-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Tiziano Müller wrote: > Torsten Veller schrieb: >> Let me please point out that no infrastructure team member is >> on the list right now. >> >> As infra is often involved in implementing council decisions we should >> take care that the information flows. IMHO the easiest way to achieve this >> is electing an infra member to the council. > > > And if someone has to be in a council/whatsoever to get the relevant > information, something else is broken. And tweaking the election > procedure to reach that someone from a special project is elected is > somehow questionable, don't you think? >
Well, I don't think there is anything wrong with somebody from infra being on the council, but I also agree that it shouldn't be essential. I see the council as being like a board of directors for a company - they don't need to make day-to-day decisions but they do need to have ultimate oversight. The skillset needed to run a board is different from the skillset needed to run day-to-day operations. I see the main skills needed by a council member as: 1. Good people skills! 2. Ability to listen to all sides of an issue and make informed decisions. 3. Ability to be an advocate for the project. 4. Energy and spirit - ability to motivate. 5. Ability to be firm when needed - balanced with ability to stay polite while being firm. 6. Some technical vision for the project. 7. Ability to evaluate proposed solutions to technical problems. Honestly, I'm actually wondering if it is a mistake to limit the council nominations to devs only. Having the devs do the voting is a good move I think - they have to live with the decisions and alienating the devs isn't going to be good for the users and other stakeholders. However, if the devs want to elect a non-dev I think that they should be able to do so. Organizations frequently have boards that are composed of non-daily-contributors. I think that Gentoo is making a mistake in seeing the council as a place where ultimately highly-technical decisions get made. I think that is one role of the council, but if you look at Gentoo that isn't what is really causing the problems. The only really technical flamefest I tend to see on -dev is the periodic what-is-the-blessed-package-manager war - and that really isn't so much a technical battle as much as one of principle - should gentoo have more than one? (AND PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS OPENING UP THAT BATTLE AGAIN!!!) Most other technical debates on -dev tend to be a little more dispassionate. My feeling is that the council should be setting general direction and providing accountability on technical issues, but individual herd leads should be the ones taking the initiative. Is there a QA issue? The QA herd lead should come up with a potential solution, run it past the council with some advance debate, and then everybody works together to implement it. The council doesn't need to solve every problem - they just need to listen to people who might have the answer - with a large group like Gentoo they probably already exist. And the council shouldn't be afraid to hire others to do the day-to-day work (well, maybe hire without pay if necessary... :) ). The proctors were a good example of this (even if maybe it didn't get implemented as intended or it didn't go as well as hoped). While the council does need energy it shouldn't require personally moderating the whole project. In real life boards hire CEOs to do the heavy lifting and just meet once per month to see how it is going. I'm not advocating that for gentoo, but people do need to look at the council differently than they do now. It doesn't have to have the best developers in gentoo - it needs to have the best council-members in Gentoo... -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGmgMFG4/rWKZmVWkRAlGfAJ4vGcSnCYxDXp/y5ILWux1+y6x3WACghOwR 5BQg4vpme3BuUFrz4sQMveA= =iown -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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