[steering-discuss] Community bylaws

Hello David,

Hi, :slight_smile:

Having been given permission to proofread and revise the initial
draft, I presumed it would be OK to do the same for subsequent
amendments. I hope I did not overstep myself there; if I did, please
say so and I will, of course, desist. However, I came up with a
revised text as below (it simply states exactly the same things, but
re-worded).

thank you a lot for this!!!

It seems that there are still some big ambiguities that would need to
be resolved:

"The Chairperson is elected by a special electoral college comprised
of the BoD, the AB and and the ESC (however, ESC members who are also
members of the BoD can only cast one single vote in this election,
regardless of their membership of both bodies). The vote by this
special college is not decided by the votes of the individual members
taken as a whole; instead, each respective body holds a vote among its
members, and returns a nomination of one candidate (a specific list of
names, or one name only, will have been submitted by the BoD and the
AB). The three bodies therefore arrive at a shortlist of three
nominees. If one of the three nominees has a majority within the
shortlist (has two votes out of three, or is a unanimous choice), the
outcome is deemed to be decisive and the electoral process is
concluded. However, if three different people are nominated, then a
conciliation process takes place, with the aim of eliminating one
nominee and making a choice between two nominees only. The
Chairperson's term of office is two (2) years, but he/she can serve as
many terms as are seen fitting."

1) "(however, ESC members who are also members of the BoD can only
cast one single vote in this election, regardless of their membership
of both bodies)": So which body do they cast their vote in? How and
when is that decision taken? The choice could change the outcome of
the voting.

Right, that sounds clunky so let me clarify: members of the ESC who are
also members of the BoD only vote at the BoD and not at the ESC. Is it
better?

2) "(a specific list of names, or one name only, will have been
submitted by the BoD and the AB)": How would the list be drawn up?
Perhaps you need at least a cross-reference to another clause in the
bye-laws that resolves that question? If there's only one name, then
there would be no point in voting at all...

I can clarify that, but in essence I guess 1)people will nominate
themselves to the BoD and 1)that the BoD as well as the AB can nominate
someone.

3) "However, if three different people are nominated, then a
conciliation process takes place, with the aim of eliminating one
nominee and making a choice between two nominees only.": That could
give rise to a difficult situation...

Yes. :slight_smile:

IMHO, you would need to
establish a clear procedure for this, to avoid some tense deadlocks in
the future...

Well, I think we can submit the Chairman's choice to the popular
election then (understand the TDF contributors).

Best,
Charles.

Hi there,

It seems that there are still some big ambiguities that would need to
be resolved:

  Well detected :slight_smile:

"The Chairperson is elected by a special electoral college comprised
of the BoD, the AB and and the ESC (however, ESC members who are also
members of the BoD can only cast one single vote in this election,

  Oh - wow, what is the ESC doing in that mix. I would prefer that the
board simply elect the chairman, who is just a member of the board that
has some special meeting management role :slight_smile:

  Hopefully that de-complicates the whole process; then again I havn't
read the proposal in full recently.

  I believe there is a -huge- danger of over-engineering any constitution
- particularly when you get engineers near it :slight_smile: and ending up with
some huge joke like the OO.o governance - where obscure rules seemed to
breed in dark corners :slight_smile:

  HTH,

    Michael.

Hello,

Hi there,

> It seems that there are still some big ambiguities that would need
> to be resolved:

  Well detected :slight_smile:

> "The Chairperson is elected by a special electoral college comprised
> of the BoD, the AB and and the ESC (however, ESC members who are
> also members of the BoD can only cast one single vote in this
> election,

  Oh - wow, what is the ESC doing in that mix. I would prefer
that the board simply elect the chairman, who is just a member of the
board that has some special meeting management role :slight_smile:

  Hopefully that de-complicates the whole process; then again I
havn't read the proposal in full recently.

  I believe there is a -huge- danger of over-engineering any
constitution
- particularly when you get engineers near it :slight_smile: and ending up with
some huge joke like the OO.o governance - where obscure rules seemed
to breed in dark corners :slight_smile:

So, I'm going to rewrite the ESC part; it will at least simplify the
chairman story. But having him/her part of the BoD would also nix its
role I fear.

