On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 7:18 PM, Travis Oliphant <teoliph...@gmail.com>wrote:
> > Hi everyone, > > There have been some wonderfully vigorous discussions over the past few > months that have made it clear that we need some clarity about how > decisions will be made in the NumPy community. > > When we were a smaller bunch of people it seemed easier to come to an > agreement and things pretty much evolved based on (mostly) consensus and > who was available to actually do the work. > > There is a need for a more clear structure so that we know how decisions > will get made and so that code can move forward while paying attention to > the current user-base. There has been a "steering committee" structure > for SciPy in the past, and I have certainly been prone to lump both NumPy > and SciPy together given that I have a strong interest in and have spent a > great amount of time working on both projects. Others have also spent > time on both projects. > > However, I think it is critical at this stage to clearly separate the > projects and define a governing structure that is fair and agreeable for > NumPy. SciPy has multiple modules and will probably need structure around > each module independently. For now, I wanted to open up a discussion to > see what people thought about NumPy's governance. > > My initial thoughts: > > * discussions happen as they do now on the mailing list > * a small group of developers (5-11) constitute the "board" and > major decisions are made by vote of that group (not just simple majority > --- needs at least 2/3 +1 votes). > * votes are +1/+0/-0/-1 > * if a topic is difficult to resolve it is moved off the main list > and discussed on a separate "board" mailing list --- these should be rare, > but parts of the NA discussion would probably qualify > * This board mailing list is "publically" viewable but only board > members may post. > * The board is renewed and adjusted each year --- based on > nomination and 2/3 vote of the current board until board is at 11. > * The chairman of the board is voted by a majority of the board and > has veto power unless over-ridden by 3/4 of the board. > * Petitions to remove people off the board can be made by 50+ > independent reverse nominations (hopefully people will just withdraw if > they are no longer active). > > All of these points are open for discussion. I just thought I would start > the conversation. I will be much more active this next year with NumPy > and will be very interested in the direction NumPy is taking. I'm hoping > to discern by this conversation, who else is very interested in the > direction of NumPy so that the first board can be formally constituted. > > If the purpose of the board is to resolve controversies, the 2/3 requirement is going to cause problems. The reason majority votes are usually used and that committees are set up with an odd number of members is that nothing gets resolved otherwise. Doing nothing is not a solution to missing consensus. Furthermore, at the current time, I don't think there are 5 active developers, let alone 11. With hard work you might scrape together two or three. Having 5 or 11 people making decisions for the two or three actually doing the work isn't going to go over well. I would propose a technical board of one or three people who can step in if an issue look like it needs outside intervention. And I would suggest at least one of the members be someone from the outside but familiar with the project, say someone like Fernando. The one member model is if we decide to go with a benevolent dictator. Note that for the smaller boards both the 2/3'rds and majority votes would be the same number of people ;) Chuck
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