Maximum term for tech ctte members

[Anthony Towns <aj@erisian.com.au>]

Hey,

Moving from -project. Reference:

 https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2014/05/threads.html#00054

Like I said, I'd rather provide a second than make a proposal, but at
debconf Stefano [0] said he'd appreciate some sample wording, so
here's what I came up with, based on where I was thinking when the
thread on -project sputtered out.

  https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2014/06/msg00026.html

--- constitution.cur.wml
+++ constitution.wml
@@ -507,11 +507,33 @@
     appointment.</p>
   </li>

+   <li>
+    <p>A Developer is not eligible to be appointed to the Technical Committee
+    if they have been a member within the previous 12 months.</p>
+   </li>
+
   <li>
     <p>If the Technical Committee and the Project Leader agree they
     may remove or replace an existing member of the Technical
     Committee.</p>
   </li>
+
+   <li>
+    <p>Membership of the Technical Committee is automatically reviewed
+    on the 1st of January of each year. At this time, any member of the
+    Technical Committee who was most recently appointed 54 or more months
+    prior will ordinarily have their term automatically expire. However,
+    a member's term may be extended until the next review provided
+    there are at least two other members, each of whom who either (a)
+    are a current, longer serving member of Technical Committee, or (b)
+    resigned from the Technical Committee, or were removed or replaced
+    since the previous review.</p>
+
+    <p><cite>When the Committee is fully populated, it is expected this
+    will result in a turnover of 1 or 2 members each year, whether by
+    resignation or term expiry, while allowing senior members to stay
+    on if a junior member resigns.</cite></p>
+   </li>
 </ol>

 <h3>6.3. Procedure</h3>

Debian's birthday came and went, so Jan 1st seems the next most
obvious flag day. 54 months is 4.5 years; if you get appointed to the
ctte in January after someone else resigns or expires, you term won't
expire until January 4 years and 11 months away, whether the limit is
48 months or 59 months, so using the midpoint means expiries happen in
the range of 4.5-5.5 years which I think works out okay.

The above's as simple as I could make the phrasing. If someone else
can do better, please do :)

I know there's been some talk that maybe this is something the ctte
should just handle themselves; my view is that it's better to have
something that just takes care of it in a "good enough" way without
having to take specific actions (which can be missed or
procrastinated) or having the people involved having to think about it
in detail (whether that means bikeshedding the process or weight it
against "oh, but I have a couple more things I just have to do while
on the ctte").

Cheers,
aj

[0] I'm pretty sure it was Stefano, my memory of that night's possibly
kinda blurry...

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj@erisian.com.au>