Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] Special meeting [WAS: Council meeting summary for 8 May 2008]

[Ferris McCormick]

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I am sometimes accused of "playing lawyer" when I get into discussions

like this.  Curiously, I almost never play lawyer, and I pretty much

ignore such comments.  So, warning:  In this response, I am going to

play lawyer, look at the "B.  Global issues ..." bit of GLEP 39, and

float an interpretation based on how I understand the intent.  It might

provide a way to proceed, but it will also require Council to open its

sealed logs to some third party.  Further comments in the proper spot

of the reply.



And as I repeat below, if ciaranm indicates that my reading is

incorrect, then I withdraw the argument which follows.





On Fri, 16 May 2008 23:38:42 +0000

Ferris McCormick <fmccor@g.o> wrote:



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> On Fri, 16 May 2008 18:39:03 -0400
> Richard Freeman <rich@××××××××××××××.net> wrote:
>
> > Ferris McCormick wrote:
> > > And as I've said before, if we think a policy doesn't make sense, we
> > > can change it.  But changing a policy that affects Council and then
> > > applying it retroactively gets tricky, because Council themselves are
> > > part of the approval process.
> >
> > Nothing too tricky - council votes that the GLEP is to be modified
> > retroactively.  A few folks complain.  Life goes on.
> >
> >  > Changing policy is a fairly lengthy
> > > procedure, but right now Council is on a one month clock to hold an
> > > election unless something changes.  It still seems to me that Petteri
> > > has it right, and that it's better just to do it rather than talk about
> > > it.
> > >
> >
> > What happens if we just do nothing and pretend it didn't happen?  Most
> > likely, not much.
> >
>
> We send the message to the community that policies don't much matter.
> In this case, someone did bring up policy, so I don't see how we can
> pretend it didn't happen.
>


<Lawyer Alert>



Let's look at "B. Global issues ..." and ciaranm's clarification of the

intent to see how we can interpret GLEP 39 in such a way as to satisfy

its intent without potentially forcing frequest Council elections and

without having to start tinkering with a pretty good policy statement.

I'm going to follow the international style and number my arguments,

and this is one of the few times you will see me play a lawyer. :)  For

clarity, I letter my conclusions.



1.  It is clear that if Council ever calls a meeting, anyone who

does not show up is marked absent and potentially a slacker;

2.  Thus, no matter how anything else turns out, 3 or 4 Council members

might get slacker marks for missing the meeting called for 15.v.08.

3.  The Council did schedule a meeting for 15.v.08 but never actually

did anything because it could not form a quorum.

4.  On its face this looks like a violation of the 50% rule;

5.  But the purpose of the 50% rule is to prevent some subset of the

Council from meeting and taking any sort of action (that is, if Council

ever do anything, they must have a quorum).

6.  So we might argue that while it was pretty bad form for Council to

gather together a meeting on the 15th and then mostly not show up, they

didn't actually do anything so the intent of the 50% rule was not

violated.

- ---> I pass this on to ciaranm for a correct interpretation

because he knows the intent <---

7.  If we read GLEP 39 like that, then this is not the end of the

story, because:

8.  In the events leading up to the non-meeting of the 15th, it is

pretty clear that some number of Council members (a) did meet with

devrel lead one or more times, (b) in secret session(s), and (c)

*something* must have happened because as a result devrel lead took

action on complaint(s?) made directly to Council.

9.  If at ANY of those sessions fewer that 50% of the Council were

present, then GLEP 39 most certainly was violated under the

interpretation in PPS 5, 6 (the ones which can get Council off the hook

for the 15th if we buy them).

10.  Logs of those sessions are closed, however.

11.  Thus, under one arguable reading of GLEP 39, we can have the

following:



A)  For the 15.v.08 non-event, we have lots of absent members and as a

result might or might be forced to replace some Council members under

the slacker parts of GLEP 39.

B)  Since the non-meeting of 15.v.08 didn't take any action except for

never starting, we can say that the 50% rule technically was not

violated;

C)  But if we use that reading, then some number of "secret sessions"

of the Council most certainly did happen (if for no other reason, we

know this because devrel lead clarified policy and took action on

complaints which went directly to Council.)

D)  If at *any* of these sessions fewer that 4 Council members were

present, GLEP 39 50% rule was violated in fact and in spirit.

E)  Under this reading of GLEP 39, we must open all those logs to some

trusted members of the community (developers or not) who have no

connection to either devrel or Council for review.

F)  If Council never met with fewer than 4 in attendance at these closed

sessions, we can probably finesse the open non-event of the 15th where

Council did nothing but annoy a lot of people.

G)  If Council members did ever meet in private without a quorum, then

GLEP 39 is most certainly violated and we must replace Council;

H)  If for some reason Council cannot or will not open those logs as in

E) then this entire argument must fail and we must replace Council for

the 15th.  (Council do not get any White House executive privilege or

"missing emails" sort of pass.  With this reading, "no records" ==

"violation and forced election.")

F)  In other words, we can call the 15th a non-meeting for purposes of

GLEP 39 because nothing happened.  But then all the closed sessions

leading up to the 15th must be treated as actual meetings because as a

result something did happen, and for them the quorum rule most

certainly does apply.



</end Lawyer Alert>



That's how I'd argue it so save Council from themselves for the 15th.

I could probably rearrange it and tighten it up, but that's me playing

lawyer. But it's all or none.  You can't pick the parts you like and

ignore the rest.



Also, if ciaranm says my interpretation is incorrect, I defer to him as

the author of this policy and withdraw it.



For the record:  I've never seen the logs.  I have talked to some of

- --- --- -------

the players involved, but I have no idea at all if this approach would

force a Council election.  And it could influence the discussion when

the non-meeting finally happens, because there will be non-players

around who will know all about events leading up to it.



> > Don't get me wrong - I'm not into dictatorships and I'm a big proponent
> > of democracy.  If most devs really want another election, then let's get
> > it going.  However, all of about 4-6 people (and not all devs) have
> > chimed in on this discussion, which suggests that most don't care.  If
> > most devs don't care for a new election, wouldn't it just be a major
> > distraction to call for an election now?  You'll have three months of a
> > lame-duck council and all kinds of decisions may get put off.
> >
>
> Not really, because the clock resets.  So the election is for 12
> months.  That's pretty clear in the GLEP, I think.
>
> > A few posters in this thread have suggested that they'll probably vote
> > for the exact same council, but it is just important that we follow the
> > process.  Hopefully none of these posters are among those accusing
> > Gentoo of being bureaucratic - having an election just for the sake of
> > having an election when most folks don't want a change just seems like
> > an exercise in procedure.
> >
> > I'm just trying to be pragmatic - the council was democratically
> > elected, and a new council will be elected in a few months.  If the
> > council just went and disappeared I could see the need for an emergency
> > election to keep things going.  However, at this point an election will
> > just delay stuff getting done.
> >
> > I think that an election now would be a mistake.  However, if we really
> > want to survey the devs it wouldn't be a bad thing, although if anybody
> > other than the few of us cared strongly they could just post here.  If
> > there really are a lot of devs who would like us to follow the letter of
> > the current GLEP 39 then I'd be all for an election.
>
> Regards,
> Ferris
> - --
> Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) <fmccor@g.o>
> Developer, Gentoo Linux (Sparc, Devrel, Userrel, Trustees)
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Regards,

Ferris

- -- 

Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) <fmccor@g.o>

Developer, Gentoo Linux (Sparc, Devrel, Userrel, Trustees)

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