On 3/24/06, vid <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
As an Ubuntu volunteer who was involved in the formation of the
IN-team, I regret to say that this Team Structure was formed without
my knowledge or involvement.
Well, the formation of the Structure document was discussed on IRC, but the text has been on the Wiki for quite some time, for people to comment on. It is hardly possible to form a complete structure document on IRC.
If the meetings were conducted on IRC
there was no email to this mailing list informing everyone of the
timings and date of the said meeting for aforementioned purpose. So I
request that logs of the said IRC chat be made available publicly.
This point has already been addressed, IMHO
After going through the wiki draft, here are my observations :
[0] Clause#3 of Functions of the Council arbitrarily grants the
council the right to assign and remove any Community volunteer from
any responsibility, as it deems fit. This does seem detrimental to the
*free* spirit that the Ubuntu community as a whole functions under.
To the best of my knowledge, even the CC and Ubuntu members don't
remove people without proof and assigning valid reasons.
The Clause is #2, and it does say there will be a public meeting convened, before any decisions are taken.
[1] Redressal clause - There is no mention of this in the wiki draft.
In the event that any IN-volunteer has grievances how would the
IN-Council Members solve the same. Would redressal avenues be open to
all or restricted to Council Members and Admins.
My oversight. I actually wrestled with the idea of including a clause to address this problem, but I couldn't find any satisfactory way to go about it. Vidya, why don't you take up this issue, and draft a modification to the Structure that allows such redressal ?
[2] Post of Council Member and Administrators - I propose a clause
that a single person should not hold both posts. They should be
mutually exclusive, otherwise it will be a conflict of interest (hence
denial of justice) in the event of a disagreement between a volunteer
and a Member holding both Council and Admin posts.
To deny Administrators any say in the policy making, as would be the case according to your proposal, they might feel aggrieved that decisions are being forced arbitrarily upon them. IMHO the executive should always have a say in the legislative, so that the executive has a chance to air their view, before policies are finalised.
IMHO the language used is too strong, and implies that the people who are making the effort to get the infrastructure of the Team up and running, have ulterior motives.
[3] Election of Council Members : New Ubuntu volunteers should be
given a chance to participate in the IN-team, hence Admin posts should
not be renewed consecutively, instead a fresh team should take charge
with open polls for posts.
Is there any precedent for such a drastic measure ? Even the US precidency allows two terms of four years each. To deny people the right to continue their good work would be to discourage them. And if they don't do any good, then I believe we already included a clause that handles such a situation (to which I believe Vidya has already voiced her opposition)
It is not that easy to bring in talented individuals skilled in System Administration into the fold. Besides, the nomination of people into the Council is to be handled by the Community, so if the Community feels there is a talented individual who'll be useful as a Council member, then I'm sure that person will be nominated.
[4] Policy formation : To ensure transparency, the names of all the
IN-team people involved in policy formation should be clearly
mentioned. All IRC discussions should be made public as it is done in
Ubuntu proper. If this is already being done, the URL where logs can
be accessed should be prominently displayed.
My oversight again. Obviously, all members to the Indian LoCo team Council will have their names listed on a public wiki page. And yes, I agree that all IRC meetings should be logged.
I request these be clarified on this mailing list since it is
transparent and documented as opposed to IRC and will ensure greater
heights for the IN-Ubuntu Team.
I'll agree that the mailing list provides a measure of permanency, in that all posts are archived. However, to call say that IRC is not transparent is to say that the traditional way of real time interactions among geeks is flawed.
There is a strong focus on the fact that the Community members (I assume that is what Vidya means by the word 'volunteers') do not have direct access to legislative and executive functions. My limited experience in LUGs and the democratic system makes me believe that giving carte blanche to all members to do as they please is counter-productive. There should be freedoms, but there should also be checks ( I deliberately use that word) to see that in the exercise of these freedoms, we shouldn't come in the way of others exercising their freedom.
On a parting note, I'd like to mention that while much has been made of the fact that the Indian LoCo Team has been founded due to the unselfish contribution of a few, there are others too who have contributed significantly to help this Team grow. To deny their contributions and claim primacy, is to deny justice.
--- Soumyadip Modak
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://soumyadip.nipl.net/blog
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