On Sun, Feb 05, 2006 at 10:50:10AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > So we had some discussion on the private list about some possible changes > to the way the tech ctte works to make it a little more responsive and > effective. It looks like there's some consensus on the following: > (1) Rotating the tech ctte chair > Changing chairs every two months would mean everyone would be chair over > the course of the year; helping ensure that we notice people who aren't > active in a timely manner, and distributing the load a bit more fairly. > I propose we do this, and for concreteness propose the following rotation: > - Feb 14th Ian Jackson > Feb 15th - Mar 31st Steve Langasek > Apr 1st - May 31st Bdale Garbee > Jun 1st - Jul 31st Anthony Towns > Aug 1st - Sep 30th Raul Miller > Oct 1st - Nov 30th Andreas Barth > Dec 1st - Jan 31st Ian Jackson > Ordering generated by: > for a in "Raul Miller" "Bdale Garbee" "Steve Langasek" \ > "Anthony Towns" "Andreas Barth" > do echo $(echo $a | sha1sum) $a; done | sort > with Ian left out so everyone gets a shot at being chair before he's > chair again, and Manoj left out since he's currently secretary and 2.1(2) > of the constitution requires the DPL, secretary and tech ctte chair > to be separate people. Manoj would have been between Steve and Bdale; > Ian would have been between Bdale and me. > I'm not particularly attached to the above ordering, if anyone has any > particular preference, that's fine by me. I'm not sure if having an RM > be tech ctte chair just before a release is due is a really good thing > or a really bad thing. :) This looks reasonable to me. I'm a bit nervous about being first in line here, but I tried to use md5sum instead of sha1sum and it *still* put me first, so apparently it's fated. ;) I agree with the proposal to implement a rotating chair, for the reasons you've given. It seems to contradict 6.1.7 of the constitution as written to have an automatically rotating chair, however. Are we amending the constitution (no way to get that done by the 15th), or is this just an informal agreement for each chair to vacate after a term of two months? > (2) Requiring an implementation of proposals > The md5sum "decision" is still languishing after a year and a half, and > the contrary proposal has been in stable for over six months; I think > we'd have an easier time and be able to avoid these things if people > provide full patches with their proposals, and we make our decision by > uploading an NMU with the appropriate patch applied. > If there's no patch available, we could still offer advice, just not > make a decision on how the maintainer should act. This also provides an > easy way to ensure we're not doing technical design ourself (by making sure > it's already been done). > So I propose we establish a rule that we won't make decisions on issues > that aren't ready for an immediate NMU when we make that decision. I agree with this. I'm open to helping with implementation of proposed technical solutions if that's called for, but it doesn't make sense to bring an issue before the ctte unless such a technical solution exists for consideration. > (3) Advisory opinions from the chair > On the other hand, I think we should make it quick and easy to get > opinions from the committee too; so if a maintainer has a particularly > tricky issue and wants someone to have a look over their work to see if > they've missed something important, they can talk to us about it without > having to go through a ridiculous amount of process. > The easiest way to do this seems like having the chair give out an > advisory opinion on behalf of the committee when an issue's raised, and > to let that stand as the committee's opinion without the formality of a > vote or a formal tech ctte decision -- at least until someone else on > the ctte disagrees, or a maintainer definitely needs to be overruled. > Adding this to the chair's responsibilities/powers seems reasonable > assuming we rotate the chair fairly regularly. > So I propose we establish that our procedure in addressing issues is > for the chair to quickly issue an initial opinion; and to only vote on > issues when an official ruling is needed (eg, to overrule a maintainer) > or when members of the tech ctte disagree. Is there a fixed period in which tech ctte members should be expected to comment if they disagree? -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. vorlon@debian.org http://www.debian.org/
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