Best,
Charles.

Hi Charles, :slight_smile:

thank you a lot for this!!!

No problem. I've got a watch on the page, and will visit whenever
there's a change then. :wink:

1) "(however, ESC members who are also members of the BoD can only
cast one single vote in this election, regardless of their membership
of both bodies)": So which body do they cast their vote in? How and
when is that decision taken? The choice could change the outcome of
the voting.

Right, that sounds clunky so let me clarify: members of the ESC who are
also members of the BoD only vote at the BoD and not at the ESC. Is it
better?

I understood what you meant, no problem there. The ambiguity is how
the decision is taken about which body they vote on... Especially as
throwing their vote in on one body or the other could maybe weight the
election in one direction or another, and change the result. My
suggestion was that it would be good to lay down unambiguous rules for
this...

2) "(a specific list of names, or one name only, will have been
submitted by the BoD and the AB)": How would the list be drawn up?
Perhaps you need at least a cross-reference to another clause in the
bye-laws that resolves that question? If there's only one name, then
there would be no point in voting at all...

I can clarify that, but in essence I guess 1)people will nominate
themselves to the BoD and 1)that the BoD as well as the AB can nominate
someone.

OK, I get the idea. Perhaps a separate, short paragraph explaining
that might be good? I could draft one tomorrow and submit it in a
standalone edit that will be easy to identify and roll back/modify if
it doesn't quite say what you want...?

3) "However, if three different people are nominated, then a
conciliation process takes place, with the aim of eliminating one
nominee and making a choice between two nominees only.": That could
give rise to a difficult situation...

Yes. :slight_smile:

I guess this is the point that, IMVHO, might be in most need of an
unequivocal procedure, as it could give rise to controversial
situations...

HTH.

David Nelson

Hello David,

Hi Charles, :slight_smile:

> thank you a lot for this!!!

No problem. I've got a watch on the page, and will visit whenever
there's a change then. :wink:

:slight_smile:

>> 1) "(however, ESC members who are also members of the BoD can only
>> cast one single vote in this election, regardless of their
>> membership of both bodies)": So which body do they cast their vote
>> in? How and when is that decision taken? The choice could change
>> the outcome of the voting.
>
> Right, that sounds clunky so let me clarify: members of the ESC who
> are also members of the BoD only vote at the BoD and not at the
> ESC. Is it better?

I understood what you meant, no problem there. The ambiguity is how
the decision is taken about which body they vote on... Especially as
throwing their vote in on one body or the other could maybe weight the
election in one direction or another, and change the result. My
suggestion was that it would be good to lay down unambiguous rules for
this...

yup. But after Michael's points, I also think we might clarify and
simplify all this a great deal. In a nutshell

1) the ESC does not get to vote, it's not elected, and it's a technical
body. The AB can propose candidate(s), but cannot vote.
2) BoD appoints the CH, by vote or by consensus. People can nominate
themselves and send their nomination to the BoD no later than 2 months
before the election date. The AB can also nominate one or several
candidates and sends the name(s) to the BoD no later than 2 months
before the election.

That way, it's easier and faster. Any thoughts?

Best,
Charles.

Sounds much cleaner & simpler to me :slight_smile:

  ATB,

    Michael.

Hi, :slight_smile:

yup. But after Michael's points, I also think we might clarify and
simplify all this a great deal. In a nutshell

1) the ESC does not get to vote, it's not elected, and it's a technical
body. The AB can propose candidate(s), but cannot vote.
2) BoD appoints the CH, by vote or by consensus. People can nominate
themselves and send their nomination to the BoD no later  than 2 months
before the election date. The AB can also nominate one or several
candidates and sends the name(s) to the BoD no later than 2 months
before the election.

That way, it's easier and faster. Any thoughts?

Best,
Charles.

Yes, I get the idea. If it's alright with you guys, I'll figure out
how to draft that in, and will give a heads-up when I've done so (over
the next 24 hours, because I'm slave to a client for the coming
hours). Is that OK?

