[03:21] <slangasek> sigh, is anyone seeing this problem (under VMware for me) that booting the liveCD gets you a blank screen (background-colored)?
[13:00] <persia> OK.  Welcome to the MOTU Meeting.  Who's here?
[13:01] <txwikinger> hi persia
[13:01]  * \sh tries to attend, but could disappear because of real life work
[13:01] <RainCT> Hi
[13:01] <soren> o/
[13:01] <geser> o/
[13:02]  * persia wonders if any of the other 123 people are likely to respond, as this is a small group so far
[13:03] <snbrown> HI
[13:03] <\sh> as cody has one item on the agenda...he should be there ;)
[13:03] <persia> Right then.  Administrative details: who is willing to do minutes?
[13:04] <geser> persia: isn't the average attendee rate around 5-7, so we're complete :)
[13:04]  * persia finds that cody_sommerville doesn't autocomplete
[13:04] <persia> geser: Yeah, well.
[13:04] <emgent> o/
[13:04] <persia> emgent: You're newest: up for minutes?
[13:04] <emgent> yes
[13:04] <persia> Excellent.
[13:04] <cody-somerville> Hello.
[13:04] <persia> Next administrative detail: who is chairing the meeting?
[13:05]  * cody-somerville volunteers on the condition that no one else has volunteered.
[13:05] <persia> cody-somerville: You've an item, so you can't.
[13:05] <persia> Anyone else?
[13:05] <cody-somerville> Oh right right
[13:07] <persia> Right then.  I'll do it.
[13:07] <persia> So, welcome to the MOTU Meeting for 11th July 2008.
[13:07] <persia> As a reminder, we're using the new proposed decision process, so we won't take any decisions here: just discuss and assign someone to judge consensus.
[13:07] <persia> The agenda is available from https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/Meetings
[13:08] <warp10> Hi all
[13:08] <persia> First up: cody-somerville with MOTU Leadership teams
[13:08] <cody-somerville> Hi Everyone
[13:08] <TheMuso> Wow. I am actually able to make a meeting.
[13:09] <cody-somerville> As I'm sure you've seen, there has been discussion on the mailing list recently regarding membership policy of MOTU leadership teams.
[13:10] <cody-somerville> Primarily, the hot topic has been discussing the electoral system that we'll employ to produce the community legitimized bodies for the teams respectively.
[13:12] <cody-somerville> I would have liked to write up a summary of the discussion thus far but unfortunately I think the summary would only end up being larger than all the e-mails thus far in sum (which if you've been reading, you'll know would be pretty big). ;]
[13:14] <cody-somerville> However, unofficially, I think it is fair to say that there are really three systems that seem to be "on the table" - Schulze method proposed by ScottK, Single Transferable Vote (or a variant of) by myself, and the unspoken, might have a name, system we've used in the past.
[13:15] <persia> In the past we've had poor experience with voting.  Most of our teams are organised by the people-who-volunteer-less-people-to-whom-others-object method.
[13:16]  * cody-somerville nods.
[13:17] <cody-somerville> I'm going to have to assume that everyone has had a chance to doing their reading because unfortunately we don't have time to describe the proposed methods again.
[13:17] <persia> cody-somerville: So, what are you proposing for discussion?  What is the question before us today?
[13:18] <cody-somerville> persia, I think we should use this opportunity to answer any questions and to see if it possible for us to reach consensus as things seemed stalled on the ml.
[13:18] <cody-somerville> I think we've done a lot of discussing and I'd like to see how we can move onto the decision making phase.
[13:20] <persia> cody-somerville: Right.  A decision on which question?
[13:21] <cody-somerville> persia, On which electoral system will be employed from now
[13:21] <persia> OK.  Is the question of "Do we want to use an electoral system" already resolved?
[13:22] <cody-somerville> What is the alternative?
[13:23] <persia> Volunteers and Appointments are two.  There may be more.
[13:24]  * cody-somerville nods.
[13:24] <persia> OK.  Due to lack of response, let's look at the question as stated:
[13:25] <persia> How do people feel about each of the presented electoral systems?
[13:25] <cody-somerville> persia, How would you label the system we currently use?
[13:25] <\sh> IMHO I would like to see appointments to a team (e.g. sru) from members which are already in the team, because old and new members have to work together alltogether...
[13:25] <persia> cody-somerville: Currently we seem to use a different system for each election/appointment/team, etc.  I'm not sure there is a "current system".
[13:25] <\sh> for the MC we should vote for the (self-) proposed members
[13:26] <cody-somerville> \sh, I'm afraid I disagree with that.
[13:27] <\sh> cody-somerville: reason? :)
[13:27] <geser> \sh: I fear that if a team appoints new members, it might create a feeling of a cabal
[13:28] <cody-somerville> MOTU-SRU and MOTU-Release are bodies of authorities within MOTU that are legitimized by the collective agreement of MOTU at large. If those teams stopped representing MOTU, as in the composition of the respective teams, I don't see how those bodies would be anymore legitimate.
