Hi Gianluca,
On Sun, 2010-11-14 at 15:50 +0100, Gianluca Turconi wrote:
> This is to say: both BoD and ESC with a fixed number of members should
> be elected from "members" and "members-developers"
That might work; its not a terrible idea. Then again - I am not aware
of any other project where the maintainers are elected ;-)
> So corporations and governments would have a direct role in both the
> political and technical bodies without a predominance of anybody.
I -really- think that an informal approach, where large contributors
are invited to join the ESC (don't like the name frankly), and we have a
healthy mix of volunteers works best.
Clearly the elected representatives can replace the ESC if it goes bad
- a useful check on their influence.
> Let's say corporation X and government Y gain enough members to control
> the ESC. Economically speaking, they can form a cartel and exclude any
Lol ;-)
> No enlargement of the ESC would prevent such situation, because no
> enlargement would be permitted at all by the dominant members.
..
> Just like Oracle with OOo.
It is possible in theory. Of course, elections are not without their
potential problems too: creating division, disgruntled loosers, and
campaigning over political points in the (often fragile) volunteer
developer community
> However, the ESC isn't simply a technical meeting place. In a software
> project, devs do *the* work, so they have the real power.
Sure - so we need to make the ESC reflect those doing the actual work,
but this is non-controversial IMHO. Even Oracle managed to do this
reasonably well: we had IBM, Novell, RedHat, Canonical etc. there - the
problem there was not a lack of representation.
> And ESC, IMO, with its unknown number of members and cooptation, is
> more likely open to external and uncontrolled bid for power.
As/when the ESC turns bad; it should be easy to see. Then we can get it
kicked out and re-formed by the board.
This is how GNOME works; thus far the 'release team' has not gone bad,
and plenty of people have come and gone through the team.
> Good suggestions, though I'd like a fixed number of ESC members too.
On the contrary; I would like it flexible; so if RedFlag joins, or IBM
joins, we can immediately offer them permanant representation (eg.)
rather than having to pick who to kick off ;-) or waiting for another
election cycle.
Meritocracy is great, but a quiet, relational process works rather well
too IMHO, and having a small group of people who can actually decide
things and work together effectively is really useful.
ATB,
Michael.
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