Mike Kupfer wrote:
>>>>>> "GD" == Garrett D'Amore <gdamore at opensolaris.org> writes:
>>>>>>
>
> GD> I think the time has come to draft a constitution amendment limiting
> GD> the number of CC's that each CG can nominate, thereby ensuring that
> GD> no one CG (or small group of CGs) can effectively stymie the
> GD> governance process.
>
> If the problem is non-participation, I'd rather deal with that
> directly (e.g., require some minimum level of participation to maintain
> CC status).
>
> Limiting CC nominations would be more appropriate for dealing with other
> issues, such as concerns that certain community groups have undue
> influence. But of course this begs the question of how one determines
> the appropriate level of influence and how to quantify it.
>
I do believe that no one CG should have "more influence" than any other
CG. (I.e. senatorial-style representation, rather than house-style
representation, for those familiar with US government.) Fortunately, we
haven't had any concrete cases where any one CG's influence has been
noticeably "abused" (unless perhaps that some CG is intentionally
boycotting this particular process.)
> And as Justin pointed out, it'd be helpful if we better understood why
> core contributors aren't participating. I suppose it could just be
> logistical (people are out of town, they didn't realize they need to
> show up, they're not comfortable with IRC, etc.). I suspect it's more a
> matter of not being interested in community-wide governance (as opposed
> to governance in the technical area that they work in). If that's the
> case, then more fundamental changes to the constitution may be needed.
>
Non-participation is probably a result of folks receiving CC (and
accepting it) without realization that carries a *burden*. That
*burden* is to faithfully represent the group that nominated you, e.g.
participation in elections, etc.
In fact, if we choose CC's well, I think we should achieve 100%
participation. Failure to achieve that (or very close to it) suggests
to me that CC's are not being "well-chosen" by the CGs that are electing
them.
Again, I think the problem is conflating the "reward" or "honorary"
nature of the CC grant with the "governance" aspect. I think these two
aspects need to be separated.
Just because someone contributed 10,000 lines of code (or 100K lines, or
1M lines!) doesn't mean that they make a good CC, IMO. A good CC is
someone who participates in both the community that nominated him, and
that can represent that community in the larger OpenSolaris organization.
We do need a way to recognize contributorship without imparting
governance responsibilities, IMO.
-- Garrett
