[csw-maintainers] proposal

[Philip Brown]

On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 4:34 AM, Ben Walton <bwalton at opencsw.org> wrote:
> ...
> Say for a minute that there were no names undersigning the proposal.
> There would still be multiple people that worked on it and put it
> forward.  Do you feel that you have some intrinsic right to be able to
> alter this proposal?

The trouble here is that we still have no proper (and by that I mean,
documented and officially approved)  procedures for even creating a
proposal, let alone amendment to the proposal, and then approving or
rejecting them.

As I have pointed out to the board previously, debian (for just one
example) has fully written up details of one way to do this.
A handwavy summary of that being:

  1. an initial proposal is made
  2. some formal discussion period (**ON THE LIST**) happens
      (off-list discussion may or may not happen, but the one that
actually counts, is the bits done on the developer list
       that is fully archivable by all members, fully accessible by
all members, and fully open to all members)
 3. If an amendment is proposed, then that is discussed. If
consensus(s) is reached, then the proposal is amended.
     (it is also possible that after discussion, the proposal is withdrawn)
     If no consensus is reached, then when voting time comes, both
versions of the proposal are put up for vote.
     The voting ballot then becomes,
    "Vote for one of the following:
        a) accept proposal documented [here]
        b) accept proposal as amended and documented [here]
        c) reject all versions of proposal"

  ( 4. otherwise, a summary of the proposal and its side effects is
drawn up, and the proposal is voted on)



> If so, why would you expect a
> change like that to be accepted?  If not, why are you worried about
> getting the support of the current set of authors?

I am more concerned about "oh hey we reached X number of people with
their names on the document, so there's no reason to have discussion
on the mailing list, or a vote;  the proposal to change our practices
is 'deemed as passed'. Done. From now on we do this [this way].