Also, I have an idea about a couple of legal experts I could contact
and, if they're willing, invite them to jump in on this thread and
maybe help arrive at some really bullet-proof bye-laws... should I do
that?

David Nelson

Hello David,

Hi, :slight_smile:

> yup. But after Michael's points, I also think we might clarify and
> simplify all this a great deal. In a nutshell
>
> 1) the ESC does not get to vote, it's not elected, and it's a
> technical body. The AB can propose candidate(s), but cannot vote.
> 2) BoD appoints the CH, by vote or by consensus. People can nominate
> themselves and send their nomination to the BoD no later  than 2
> months before the election date. The AB can also nominate one or
> several candidates and sends the name(s) to the BoD no later than 2
> months before the election.
>
> That way, it's easier and faster. Any thoughts?
>
> Best,
> Charles.

Yes, I get the idea. If it's alright with you guys, I'll figure out
how to draft that in, and will give a heads-up when I've done so (over
the next 24 hours, because I'm slave to a client for the coming
hours). Is that OK?

it's more than ok, thank you again!

Also, I have an idea about a couple of legal experts I could contact
and, if they're willing, invite them to jump in on this thread and
maybe help arrive at some really bullet-proof bye-laws... should I do
that?

Well, we do have lawyers to, for instance we have Gianluca here (but
I'm sure there are others) and also Florian Effenberger who despite any
evidence of the contrary, is not a system administrator :slight_smile:

Best,
Charles.

Hi Michael,

Michael Meeks wrote (22-11-10 11:50)

Hi guys,

Cor Nouws schrieb:

Has been considered that this leads to a situation where each year
people have to get used to the tasks, the other board members etc. so
that maybe it is a bit inefficient?

  This is fairly normal, and there is usually both change and continuity
in things like the GNOME board. Also, old-timers are usually around and
willing to help out mentoring / getting people up-to-speed.

Well, that is a good question. My personal take was at first for a 2
years mandate. Then some others thought that 6 months would be good. I
sliced the apple into two :slight_smile:

  I like a year-long term; it seems a good balance.

   What is a balance between a reasonable, common term (2 or 3 years) and non-sense (6 months)?

In line with this, I would propose split elections: Appr. 50% of the
seats each year.

+1

  So - I havn't got to looking at this in detail yet; but I strongly
recommend a 'fair' voting scheme - such as used by GNOME - ie. STV. This

   Can you pls tell what STV is?
   And what has a fair voting scheme to do with 100% each year or 50% each year?

makes it very difficult for a contributor with 51% of the votes to get
100% of the seats [ which 1st past the post assures ].

  However - the obvious benefits of STV are really watered down by a
smaller electorate due to rounding errors; obviously, if (using STV) you
elect one person at a time, you have some of the first-past-the-post
problems.

  Then, there is the admin overhead of elections, and the problems of
getting people to vote more regularly.

   Both voting each year for 100% of the seats, or each year for 50% of the seats, result in one election per year. With less counting in the letter case :wink:

  Thus, overall - I would strongly recommend a single, big vote, once per
year to elect everyone - and not worry about the continuity issues: they
tend to fix themselves. The electorate tends to value such things as
"experience" in the candidate's statements.

   The reasons you gave, that were clear for me so far, did not at all convince me.

   Maybe you can further explain what you think to gain with 100% of the seats each year?

Regards,
Cor

Michael Meeks wrote (22-11-10 18:08)

Hi there,

It seems that there are still some big ambiguities that would need to
be resolved:

  Well detected :slight_smile:

"The Chairperson is elected by a special electoral college comprised
of the BoD, the AB and and the ESC (however, ESC members who are also
members of the BoD can only cast one single vote in this election,

  Oh - wow, what is the ESC doing in that mix. I would prefer that the
board simply elect the chairman, who is just a member of the board that
has some special meeting management role :slight_smile:

Doesn't the chair has a representation role too?

Hi Cor,

> So - I havn't got to looking at this in detail yet; but I strongly
> recommend a 'fair' voting scheme - such as used by GNOME - ie. STV. This

   Can you pls tell what STV is?

