Meeting summary/minutes from today's FESCo meeting (2010-09-14)

[Jon Masters]

On Wed, 2010-09-15 at 18:09 -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-09-15 at 22:33 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:

> > I really don't see the point. A forced vote is not better than no vote
> > (can easily be worse). As far as I know in most countries actual laws
> > are passed by whoever is present in Parliament (baring very specific
> > exceptions). If there are few people it's not a problem, it just shows
> > the issue is either not very important, or the consensus has already
> > been achieved.

As I alluded to previously, many government bodies have the power to
legally compel members to turn up for a vote. The Sergeant at Arms in
the US example can literally hound down a member via a Congressional
arrest warrant and physically ensure they turn up to a vote, and this
has been done in the past if there is lack of a voting quorum (51 in the
case of the US Senate when it was last actually done). I also noted that
Fedora doesn't have this kind of power, but it's not unreasonable to
require that elected representatives turn up to vote on your behalf.

> That's a good point, but I would hope that someone elected to serve on a
> body in Fedora would actually *want* to vote, and the measures above are
> just ideas meant to be motivation/reminder than "forcing." 

Right. I'm not saying Jarod should issue Fedora Arrest Warrants (FAWs?)
for the members of FESCo (or the Board), but there should be an official
means by which votes can be counted in absentia, and in some cases it
may be required that everyone has to vote, and that's a good thing.

btw, I think Kyle said earlier he's standing aside. So does that mean
there now is a new FESCo election?

Jon.