I would have to say that given what I've seen, I encourage this
approach unless the current portmgr team wants to stand up immediately
and say they can commit to the short-term time needed to defining and
ratifying a voting process. If that is not something they can commit
to, then I would suggest that given acceptance of the individuals
noted below (or some subset of them likely no less then three
individuals in size), that their first task is to determine what the
voting process will be in the future.
I would also strongly support a time limit on the terms so that the
community has some method to impact how the project is being governed
as well as giving members of the portmgr team a method of moving on if
they can no longer commit their time and energy.
Ryan
On Oct 8, 2008, at 5:55 AM, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordian_knot)
Having just read jmpp's request for "a bit more time" to sort out a
voting process, I must confess to feeling more trepidation than
assurance. To be completely fair, he does note several times that
he and the rest of the moribund portmgr team would like to move
quickly, but given the degree to which that group has also
demonstrated itself to be overworked and less than involved in the
day to day affairs of MacPorts, anything which delays a solution
also runs the risk of blunting some of the current enthusiasm should
said "process" end up dragging out longer than anticipated (which,
as experience amply suggests, it invariably does) and I honestly
don't think we can afford that at this late stage.
I would therefore like to suggest that we simply ratify the
following list rather than dragging out a lengthy "voting" process
for a set of positions which, from a certain angle, might even be
viewed as largely ceremonial since there is no real "power" afforded
by membership in the portmgr team. Volunteers will always choose
to follow (or not) such a group on the basis of the credibility of
its individual members rather than any fancy paper hats they may be
wearing, and the sooner we simply slam those hats on some credible
heads and say "Thank you! Get started!", the sooner we can all get
back to discussing the real question of how to get to where we need
to go next.
As a courtesy to the outgoing portmgr team, I would also be
perfectly happy to see them be the official "ratifiers" of this new
team, assuming it passes their sniff test and they're also willing
to do so in the next day or two, otherwise I would be just as happy
with a statement along the lines of "if there are no significant,
well-argued objections in the next 72 hours, they're it! Quick,
before they change their minds!" :-)
Portmgr (subject to individual acceptance, of course - we still
haven't heard from two of the four):
Ryan Schmidt
Bryan Blackburn
Rainer Mueller
Joshua Root
[Note: Any subset of the above would also be acceptable - 4 is not
some magic minimum number, for all the reasons I've already outlined]
Release engineering team:
Ryan Schmidt (interim or longer, if he wants it)
Julio Biason
I'm really not trying to undercut anyone here, least of all jmpp,
but seriously folks - we've been suffering from a leadership/
directional vacuum for quite some time now and I don't think we need
to bog down the only solution to be offered in quite some time by
getting all constitutional about it or saying "hey, wait, let's all
think about this for awhile and engage in lengthy discussion!"
That might have been a good plan of action about a year ago, and I
would be also more than happy to see the "new portmgr" establish a
framework for elections and term limits and all the other checks and
balances that they might wish to create for future generations, but
what we need right now is an immediate "interim government" and some
long overdue action on the release engineering front.
Any objections?
- Jordan
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