On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 3:10 PM, Rory O'Farrell <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, 23 Aug 2012 11:33:13 -0700 > Dave Fisher <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I'm not comfortable having a PMC Chair election and nomination on ooo-dev. >> >> I also agree that we should form the PMC membership first. >> >> Regards, >> Dave >> >> On Aug 23, 2012, at 11:22 AM, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote: >> >> > I suggest that the initial Project Management Committee (PMC) needs to be >> > identified before the election of a Chair from that body is undertaken. >> > >> > Also, this seems like a very good time to review, for the benefit of all >> > here, what the duties of PMC members are and, with respect to that, what >> > the specific responsibilities of the Chair are and what the special >> > standing of the Chair is so its accountability can be carried out. >> > >> > - Dennis >> > >> > >> > >> > -----Original Message----- >> > From: Rob Weir [mailto:[email protected]] >> > Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2012 10:36 >> > To: [email protected] >> > Subject: [DISCUSS] Proposed PMC Chair nomination process >> > >> > Now that the community graduation ballot has passed, one of our next >> > tasks is to identify a PMC Chair. >> > >> > You can read about the duties of a PMC Chair here: >> > http://www.apache.org/dev/pmc.html#chair >> > >> > How do we want to do this? >> > >> > A strawman proposal: >> > >> > 1) Nominations would be open for 72 hours. Anyone can nominate >> > someone for the role. Self-nominations are fine. And of course >> > nominations can be declined. >> > >> > 2) If there is only one nomination, then we are done, provided there >> > are no sustained objections. >> > >> > 3) If there is more than one nomination we discuss on the list for >> > another 72 hours. Discussion would primarily be on ooo-dev, but some >> > subjects might be directed to ooo-private. >> > >> > 4) If after 72-hours discussion there are still two or more nominees >> > then we vote. Everyone would be welcome to vote, but binding votes >> > would be from PPMC members. If there are more than 2 candidates we >> > would probably need to use a more complicated voting system, or have a >> > run-off vote if none of the nominees receive an outright majority. >> > >> > Any improvements or alternatives to this basic scheme? >> > >> > Regards, >> > >> > -Rob >> > >> >> > This seems to be a "chicken and egg" situation. Normally a committee will > elect a Chair from its membership. If a Chair is imposed from outside, > either by specific election or appointment by a governing body, then is he a > full member of the committee, with all rights and privileges of membership? > Take a theoretical case - a chair is specifically elected or appointed; he is > extra to the committee. Then, for reasons of health say, he decides he can > not continue to act as chair; does he lose his position on the committee or > does he remain on the committee, increasing its number by one over the > statutory structure? One could see this process repeating to "pack" the > committee with extra members over and above the statutory structure. Does the > procedure for appointing a chair start again, with a new chair elected or > nominated? It seems to me, wih many years of commttee work behind me, that > one first needs to elect the committee, who then, from their number, nominate > a candidate or ca > ndidates for chair. These nominees are either filtered out by an election > process (whether of the committee or of the wider membership of the > association, depending on the rules) until a sole person remains. If the > governing body have reservations about the suitability of any candidate, the > time for these to be expressed is before the filtration process, and > preferably privately before the list of candidates is issued publicly. > > My remarks above are general, not based on any existing rules of any specific > organisation. I'm trying to show what seems to me the necessary logic. >
Good observations. But I think in the end we need to put consensus over process. Not that we abuse process, by any means. But if we arrive at a result that can only be defended on procedural grounds, but is not based on the consensus of the community, then our graduation resolution will receive some strong, well-deserved scrutiny from the IPMC and the ASF Board. In other words, if these decisions are adversarial in nature, and require fine policy arguments to resolve, then that would be a a warning sign that we may not ready to graduate. Instead I hope we'll face difficulties of another kind: the hard decision to pick from among several qualified nominees. -Rob > -- > Rory O'Farrell <[email protected]>
