Re: Technical committee resolution

[Ian Jackson <ian@davenant.greenend.org.uk>]

Loïc Minier writes ("Re: Technical committee resolution"):
> On Thu, Mar 27, 2008, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > So I would like to suggest something radical.  The decisionmaking
> > processes of the TC should be taken out of the Constitution.  Instead,
> > the TC and the DPL should decide between them a Charter
> 
>  I agree with the analysis, but the proposed Charter concept looks
>  like working around the Constitution's change process.

Yes, you're absolutely right: it _is_ working around the
constitution's change process.  Or rather, it is solving the problem
that the constitution's change process is too rigid for this
application, by switching to a different easier change process.

The constitution's change process is very heavyweight.  It has to be
because it basically governs everything and if you can change the
constitution easily then the easiest way to get your way is to change
the constitution to say you can.  So changing the constitution has to
be made at least as hard as making any other decision.

But I don't think the TC's deciseionmaking process really needs that
degree of robustness against attack.  Note that the group of people
who get to set the process for making decisions is the same group who
could (if they could manage to decide their way out of a paper bag)
just make the same decisions anyway.

The things that the constitution needs still to specify are:
  * The TC's powers.  Obviously you can't have the TC deciding its
    own powers, even if the DPL has to agree as well.
  * The supermajority for overruling a maintainer.  I think this
    can be expressed in a way that doesn't depend on the Standard
    Resolution Procedure.

Note that my proposal (to allow the TC and DPL to decide together the
TC's processes for decisonmaking and its own processes for
appointment) doesn't actually let an active and out-of-control DPL/TC
combination do anything they couldn't do already.

If the DPL and a bare majority of the TC are determined to push a
particular decision through, they can throw the dissenters off the
committee using 6.2(5) (which requires only a simple majority) and
then the supermajority is assured.

So I'm not intending to weaken the controls against rogues.  I'm
trying to smooth the path of normal decisionmaking.

Ian.