Re: Re-thinking Debian membership
Hi Lars,
Thank you a lot for taking the time in drawing this nice proposal.
I like it in overall, but with some little changes, that have been already
covered in previous emails. Still I am commenting them.
On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 11:44:03AM +0300, Lars Wirzenius wrote:
[...]
> I think we should go in the opposite direction: massively simplify
> the whole membership thing.
>
Totally agree on this.
[Huge part of the email removed]
> Proposal
> --------
>
> * People should be allowed to join Debian when there is reasonably
> wide-spread consensus that they agree with the project's goals, are
> committed to working on those goals, and are trustworthy. The best way
> to determine this is to have some number of people endorse a candidate.
> However, there should not be too much opposition to a candidate, either.
>
> Concrete proposal: max(Q, 20) endorsements, two existing members
> together can veto. The veto can be done anonymously via the Debian
> Account Manager to avoid peer pressure to not veto. The DAM only
> counts the endorsements and vetos, and does not make judgement calls.
> All endorsements and vetos must happen within 30 days.
>
>
I think max (Q, 20) is a high number, maybe max (Q, 10) ?
And as well, 2 person vetoing seems like a small number, maybe 4 or 5?
> * Membership in the project gives both voting and upload rights.
>
I think it is important everybody having the same rights, voting and
uploading power. Even if some people never will be interested in voting (I do
understand people who do not care about the DPL election), or you are an
translator who never will make a upload.
Still, documentation maintainers might want upload their docs package,
translators could do QA uploads adding translations and so on. You do not
really need so much skills for maintaning an easy package.
For example, a python module is really easy to maintain, and in case of
problems, you have the support of the python modules team where you can ask
or another member can easily help you since all it is team maintained.
I expect this work because I hope when developers endorse somebody for becoming
a member of the project, endorses somebody who not is only interested in the
project technically and philosophically, besides people who they trust and
have some common sense...
> * Membership ends 24 months after they're given, or after the latest
> participation in a vote arranged by the project's Secretary. Members
> may retire themselves earlier, of course.
>
No, please, voting should be voluntary.
>
> * Membership is controlled via GnuPG keyrings, primarily maintained by the
> Debian Account Manager. The keyrings shall be maintained in a way that
> allows any member to change them, and that is fully transparent to the
> members in general, and that further makes it easy to undo mistakes.
>
I like this as is, but if this is a big deal, we can have a keyring team of
3-4 people where the half is being renovated every year or something like
that...
> * Upload sponsorships and the limited upload rights via the Debian
> Maintainer status are unaffected by this proposal.
>
Perfect =)
Ana
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