  Single Transferable Vote; cf.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_Single_Transferable_Votes

  it is a fair way of electing people, such that:

> makes it very difficult for a contributor with 51% of the votes to get
> 100% of the seats [ which 1st past the post assures ].

  this cannot happen.

   And what has a fair voting scheme to do with 100% each year or 50%
each year?

  I tried to explain that. Basically, the problem is one of quantisation;
let me provide a few examples. The fewer people up for election, the
less fair the election is.

  With STV - if we have 100 people for election, and 51% of the electors
choose a Foo-company candidate as first choice (and no-one else) - then
we end up with 51 (or perhaps 52) Foo-company guys.

  However - if we have 1 person for election, and 51% of the electors
choose a Foo company candidate. We get a a single Foo-company elected
guy - right ?

  So - in the limit, as we move towards smaller and smaller pools of
people we are voting for, the rounding errors get worse - and the
'fairness' (where by fairness, I mean matching the distributed intent of
the voters to who is actually elected) decreases.

  This is essentially an artifact of not being able to elect fractional
people :wink: So lets take two lots of 4 vs. one lot of 8 people being
elected. Lets fix the vote both times: one lot 'A' have 66% of the first
choice vote: the other 'B' the remaining 34%

  to vote for elected
  4 3 A, 1 B
  4 3 A, 1 B
  8 5 A, 3 B

  Soo ... in the two lots of 4 case, we get one fewer non-'A' person. At
this point someone of course will fault my mathmatics in this particular
instance :wink: suffice it to say, that (by considering the limits) this
kind of rounding problem has to exist.

  As such, the bigger the number of candidates to elect, the more fair
the representation ultimately.

> Then, there is the admin overhead of elections, and the problems of
> getting people to vote more regularly.

   Both voting each year for 100% of the seats, or each year for 50% of
the seats, result in one election per year. With less counting in the
letter case :wink:

  Ok - but if you only elect half each year, then we have to have two
year terms, which seems -incredibly- long in a fast moving software
industry.

   Maybe you can further explain what you think to gain with 100% of the
seats each year?

  And perhaps you can help me understand what we loose ? :slight_smile: Particularly
when the foundation is in its inception, and growing fast, it seems
crazy to me to have two year terms.

  Regards,

    Michael.

Hi Michael,

Michael Meeks wrote (24-11-10 22:01)

  So - I havn't got to looking at this in detail yet; but I strongly
recommend a 'fair' voting scheme - such as used by GNOME - ie. STV. This

    Can you pls tell what STV is?

  Single Transferable Vote; cf.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_Single_Transferable_Votes

   Thanks, I see we can study quite some mathematical variations on this subject :wink:

  it is a fair way of electing people, such that:

makes it very difficult for a contributor with 51% of the votes to get
100% of the seats [ which 1st past the post assures ].

  this cannot happen.

    And what has a fair voting scheme to do with 100% each year or 50%
each year?

  I tried to explain that. Basically, the problem is one of quantisation;
let me provide a few examples. The fewer people up for election, the
less fair the election is.

  With STV - if we have 100 people for election, and 51% of the electors
choose a Foo-company candidate as first choice (and no-one else) - then
we end up with 51 (or perhaps 52) Foo-company guys.

  However - if we have 1 person for election, and 51% of the electors
choose a Foo company candidate. We get a a single Foo-company elected
guy - right ?

  So - in the limit, as we move towards smaller and smaller pools of
people we are voting for, the rounding errors get worse - and the
'fairness' (where by fairness, I mean matching the distributed intent of
the voters to who is actually elected) decreases.

  This is essentially an artifact of not being able to elect fractional
people :wink: So lets take two lots of 4 vs. one lot of 8 people being
elected. Lets fix the vote both times: one lot 'A' have 66% of the first
choice vote: the other 'B' the remaining 34%

  to vote for elected
  4 3 A, 1 B
  8 5 A, 3 B

  Soo ... in the two lots of 4 case, we get one fewer non-'A' person. At
this point someone of course will fault my mathmatics in this particular
instance :wink: suffice it to say, that (by considering the limits) this
kind of rounding problem has to exist.

