On 2013-03-20 05:22, Charles Plessy wrote:
In Debian, we stay member until we die or quit (or very exceptionally, are expelled). The consequence is that it is hard to evaluate how much activemembers we have. It may also create more crispations about giving membership.
As other replies have said, this seems to be much less of a solved problem in recent years, especially thanks to the work of the MIA team. The easy process for reactivating emeritus accounts seems to help encourage people to retire gracefully. It's still possible for someone to continue as a project member indefinitely if they want to, without doing any work, if they get rid of all their responsibilities first, but I don't think that a large enough number of people have taken this path that we need to worry much about it skewing votes.
However, we do still more frequently have problems in relation to maintenance of individual packages; see, for example, the discussions around package salvaging.
And I think we also have "MIA" problems in individual teams; see my platform for a few suggestions regarding that.
-- Moray