Re: Maximum term for tech ctte members
On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 05:21:04PM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> FWIW, I found the original wording about this part from
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2014/06/msg00026.html
> much easier to follow, but it might be a non-native speaker failure on
> my part.
Hmm, aren't a majority of Debian devs non-native English speakers anyway?
I was worried that the "two or more .. members have either X or Y"
phrasing might be ambiguous if there was one member who matched X and
a different member who matched Y.
> > + <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>
> Does this really belong to the constitutional text?
"Text marked as a citation, such as this, is rationale and does not form
part of the constitution. It may be used only to aid interpretation in
cases of doubt." -- from appendix B in the constitution.
> It is good to
> document the underlying principle/expectation of this change, but having
> it in the GR text (but still not in the constitution itself) would be
> good enough IMO.
Given the convoluted wording, I think it makes sense to have a bit of
an explanation in the text itself, and not just in the GR.
On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 05:43:47PM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 12:08:33AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > + 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.
> About this, I wonder if the text should specify in which order expiries
> are to be processed, e.g., most recently appointed members last.
Take the current members, Ian, Bdale, Steve, Andi, Russ and Don are all
over five years and are in roughly that order of seniority iirc. On Jan 1st
2015, assuming no resignations, then:
- Andi: 2x current, longer serving members (Bdale and Ian)
- Bdale: 1x current, longer serving member (Ian) --> expired
- Colin: under 4.5 years
- Don: 4x current, longer serving members (Bdale, Ian, Steve, Andi)
- Ian: no longer serving members --> expired
- Russ: same as Don
- Steve: same as Andi
ie, I guess I was thinking that were all considered simultaneously so
ordering wasn't relevant.
There could be a minor cascade effect though I guess. If, say, Colin
resigns, you might get something like:
- 2014-10-23: Colin resigns to found forkubuntu.org
- 2015-01-01: Ian's term expires
- 2016-01-01: Bdale, Steve, Andi's terms expire
- 2017-01-01: Russ and Don's terms expire
- 2018-01-01: no one expires!
- 2019-01-01: Keith's term expires
because while there'd be three people's terms expiring in 2016, both
Andi and Steve would only have Bdale as more senior, since they were
appointed at the same time.
Oh, hey, since there's already math in the constitution, maybe it would
work to say something like:
Membership of the Technical Committee is automatically reviewed on
the 1st of January of each year. At this time, the terms of the N
most senior members automatically expire provided they were appointed
at least 4.5 years ago. N is defined as 2-R (if R < 2) or 0 (if R >=
2). R is the number of former members of the Technical Committee who
have resigned, or been removed or replaced within the previous twelve
months.
A member of the Technical Committee is said to be more senior than
another if they were appointed earlier, or were appointed at the same
time and have been a member of the Debian project longer. In the event
that a member has been appointed more than once, only the most recent
appointment is relevant.
?
It's getting closer to source code than English at that point, but...
(I'm not sure the second paragraph there is actually needed; could
probably just rely on the secretary or the ctte itself to interpret
"seniority" and disambiguate "appointment" sensibly.)
(I believe the above would declare Steve senior to Andi, and Don senior
to Russ)
Cheers,
aj
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