  As such, the bigger the number of candidates to elect, the more fair
the representation ultimately.

   OK, that is clear, thanks.
   However, in your example and view, you start with the idea of candidates representing company/section/partition A or B. Rather then random community members.

  Then, there is the admin overhead of elections, and the problems of
getting people to vote more regularly.

    Both voting each year for 100% of the seats, or each year for 50% of
the seats, result in one election per year. With less counting in the
letter case :wink:

  Ok - but if you only elect half each year, then we have to have two
year terms, which seems -incredibly- long in a fast moving software
industry.

   It is long in terms of software, indeed. Two years means probably 500 versions of LibO, of which at least 5, 6 stable versions :wink:
   But that can only be reached when we have experienced people on board that do not change every 6 months. Also for documentation, qa etc, experience is important.

    Maybe you can further explain what you think to gain with 100% of the
seats each year?

  And perhaps you can help me understand what we loose ? :slight_smile: Particularly
when the foundation is in its inception, and growing fast, it seems
crazy to me to have two year terms.

   No answer, but OK, I'll give mine fist :wink:
   When I initially wrote about this suggestion, I referred to all I have seen and joined wrt boards, councils etc. where three years is most common (95+%).
   I also made a not about our fast IT-world, and - sorry - did not refer to my probably state of being old fashioned.
   So it is simply for continuity, a bit stability.
   If our future practice shows us that it is not workable, dull, slow, boaring, suffocating and such, I am all for a change.
   Looking at all proposals that fly rapidly around, I would prefer a bit stability first. The next issue then would be, which form of STV or other voting scheme would be most appropriate. So the voting scheme should support our desired elections scheme, not the other way round.

   Regards,
Cor

Hi Michael, all,

one question on the ESC:

Michael Meeks schrieb:

Hi Drew,

[...]

The ESC, do you see this as a very active group, for instance working as
the release team, meeting often and looking at individual issues?

  Wrt. looking at individual issues, probably not - unless they have wide
reaching consequences; but to better co-ordinate on the burning issues
of the day, and have a final say on things like:

  "Do we port entirely to Java" (I think 'no' but ... :wink:

  And to be a responsible backstop for technical issues - which often
simply require a decision - any decision being far better than none.

I fully understand the necessity for an entity to decide on mere technical issues.

What I only see described between the lines, is something we should consider, as is has led to a very disappointing situation in OOo:

Can ESC decide on topics related not only to coding and development, but influencing larger parts of the community?

Probably all of you know about the OOo-ESC decision on implementing the color"less" ODF icons.

The topic has been discussed in an ESC meeting, where nobody objected loud, then presented in a blog entry after the first version had been finished and despite very strong opinions against their implementation implemented in OOo3.2.1 with the negative feedback foreseen by their critics.

I don't want to experience another similar situation - well knowing, that the OOo-ESC is special because of Oracle.

But every now and then there will be a situation, where developer have a certain opinion on strategic decisions and directions of development. Marketing and / or UX might think differently. As the developer are the ones able to include their solution in the product, they have a quite strong position. How can we assure that other groups' expertise will have the same impact?

The Bylaws state that the ESC "provides technological guidance on strategic matters". That's guidance, not decision.

Will the BoD be the entity to decide in such a situation?

On which list do we discuss strategic matters at all?

Marketing? Discuss? Steering-Discuss?
A closed list to avoid counter-activity by our competitor(s)?

Sorry for coming up with such a more or less hypothetical case, but I really want to avoid problems as we had them in OOo...

Best regards

Bernhard

Hi Michael, Cor, all,

I didn't think of the overall sight, so now I have to change my voting:

Michael Meeks schrieb:

Hi guys,

Cor Nouws schrieb:

Has been considered that this leads to a situation where each year
people have to get used to the tasks, the other board members etc. so
that maybe it is a bit inefficient?

  This is fairly normal, and there is usually both change and continuity
in things like the GNOME board. Also, old-timers are usually around and
willing to help out mentoring / getting people up-to-speed.

I think, there is one point we should consider as important:

Re-election.

