[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Alternative proposal: focus on term limits rather than turnover



Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> [private reply on purpose, since I'm not a DD]

[Neither am I; replying publically since your reply was actually public.]

> On Jo, 20 nov 14, 11:25:10, Josh Triplett wrote:
> > 
> > """
> > No Developer may serve on the Technical Committee for more than 4 years
> > out of any 6 year period.  A Developer's term on the Technical Committee
> > expires if they would exceed this limit.
> > """
> > 
> > Exact numbers open for bikeshedding, but does the principle seem sound?
> 
> It does to me, but given the current "age" of the TC members[1] the 
> practical effect would be that the terms of all TC members except Keith 
> Packard would expire as soon as the GR passes and assuming no member 
> ever retires the same will happen every 4 years (as per your suggest 
> numbers).
> 
> [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2014/11/msg00199.html

(And https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2014/05/msg00054.html in
particular for the specific term lengths.)

I'd forgotten that Colin was the only other member with less than a 4
year term (and he's leaving the TC); I'd thought there was one more.

> I would suggest introducing a transitional clause that would state 
> something like:
> 
>     As a transitional measure, the terms of all current members that 
>     exceed 4 years will only expire every 6 months, in order of 
>     seniority.
> 
> This would need some refining, but I hope you get the point.

Seems reasonable, yes.  I think that having the simplest possible
functional expression of term limits seems like a feature, with a
transitional measure *solely* to stage the turnover of the *current* TC
over time (and thus set up for future staged term expiry as well).  That
makes more sense to me than baking in a "2 members" or "2-R members"
rule going forward.

Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 11:25:10AM -0800, Josh Triplett wrote:
> > That also eliminates any issues of relative seniority, since we
> > evaluate each member's term limit in isolation.  It also eliminates
> > any transitional issues, both because we don't link the expiry to any
> > particular calendar date, and because by the time we pass this we'll
> > have enough developers on the committee whose terms will *not*
> > immediately expire that we won't have to appoint more in a rush.
> 
> I wonder how you could be so sure about that.

We just had three people leave the committee, and the TC put out a call
for nominations; they plan to start evaluating nominated candidates on
December 1st, so it seems fairly likely that we'll have at least three
more new members roughly by the end of the year.  I'd had the impression
there were a couple more members with terms less than 4 years, but even
a 4-person committee is enough to function and appoint more members.
However, it seems easy enough to add a simple transition mechanism, and
in particular (as stated above in reply to Andrei), it seems preferable
to have a very simple term limit rule applied to *individual* members
orthogonally rather than a rule applied to the committee as a whole.

> But even if that is the case, replacing the whole (or mostly of) the
> current CTTE with a freshly appointed one at the same time is very
> likely to induce the problem that after another full term period (4
> years or whatever else the bikeshed says) from now you'll have another
> large wave of batch replacements.  Yes, that could happen anyhow, but is
> much more likely to happen if you start enforcing a strict term limit
> abruptly to all members, instead of doing so gradually.
> 
> So, while your proposal is appealing in the abstract for its simplicity,
> it is not really practical (in the current situation) without a
> relatively complex transitional measure that make its initial
> application gradual.
> 
> > So, the complete diffstat of this proposal is +3-0, rather than +15-1.
> > :)
> 
> Yes, but to achieve a similar effect you'll have a much larger diff to
> apply to the transitional measure, that you're trying to sweep under the
> carpet :-)

Not particularly.  Incorporating a transitional measure like Andrei's
suggestion:

-----8<-----
The Constitution is amended as follows:

--- constitution.txt.orig	2014-11-20 13:14:40.018610438 -0800
+++ constitution.txt	2014-11-20 13:15:23.714844659 -0800
@@ -301,6 +301,9 @@
        appointment.
     5. If the Technical Committee and the Project Leader agree they may
        remove or replace an existing member of the Technical Committee.
+    6. No Developer may serve on the Technical Committee for more than 4
+       years out of any 6 year period.  A Developer's term on the
+       Technical Committee expires if they would exceed this limit.
 
   6.3. Procedure
 

As a transitional measure, the terms of the current members of the Technical
Committee shall instead expire every 6 months starting on 2015-01-01, in
descending order of seniority; term limits then apply to them as normal.
-----8<-----

Three lines of diff to the Constitution, and three lines of transition
measure.  Still seems like a much simpler solution; in particular, once
the transition concludes, the ongoing algorithm is just three lines.

- Josh Triplett


Reply to: