Leo Sutic wrote:
All,
I'd like to briefly summarize what has been said so far, and suggest a way of moving forward. I know that this is a weekend, and that many may not even have seen the first post I made on this subject (as it was done late Friday evening), but I think that judging by the replies I did receive, there is enough for at least a summary and a tentative suggestion on how to move forward.
-oOo-
THE TEXTS
Leo Simons:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=avalon-dev&m=104270697629068&w=2
Berin:
http://nagoya.apache.org/wiki/apachewiki.cgi?AvalonPMCVotingProcedures
Stephen:
http://jakarta.apache.org/avalon/pmc/PMC-VOTING-PROCEDURES.txt
-oOo-
BRIEF SUMMARY
There appears to be consensus that the different texts describe the same procedure - with the exception of how disagreements are resolved. There is also consensus that the process they describe (for the use case where there aren't any disagreements), is acceptable.
-oOo-
SUGGESTION FOR MOVING FORWARD
We appear to have two issues to solve:
1. The style of writing (strict / layman).
2. How to handle disagreements.
Disagreements are handled by the PMC.
The impression I get is that point (2) is the most important one. That is, while the goal of the layman version is precisely to deliver a text in a certain style, the goal of the strict version is not to deliver a text in a strict format, but rather to address point (2).
Thus, I would like to put forward the following suggestion:
1. We start from Berin's proposal. To my eyes at least, it seems to be a middle ground between strictness and layman-ness. I think we may have to firm up some parts of it in order to cover some common use cases, and de-formalize some parts to make it more accessible, but it would seem to be a good starting point.
I thought I restated what yours did, and merely rearranged some things to make it a little more readable.
2. An explicit statement that any disagreements are arbitrated by the PMC Chair. Not just vote counts, but *everything*. As Greg Stein says, the PMC Chair can act on behalf of the ASF:
"If the PMC (and more precisely, the Chair) makes a decision,
then it is DONE. The Chair has full authority to act on behalf
of the ASF within the guidelines that the Board has provided to
that person."
- http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=avalon-dev&m=104285006706268&w=2
I think that is how we handle #2.
The assumption here is that the Chair is "sane", and I think that is implied by the Chair selection process (i.e. since everyone votes, the Chair should end up being someone that the PMC trusts).
The bylaws have procedures in place if the Char is not sane. I think we can live with that. Nothing we have to do for it.
2. Add the provision that the PMC Chair will arbitrate any disagreements.
RIght.
3. Then we go over the text until it is acceptable by everyone.
It largely is already.
4. Switch to [PROPOSAL].
Consider this the proposal. Once we are done with it, we can switch to vote.
At this point I'd like to put the emphasis on "acceptable" as opposed to "optimal". As there is always somehing that can be improved, I'd rather we reached a point where everyone can *accept* the text and then voted it through, than wait until we have the *optimal* text. This way, we can deal with the 10% we don't have consensus on separately from the 90% we do have it on - and more importantly, make the 90% we do have consensus on official.
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