a lot more likely to end up with something that isn't a
> two-headed beast.  You have one constituency, which is the start to
> having a more unified leadership structure.  I don't think that this
> addresses all the issues (not by a long shot), but having just one set
> of members and standards and enforcement of those standards is
> probably a necessary part of any solution.
>
All in all fair points. What do we do with developers who are
legitimately held up in RL affairs and have appropriately indicated so
in devaway? Consensus seems to hold that 6-9 months of inactivity could
be enough to invoke Undertaker action. Should that happen and a
developer come back, would they need to pass the ebuild tests again, or
merely talk to infra to get their account "unlocked" so to speak?

I ask because I can think of a few developers who aren't too active, but
I don't feel their dev status should be revoked for inactivity --
especially if said inactivity is not something within their (easy)
control, like the birth of a child, crunch time at work, and so on.

But I see the need to keep Gentoo not only clean, but secure. Automatic
'locking' of an account after 6 months or something could help diminish
the attack surface of infra, and is easily reversible.

-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
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