Bug#636783: proposed constitution fix for super-majority within the tech ctte
Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
> I think I agree. Perhaps we should offer that as the only option for
> change.
> How about this:
> In Constitution 6.3 (wdiff -i):
> 3. Public [-discussion and-] decision-making.
> [-Discussion,-]
> Draft resolutions and amendments, and votes by members
> of the committee, are made public on the Technical Committee public
> discussion list. There is no separate secretary for the Committee.
> Rationale:
> On occasion we have been asked to decide on controversial matters
> such as maintainership of packages. Allowing the TC to officially
> hold private conversations will make it much easier for us to take
> on a mediation role, which necessarily involves talking to each side
> in private.
> It will also make it easier for people to informally seek the advice
> of the TC. On a number of occasions recently, enquirers have
> emailed TC members' personal addreses to sound out our opinions.
> This has worked well; however it is not clear that Constitution
> permits it. This situation should be regularised.
> Actual decisionmaking will still take place in public of course.
This looks fine to me.
> I still think we should formally allocate issues to TC members as they
> come in.
I'm also okay with this, and I'm happy to take on more issues. I'm trying
to drive our current issues through to completion as much as I can right
now, as you've probably noticed.
> Do you agree that the maximum size should be increased ? It would
> look something like this perhaps:
I'm not sure on this. To me, it hasn't felt like our problems have so
much been with manpower as with an unwillingness to just create a ballot
and vote on something. The conversation drifts into silence rather than
resulting in a call for votes. I think we should try to be better at
recognizing the point of diminishing returns and call for a vote, which
would let us handle things more efficiently.
Separately, though, I do agree with checking with the current TC members
to see if they have time to devote to the TC going forward.
> In Constitution 6.2(1) and (2), increase the maximum size of the
> Technical Committee from 8 to 12.
> Rationale:
> The TC is currently at its maximum size of 8. However TC members
> tend to be very busy people so there is still something of a
> shortage of effort. We would like to have the option to increase
> the size of the committee to see if that helps get decisions made in
> a more timely fashion.
I don't actually disagree with this, though, and I'd probably vote for it.
I'm just not sure it's horribly important.
>>> In the past the Technical Committee have been slow and reluctant
>>> to overrule a maintainer unless all the members are absolutely
>>> convinced that the maintainer's decision was wrong.
>>> Option A: This is the correct approach.
>>> Option B: TC members should be willing to vote to overrule
>>> if they feel that the maintainer's decision was wrong;
>>> the supermajority requirement is sufficient to guard
>>> against overruling in questionable cases.
>> Hm. That's interesting, yes. I have no idea what the outcome of that
>> vote would be, and I'd be curious to see how it turned out. I think
>> this should be a separate GR, though; I don't think it's really related
>> to the above procedural issues.
> Certainly, yes, but we should hold it concurrently.
> Do you have any opinions about wording, rationale, etc. ?
I'm okay with the wording above, personally.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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