Draft Workstation WG Governance Charter

[Owen Taylor]

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. 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?

> In your opinion, should we have term limits imposed to ensure we have
> fresh members coming into the WG?  As I said in another email, I think
> we should shoot for some continuity while also encouraging new members
> to step up.

>From my experience I doubt this will be necessary - there is a strong
natural turnover of any such group based on people eventually getting
bored or having their attention drawn elsewhere.

- Owen