If the BoD does their work really good, I'm quite sure that the majority of them will be re-elected in the next election.

This would allow continuity as well as "fresh blood" (the percentage of new members is correlated with the community's satisfaction on their last term).

Well, that is a good question. My personal take was at first for a 2
years mandate. Then some others thought that 6 months would be good. I
sliced the apple into two :slight_smile:

  I like a year-long term; it seems a good balance.

In line with this, I would propose split elections: Appr. 50% of the
seats each year.

+1

With regard to STV I prefer Michael's approach now:

Vote only once a year (as any election draws action from the "normal" tasks a shorter term will take too much resources) and elect all BoD members.

We might or might not recommend to stay for two election rounds, so at least some of the present BoD members will stand for continuity, unless their direction didn't reflect the community's opinion.

We should try to find some kind of balance after the first term where some of the BoD members don't stand up for re-election, so that the groups able to be re-elected are more or less same size every year.

In my understanding STV is much more valid for larger entities than for only three or four members (where probably two will be re-elected). Therefore I'd vote for a one year election period where all members are able to get feedback on their work, if they decide to stand for re-election.

Best regards

Bernhard

Hi ,

Bernhard Dippold wrote (24-11-10 23:51)

Vote only once a year (as any election draws action from the "normal"
tasks a shorter term will take too much resources) and elect all BoD
members.

Voting each year for all members, that can serve for two years consecutively, requires that from our community every year on average 4-5 new people (with 9 BoD members) stand up. People that are known, qualified, have time, like to do the work and cooperate in the team. Each year.
Do we think it it reasonable to expect or ask that?

Cor

Bernhard, Cor,

Hi ,

Bernhard Dippold wrote (24-11-10 23:51)

Vote only once a year (as any election draws action from the "normal"

tasks a shorter term will take too much resources) and elect all BoD
members.

Voting each year for all members, that can serve for two years
consecutively, requires that from our community every year on average 4-5
new people (with 9 BoD members) stand up. People that are known, qualified,
have time, like to do the work and cooperate in the team. Each year.
Do we think it it reasonable to expect or ask that?

So that's what I had written in the latest version I think; on the other
hand, let's remember there will be an Executive Director in charge of the
Daily Business :slight_smile:

Best,
Charles.

Bernhard,

Hi Michael, all,

one question on the ESC:

Michael Meeks schrieb:

Hi Drew,

[...]

The ESC, do you see this as a very active group, for instance working as

the release team, meeting often and looking at individual issues?

       Wrt. looking at individual issues, probably not - unless they have
wide
reaching consequences; but to better co-ordinate on the burning issues
of the day, and have a final say on things like:

       "Do we port entirely to Java" (I think 'no' but ... :wink:

       And to be a responsible backstop for technical issues - which often
simply require a decision - any decision being far better than none.

I fully understand the necessity for an entity to decide on mere technical
issues.

What I only see described between the lines, is something we should
consider, as is has led to a very disappointing situation in OOo:

Can ESC decide on topics related not only to coding and development, but
influencing larger parts of the community?

Probably all of you know about the OOo-ESC decision on implementing the
color"less" ODF icons.

The topic has been discussed in an ESC meeting, where nobody objected loud,
then presented in a blog entry after the first version had been finished and
despite very strong opinions against their implementation implemented in
OOo3.2.1 with the negative feedback foreseen by their critics.

I don't want to experience another similar situation - well knowing, that
the OOo-ESC is special because of Oracle.

But every now and then there will be a situation, where developer have a
certain opinion on strategic decisions and directions of development.
Marketing and / or UX might think differently. As the developer are the ones
able to include their solution in the product, they have a quite strong
position. How can we assure that other groups' expertise will have the same
impact?

The Bylaws state that the ESC "provides technological guidance on strategic
matters". That's guidance, not decision.

Will the BoD be the entity to decide in such a situation?

Yes, it will be up to the BoD to settle things down if such a situation were
to arise.

Best,
Charles.

Hi Bernhard,

one question on the ESC:

  Sure !

What I only see described between the lines, is something we should
consider, as is has led to a very disappointing situation in OOo:

  :-)

Can ESC decide on topics related not only to coding and development, but
influencing larger parts of the community?

