Draft Workstation WG Governance Charter

[Miloslav Trmač]

On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 6:57 PM, Owen Taylor <otaylor at redhat.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 2013-10-30 at 15:22 -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 3:16 PM, Ray Strode <halfline at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 9:01 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>> >> The other positions will be filled by general election
>> >> every two years. As a special exception, four seats will be filled in
>> >> one year, with those positions chosen at random (unless some number of
>> >> members decide to step down). Voting will follow the standard Fedora
>> >> election process and be open to all contributors in the CLA+1 group.
>> >>
>> >> In the event that a current member relinquishes their seat, that seat
>> >> will be filled by the first runner up in the previous election.  If
>> >> that person is not able or willing to fill the seat, it will go to
>> >> each successive runner up until the seat is filled.
>> >
>> > I think, I personally, would rather see the previous working group
>> > decide new members of the working group.  They're the ones doing the
>> > work, so they should get the most say in the direction the work goes.
>> > (the whole "fedora is a meritocracy not a democracy" thing).
>> >
>> > Put another way: I don't think someone who works on desktop related
>> > software should have much say in who gets to be put in the cloud
>> > working group, or vice-versa.
>> >
>> > Let the people already doing the work decide the continuing direction
>> > of the work.
>> > If things really get off course, fesco can intervene, but I don't
>> > think that will happen.
>>
>> Fair.  To be honest, the more I think about it the more I dislike the
>> idea of doing full blown elections.  They seem overkill and cumbersome
>> when it comes to coordinating, etc.
>
> I strongly support this view - the end result of having too many
> elections is that only a tiny fraction of people have the attention to
> understand what is going on and vote.

Repeating myself from the server list:

I don't think long serving terms, and especially indefinite serving
terms, are healthy: there should be an easy way for the community to
self-correct without requiring extraordinary effort like finding a
thick-skinned "opposition leader" to set up a recall election or the
like.

AFAICT unlike (Czech and US at least) national governments, the Fedora
elections have always had very low overhead and basically no campaign
/ pre-election posturing seasons disruptive to the project; there
hasn't been much election-related burden to speak of.

> It also seems problematical to
> have a elected working group that falls under the supervision of FESCO
> which is also elected. What if FESCO and the group disagree?
This can just as well happen with a non-elected group.
    Mirek