also sprach Lucas Nussbaum <leader@debian.org> [2014-04-26 11:37 +0200]:
> 1) Respective governance & decision making of DebConf, DC15 and
> the DC15 legal entity
>
> As you know, there is an ongoing (slow) discussion about DebConf
> governance. I believe that my position is best summarized by the
> excerpt from the draft delegation below (for DebConf chairs):
Is this draft up for discussion?
Even though zack's delegation left much to be interpreted, it was
also wise in that it did not overregulate at this early stage. For
instance, chairs cannot ensure success of DebConf, and were
I a chair, I would run away if you asked me to be "ultimately
responsible" for that success.
That they offer advice and experience should probably also not be
part of a delegation and should be the default behaviour for every
team member. As I've argued before, advice and experience doesn't
gain any weight from a delegation, at least not in our rounds, where
the only selling point is that advice and experience itself.
I especially don't think that the chairs should be "helping to
create decision-making structures" in new-formed local teams, but
let them self-organise. Obviously not all local teams can do that
and need help, but others do not. Specifying that the chairs should
help all teams is going to exascerbate the problems we are facing
these days.
Of course, speaking about different teams brings up the whole debate
of whether there is a partition between the local team and the orga
team, and while we all agree that there isn't really — that the
local teams are part of the One And Only Orga Team, this doesn't
work too well in practice, because teams like DC13 and DC15 do not
want to wait until DCX-1 is over and 2 months have passed until the
orga team again has the energy to deal with the next DebConf.
It's even worse than that, actually, and specifically affects the
chairs, which is why the following aspect must be taken into account
in any delegation: as long as the chairs do not re-organise
themselves in such a way that one or two of them handle DCX while
the third concentrates only on DCX+1, we'll have a situation where
two very critical periods overlap: the final lap leading up to DCX,
and the pre-sponsoring, legal entity, contract negotiation etc.
period for DCX+1.
One thing that went wrong with DC13 and which we're trying hard to
prevent for DC15 is that the orga team was to preoccupied with DC12
and rather than being stood in the way, DC13 went ahead with their
organisation, which in turned pissed some people off who felt like
they weren't asked and had their authority undermined.
I am not trying to summarise the events around DC13 and let's not
get there, but this is one aspect that I witnessed, and the DC15
team has been trying hard to be up-front and public about
*everything*, even though it's really painful at times to put things
up for discussion when there's time pressure from the other side.
In part, of course, the pain stems from the fact that the orga team
and the chairs are busy with DC14 and don't really want to have to
make (or be involved in) far-reaching decisions about DC15 at this
time.
Local teams are really project teams, self-contained in many ways
and up to a certain point, within a larger team. They are charged
with a task *because they are trusted to perform that task* and
unless we see DebConf as an exercise in bureaucracy, they should
have as much freedom as possible to carry out said task. There
should be transparency and reporting standards, limits in the powers
(e.g. the budget), and everything else that makes up a good
governance. But there should not be top-down control. That may have
worked in your mulitnational corporation in the sixties, but it
doesn't work there nowadays anymore, and it sure doesn't work in
a volunteer-driven project, such as DebConf.
I do *not* think that the role of chairs as they currently exist, or
as you are wanting to delegate them, is a good delegation. I am also
not trying to say that my governance proposal is the only way
forward.
But what I am trying to say is that we should really spend some time
doing conceptual work to figure out a good way in which our
volunteer team can organise 2–3 conferences at any one time in
parallel and make sure that the team is trusted by Debian as a whole
such that there's no need for liasions who are held responsible… but
who are not supposed to take authoritarian steps because everyone
was supposed to get their advice in advance… but when they have to…
without that being made clear what it actually means… then they can
veto… without that being clear either (e.g. you won't be able to
veto a contract once it's been signed…)…
It seems to me that this would be digging the hole deeper from which
the current frustrations stem.
Therefore, I think it would be better to not fire prematurely at
this stage.
However, you are the DPL and you get to do what DPLs do. If you
decide that your delegation is a good step, then you get to lead the
way. However, as DC15 team member, I would appreciate if you gave us
a clear statement about whether this new delegation retroactively
applies to DC15 organisation, or whether it'll be in effect for DC16
for the first time.
--
.''`. martin f. krafft <madduck@debconf.org>
: :' : DebConf orga team
`. `'`
`- DebConf14: Portland, OR, USA: http://debconf14.debconf.org
DebConf15: Heidelberg, Germany
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