  Well; I guess we need some final decision making power on all detail
going into the binaries we ship, which IMHO should be the ESC falling
back to the board for highly contentious topics.

Probably all of you know about the OOo-ESC decision on implementing the
color"less" ODF icons.

  Oh - grief; my input in those meetings was extremely -scathing- on this
topic, perhaps Rene / Thorsten can remember. Since I'm not an artist I
consulted our artists, and they rejected the idea of 'ODF' labels on
icons, and the icons themselves on the basis of l10n, not fitting with
the existing platform icon sets etc. The idea was pretty much a poor
joke from my perspective.

The topic has been discussed in an ESC meeting, where nobody objected
loud

  Nah - I objected pretty vigorously; but there was no real point in
fighting Sun/Oracle on this - we had abandoned hope of improvement
around here anyway; we just said something like "you go ahead, we will
not" :wink:

, then presented in a blog entry after the first version had been
finished and despite very strong opinions against their implementation
implemented in OOo3.2.1 with the negative feedback foreseen by their
critics.

  Entirely predictable in my view.

I don't want to experience another similar situation - well knowing,
that the OOo-ESC is special because of Oracle.

  I think Oracle was the key here; the OO.o art team (Stella) never
seemed to interact well with the community, in my experience. eg. Novell
tried to provide an entirely new high color icon theme, assigned it all
to Sun, but Stella instead of joining in just duplicated it all :wink: etc.
We shouldn't let that sort of thing happen in future.

The Bylaws state that the ESC "provides technological guidance on
strategic matters". That's guidance, not decision.

  IMHO - it is poorly phrased; it should be the 1st port of call for
technical and product decisions. As such, it needs to include active QA,
UX, etc. people whenever their input is needed.

Will the BoD be the entity to decide in such a situation?

  And escalate here, on the odd occasions it is necessary.

Sorry for coming up with such a more or less hypothetical case, but I
really want to avoid problems as we had them in OOo...

  Sure - makes sense; I really think this was down to the pathology of
the Sun situation; and I'm optimistic that by being inclusive we can
have a better outcome. Having said that - adding too many stake-holders
with a love of saying "no" to the process has its own risks too - we
need to take some decisions that not everyone will like.

  Does that make some sense ?

  HTH,

    Michael.

Hi,

Well, we do have lawyers to, for instance we have Gianluca here (but
I'm sure there are others) and also Florian Effenberger who despite any
evidence of the contrary, is not a system administrator:-)

thanks for the flowers, as we say in Germany. :wink:

At the moment I'm busy with preparing talks, will give three over the weekend regarding LibO/TDF, but I will have a closer look on Sunday on the draft.

Sorry I didn't find time to respond earlier, but have been on the road a lot these days... but mostly for TDF/LibO. :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

Florian

Hi Cor,

   Thanks, I see we can study quite some mathematical variations on this
subject :wink:

  :-) I suggest we have 'STV Meek Method' written into our bylaws to make
it clear - we had one case where someone in GNOME was either elected or
not by different methods :wink: 'Meek' (no relation) is at least repeatable
- it is what OpenSolaris used too AFAIR.

   However, in your example and view, you start with the idea of
candidates representing company/section/partition A or B. Rather then
random community members.

  Sure, but any disagreement can be simplified into an arbitrary number
of two-horse races I think; the principle is basically the same - more
fairness with a larger electorate.

   But that can only be reached when we have experienced people on board
that do not change every 6 months. Also for documentation, qa etc,
experience is important.

  Sure; of course, we can only hope that the people who stand for
election, and get elected are not entirely inexperienced - the
electorate should help with that.

   Looking at all proposals that fly rapidly around, I would prefer a
bit stability first. The next issue then would be, which form of STV or
other voting scheme would be most appropriate. So the voting scheme
should support our desired elections scheme, not the other way round.

  Um - I guess so, but given a fair voting scheme, the rounding issue is
fairly fundamental to how aliasing / numbers work and I don't see it
being easy / possible to work around.

  HTH,

    Michael.