[CHAOSS] How decisions are made (was: Opening discussion on using Discourse Forum for CHAOSS)

Tue Nov 20 19:03:23 UTC 2018

Hi Georg and all,

Thanks for discussing this at today's weekly hangout... sorry I couldn't
make it. From my reading of your summary, it sounds like things largely
stay as they are in the CHAOSS project but relying on the mail list for
'closure' more so than the weekly meetings. Is this right?

I do think that there are good points that has been raised in all of this
-- to not overly complicate a process such that it gets in the way of doing
good CHAOSS work and maintaining transparency in any decision-making
process.

Matt

On Tue, Nov 20, 2018 at 12:39 PM Emma Irwin <eirwin at mozilla.com> wrote:

> I am not sure I understand your point.  You feel like CHAOSS is like
> Debian?
>
> On Tue, Nov 20, 2018 at 10:37 AM dmg <dmg at uvic.ca> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Nov 20, 2018 at 10:31 AM Emma Irwin <eirwin at mozilla.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Documentation of who makes decisions, their role(s), and the process
>> they follow is half the battle to gaining trust, and increased
>> participation in decision-making.   Most of the time people are not
>> interested in challenging, but they do want to be consulted.  This is a
>> great talk from Rust on that topic.
>> >
>> >
>> > Suggest never saying 'that's how most open source projects' do things,
>> when referencing governance discussions.
>>
>> I suggest you go count the number of packages in debian, count the
>> number of projects that they belong to and then find how many of them
>> have a decision process. I suggest you do random sampling, since the
>> number is large (reach a certain level of confidence, say 90% +/-10%
>> error).
>>
>> you will find most open source (at least in debian) is built by 1 or 2
>> developers who make all the decisions without a process in place.
>>
>> >
>> > On Tue, Nov 20, 2018 at 10:16 AM dmg <dmg at turingmachine.org> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> > I don't think this has always being the case, but I would say
>> >> > that
>> >> > usually people argue in favor or against, and propose different
>> >> > decisions, in the mailing list, and then during the calls,
>> >> > consensus
>> >> > areas are explored until a decision is perceived to have
>> >> > consensus. But
>> >> > other people who has participated in these processes may say too
>> >> > if
>> >> > this matches their experience.
>> >>
>> >> hi Jesus
>> >>
>> >> with all due respect, I think most decisions are not
>> >> reached. Simply, the people who are in charge of them
>> >> enact them according to the input of others.
>> >>
>> >> In other words: the doers control what gets done and how, with the
>> >> possibility that they take into
>> >> consideration the input of others.
>> >>
>> >> there have been some decisions (few) that require a vote of the
>> >> board. But in general,
>> >> we have silent consent.
>> >>
>> >> I think this is perfectly fine. It is just the way that most open
>> >> source projects work.
>> >>
>> >> perhaps at some point, the board might get the ability to veto
>> >> actions by CHAOSS members via a majority
>> >> vote.
>> >>
>> >> > Up to now, my feeling is this worked well. But maybe it is not
>> >> > scaling
>> >> > up as we have more people involved in general, people active in
>> >> > working
>> >> > groups, the set of people attending all calls, and participating
>> >> > in all
>> >> > mailing lists, is getting shorter and shorter (as a fraction of
>> >> > the
>> >> > total people involved in CHAOSS as a whole).
>> >>
>> >> I think we all have our opinions on what needs/should be done. But
>> >> unless we are willing to do it,
>> >> we should not get on the way of those doing it.
>> >>
>> >> There are situations where actions of CHAOSS members on behalf of
>> >> CHAOSS might veer outside the goals of the project (which is
>> >> subjective---I grant, personally
>> >> I have see at least one instance of this happening). This might
>> >> require a process to bring a vote to the validity of those
>> >> actions.
>> >>
>> >> >
>> >> > * First, comment on your feelings about the decision making
>> >> > process, in
>> >> > this specific case and in general. If many of us think that we
>> >> > need to
>> >> > decide more formally on a process, we can work on having one. If
>> >> > not,
>> >> > we can stick to the current way.
>> >> >
>> >> > * Second, if somebody feels that in this specific case we don't
>> >> > have a
>> >> > consensus, we can either talk it more broadly, or raising it to
>> >> > the
>> >> > CHAOSS Board. We have a meeting in a week, so this would be
>> >> > timely.
>> >> >
>> >> > What do you think?
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> see above. I have addressed both points.
>> >>
>> >> >       Jesus.
>> >> >
>> >> > --
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Daniel M. German                  "Language alone protects us from
>> >> the scariness
>> >>                                    of things with no names.
>> >>    Toni Morrison ->                Language alone is meditation. "
>> >> http://turingmachine.org/
>> >> http://silvernegative.com/
>> >> dmg (at) uvic (dot) ca
>> >> replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Emma Irwin (she/her)
>> > Community Development
>> > Open Innovation Team
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> --dmg
>>
>> ---
>> Daniel M. German
>> http://turingmachine.org
>>
>
>
> --
> Emma Irwin (she/her)
> Community Development
> Open Innovation Team
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-- 
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he / him / his
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