Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1998 21:05:58 -0800 From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com> Cc: Warner Losh <imp@village.org>, committers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The recent fracas involving danes, war axes and wounded developers Message-ID: <199812280505.VAA07578@dingo.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 27 Dec 1998 20:58:06 PST." <14249.914821086@zippy.cdrom.com>
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> Sorry, this is another issue a number of us just discussed and came to > a preliminary ruling on - I didn't have an answer to your question > just 5 minutes ago or I'd have put it on my "timeline" :-) > > The criteria for the death of bits in FreeBSD from now on, according > to David Greenman, our principal architect and general guy in charge > of tie-breaking decisions when such are necessary, is that it be done > directly by original author/committer of the bits (and not by any > arbitrary 3rd party) unless, and only unless, a *unanimous* core team > vote for its removal is made. Such a vote would be preceded by a 72 > hour discussion period, during which time committers list would be > also brought into the discussion in order to express their opinions, > the final decision still being up to the core team and its vote. I don't like this; it grants any single core member power of veto, and that's a current problem with our system already. If you raise your eyes a few inches to the way that this sort of politicised issue is dealt with in much larger organisations, something like this arises: - The removal of an item should be raised publically, with some closing period for discussions set. I think 72 hours is a suitable minimum. - If at the closing of the discussions, there is a clear mandate for removal, it should proceed. - If there is no clear mandate for removal, the matter should be taken to -core *OR* some other body, perhaps comprised of more active developers. - This body's vote should use contemporary methods; voting requires quorum, and a motion is carried by "obvious majority" - in our case, probably around 60-80%. - There should be a process for popular appeal of a decision; either for an expanded explanation, or for a re-vote. - The adjudication body's discussions should be world-readable. > There will be the occasionally necessary exceptions, of course, > such as when an author designates a proxy to do the deed on his behalf > due to other time pressures, or when something gets yanked for driving > technical reasons (major security flaw, entirely superceded by other > functionality, etc), but this is the basic idea. These functions require the existence of executive power, or corresponding process. The former requires a trusted executive (Americans, look to your presidential history for how not to do this), the latter may be more odious than we are willing to bear. -- \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message
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