Bertrand Delacretaz wrote on 10/31/24 10:04 AM:
On Thu, Oct 31, 2024 at 1:57 PM Rich Bowen <notificati...@github.com>
wrote (on a GitHub page):
I think possibly one of the points of confusion here is the use of the word
"consensus",
which has been a point of confusion for years, since that word has several
substantially different uses....
"Consensus" is a *concept* around group decision making; I hope we agree
on that. Personally, I'm -0.5 on any definitions of "consensus vote",
because the ASF meaning of "vote" tends to be very specific around
procedure, not the overall concept of "how we make some decision".
Consensus at the board level is simple to define, we should find a way
to add it to the glossary - noted that this is the Board process, and
PMCs often have different kinds of decisions. At every board meeting:
- We have a posted agenda with detailed reports.
-- Thus, the group deciding something (here, the board) has clear
information available with plenty of notice to all, giving plenty of
chances for questions or comments before the meeting/decision process.
- During the meeting, we review PMC reports, and perhaps discuss flags.
-- Thus, we know the group deciding something is all participating, and
is clear on what the questions to decide are.
- The Chair then says "are there any *objections* to accepting submitted
reports *by consensus*".
- If any Director objects, they state so, and we discuss to figure out a
way forward. This is similar conceptually to a veto, but the word
"veto" has special meaning elsewhere, so let's not use that one.
- If no Director objects (even if they're not completely happy with
FooBar's report, and will be asking questions later), then the Chair
asks the Secretary to record acceptance of the reports "by consensus".
We do have an ASF glossary at
https://www.apache.org/foundation/glossary, which we might improve and
which we should IMHO point to more often.
Huh, I completely forgot about that. And I'll have changes to suggest,
especially for words that have common governance meanings outside the
ASF. "Consensus decision making" has a sizeable wikipedia page, along
with plenty of organizational governance meanings; for major concepts
like that we should work toward linking to a couple of outside
definitions, so we can explain any subtly different ASF connotations.
Or maybe create an additional glossary on the comdev website, and link
both pages for completeness.
Please, please let's not duplicate the glossary. We have enough trouble
with awareness of the existing one; duplicating something as simple as a
glossary of words is like copypasta code in the core of your event loop.
--
- Shane
Member
The Apache Software Foundation
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