Re: CTTE requesting questions for DebConf20 BoF
Hi, A few thoughts, if I may: On 26/07/2020 21:37, Sean Whitton wrote: Private Discussions --- One way to solve the perception issue is to have a way for people to have private discussions with the TC. I think being able to have some private discussions with the TC could be helpful, especially if the TC is to more explicitly include mediating social problems within its remit. The risks here seem to include "the TC seems to be doing nothing because it is talking in private" "the TC becomes [seen as] a secretive cabal" and "TC only announces its decision, leaving the losing side feeling like they've not had a fair hearing". Some of those could be addressed in how decisions are announced; but "try and discuss in public as much as possible" is a tricky line to find. **Proposal 2**: Explicitly delegate the mediation task for solving social conflict between developers, when no code-of-conduct violation is in place. This could be to: a. A new group of developers b. The Community Team c. The Technical Committee. I suspect that mediation may need to be part of the TC role (rather than being done by a separate group) - as you say there are likely to be both technical and social issues at play, and trying to have them addressed by separate bodies seems likely to be messy? As mentioned, the restriction on the TC only being able to choose between options limits the work that the TC can do. It also limits the legitimity that the committee has, because it's seen as a bunch of people that just issue decisions without doing any of the work. I think the counter-point here is that if the question comes to the TC "should we do A or B" and then a TC member says "Actually, I think C is better", how does the TC (give the impression of) giving all of A B and C a fair hearing? Relatedly, if developers ask the TC "A or B", and the TC says "this isn't a ruling on A vs B; rather, we think you should consider C instead", that might well be unsatisfactory. **Proposal 4**: Modify the Constitution to allow the TC to get invoked early, clarifying how that works. Or have a separate body to invoke early for technical advice, with the TC remaining the body of last resort? Again otherwise the risk is the parties talk to the TC informally, who informally suggest a solution; one party is unhappy and wants a formal resolution, but will then feel that this is a doomed enterprise because the TC has already suggested something - where can they usefully appeal? **Proposal 5**: Abolish the TC and split it into separate roles. This would of course require changing the Constitution and there are a bunch of open questions regarding who gets to do what and how the members of each body should be elected. FWIW, I don't think this is the right answer. Regards, Matthew
Re: CTTE requesting questions for DebConf20 BoF
Hi Marga, On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 02:58:51PM +0200, Margarita Manterola wrote: > > which of the three options does the tech-ctte (roughly) prefer? > This is a great question and I hope we'll find the answer to this during the > BoF. :)) > > > Allow design work > > > - > > > **Proposal 3**: Modify the Constitution to allow the TC to do design > > > work in the form of proposals. These proposals wouldn't override > > > developers or tell individual maintainers what to do, but rather > > > should > > > guide the project towards a technical goal. > > > > I'm continued to be puzzled about this. Clearly you are all individuals, > > why don't you do design work as individuals? > > A few people have asked about this already and I think it's my fault for > not explaining this correctly in the text. We can of course do design work > as individuals. The prohibition from doing design work becomes a problem > when the TC is forced to make a decision using the committee's powers and > none of the available options are deemed good enough (this happened, for > example, in our discussion of the maint-scripts issue). We are asked a > question but we can't "rule" and so we can't answer the question. > > If we _could_ do design work, then we would be able to bring forward a > proposal rather than have to say "we decline to rule because there are > no good options", which is kinda washing our hands. Does that make sense? yes, thanks. I'm now just wondering whether you intentionally just replied to me, or not. (I don't need to know, but I thought I let you know.) > I think I'll try to amend the text in Salsa to clarify this. :) -- cheers, Holger --- holger@(debian|reproducible-builds|layer-acht).org PGP fingerprint: B8BF 5413 7B09 D35C F026 FE9D 091A B856 069A AA1C There are no jobs on a dead planet. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: CTTE requesting questions for DebConf20 BoF
Hi Holger! On 2020-07-27 20:23, Holger Levsen wrote: In general I liked what I read, I just have a question or maybe two... Thanks! **Proposal 2**: Explicitly delegate the mediation task for solving social conflict between developers, when no code-of-conduct violation is in place. This could be to: a. A new group of developers b. The Community Team c. The Technical Committee. which of the three options does the tech-ctte (roughly) prefer? This is a great question and I hope we'll find the answer to this during the BoF. Allow design work - **Proposal 3**: Modify the Constitution to allow the TC to do design work in the form of proposals. These proposals wouldn't override developers or tell individual maintainers what to do, but rather should guide the project towards a technical goal. I'm continued to be puzzled about this. Clearly you are all individuals, why don't you do design work as individuals? A few people have asked about this already and I think it's my fault for not explaining this correctly in the text. We can of course do design work as individuals. The prohibition from doing design work becomes a problem when the TC is forced to make a decision using the committee's powers and none of the available options are deemed good enough (this happened, for example, in our discussion of the maint-scripts issue). We are asked a question but we can't "rule" and so we can't answer the question. If we _could_ do design work, then we would be able to bring forward a proposal rather than have to say "we decline to rule because there are no good options", which is kinda washing our hands. Does that make sense? I think I'll try to amend the text in Salsa to clarify this. -- Regards, Marga
Re: CTTE requesting questions for DebConf20 BoF
Hi Sean and the rest of the tech-ctte! 1st, thanks for preparing this BoF! In general I liked what I read, I just have a question or maybe two... On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 01:37:10PM -0700, Sean Whitton wrote: > **Proposal 2**: Explicitly delegate the mediation task for solving > social conflict between developers, when no code-of-conduct violation is > in place. This could be to: > > a. A new group of developers > b. The Community Team > c. The Technical Committee. which of the three options does the tech-ctte (roughly) prefer? > Allow design work > - > **Proposal 3**: Modify the Constitution to allow the TC to do design > work in the form of proposals. These proposals wouldn't override > developers or tell individual maintainers what to do, but rather should > guide the project towards a technical goal. I'm continued to be puzzled about this. Clearly you are all individuals, why don't you do design work as individuals? -- cheers, Holger --- holger@(debian|reproducible-builds|layer-acht).org PGP fingerprint: B8BF 5413 7B09 D35C F026 FE9D 091A B856 069A AA1C signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: CTTE requesting questions for DebConf20 BoF
Le Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 01:37:10PM -0700, Sean Whitton a écrit : > > **Proposal 3**: Modify the Constitution to allow the TC to do design > work in the form of proposals. These proposals wouldn't override > developers or tell individual maintainers what to do, but rather should > guide the project towards a technical goal. Hi Sean and everybody, to some extent, the TC can already do some design work. For instance, in the past I wanted to describe the FreeDesktop menu entries in the Policy, got in conflict with another Policy maintainer on that topic, and the final result was the TC ruling about the Debian menu, which is something I never asked for. I think that your proposal is an excellent idea that would give a clearar separation between design work and conflict resolution. Have a nice day, Charles -- Charles Plessy Akano, Uruma, Okinawa, Japan Debian Med packaging team http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med Tooting from work, https://mastodon.technology/@charles_plessy Tooting from home, https://framapiaf.org/@charles_plessy