[13:31]  * RainCT agrees with cody-somerville 
[13:31] <\sh> ok, so you mean, whenever one member of one of these teams steps down, we need to re-elect new members again? which means, we need to elect the whole team?
[13:32] <cody-somerville> No.
[13:32] <cody-somerville> The electoral system we use could provide that fallback
[13:33] <geser> \sh: I'd say only "elect" the replacements
[13:34] <cody-somerville> The runner ups could always be appointed
[13:34] <cody-somerville> And with my proposed rolling setup, there would *always* be folks serving in the teams.
[13:35] <persia> I'm not happy about the idea of a runner-up automatically being appointed if someone steps down: that's 1) too easy to game, and 2) fails to map well to changing circumstances.
[13:35] <cody-somerville> ie. at the end of each cycle, only a subset is up for re-election.
[13:35] <\sh> well, regarding democratic ways: if one member steps down, not the whole team needs to step down, most likely the team members are appointing an replacement during the lifetime of the team, whereas at the end of a timeperiod, the whole team will be elected totally new.
[13:35] <cody-somerville> \sh, I don't agree with that either ;)
[13:35] <cody-somerville> I think the teams should be rolling
[13:36] <cody-somerville> ie. First time we elect x number of folks, next time we elect *another* x number of folks. Now we're "rolling". The third iteration would only have the first set of folks who were elected up for re-election.
[13:36] <TheMuso> cody-somerville: I agree.
[13:37] <persia> I like rolling, although for the one team for which we theoretically enforce rolling (MC), we've not done so much rolling, and had several special elections.
[13:37] <persia> (I'm really not sure when my "term" is supposed to end, which isn't likely ideal)
[13:38] <cody-somerville> \sh, benefits of this would be: no disruption of service, there will always be an experienced folks on the team, and much more as described in my e-amil.
[13:38]  * cody-somerville has to run but will be back in 15-20 minutes.
[13:38] <\sh> cody-somerville: depends on the purpose of the team
[13:39] <\sh> MC need to roll every term
[13:39] <persia> I'm not sure all the teams need experienced people.  SRU certainly does, but MC likely benefits from new people more than experienced people.
[13:39] <geser> persia: around 2010-01-31 you get your t-shirt "I survived MC"  (if we have them till then) :)
[13:39] <\sh> SRU will be setup completly new from release to release (or two releases...that's another matter)
[13:40] <persia> geser: That's when my team membership expires, but as officially there are rolling elections in Aprils, that seems a poor match to term.
[13:40] <\sh> and SRU/Release  is vital, while MC just can wait a bit for new MC members
[13:41] <persia> \sh: How do you feel about SRU continuing to track a release until EOL vs. SRU being for all releases and changing every cycle (or two cycles or whatever).
[13:41] <geser> persia: wasn't the idea that a half of the first MC gets re-elected after a year so get we get a rolling team?
[13:42] <\sh> persia: for the rolling reason, I do like the second method...(two cycles are ok)
[13:42] <persia> geser: That was the idea.  We've not actually done that.
[13:42] <geser> persia: I guess this is because some members left before we could start it
[13:42] <\sh> persia: but this wouldn't handle the "replacement case"
[13:42] <persia> Well, the first 1-year people did that.  After that it got fuzzy.
[13:43] <persia> \sh: That's the other question: should a replacement serve remainder-of-term, or for the period of a term?
[13:44] <\sh> persia: example: SRU will serve 1 year (two cycles) , and one member steps down in month 3... the replacement will only be there for 9 months ...after that: new election
[13:45] <\sh> persia: but the replacement needs to be there in time, not with a whole bunch of appointing for voting, voting from MOTU etc. this stops the workflow...therefore I do like to see appointments of the rest of the serving members
[13:45] <persia> \sh so remainder-of-term.  That makes sense.
[13:45] <geser> what about if a members steps down after 10 (of 12) months? re-elect someone just for 2 months? wait till the next election period?
[13:45] <persia> geser: 2 months.  If they are good, they are in a strong position for the next selection cycle.
[13:45] <\sh> geser: the same..if there is a 2 out of  3 rule, it needs a full team
[13:46] <\sh> geser: we have this system in our "Bundestag" :)
[13:47]  * persia shudders at the comparison of MOTU SRU to the Bundestag
[13:47]  * \sh too..
[13:48] <\sh> but I don't know any other example right now
[13:49] <persia> Without stating any position as to initial selection, we could use MOTU Meeting to appoint replacements: it takes a couple weeks, but at least most of the decisions taken by MOTU Meeting have been honored.
[13:49] <TheMuso> Sorry folks, gotta run. Got a flight tomorrow, and sleep is parramount. :)
[13:49] <geser> \sh: when a member leaves a team, isn't there already a disruption of the workflow? Usually members disappear over time and not from one day to the next
[13:51] <\sh> geser: tbh, there is a lot of work for SRU and RELEASE...but it can be, that one member has to do other, more important things in his work life or private life, then he/she could step down with a from one day to another..it happend before, and it will happen in the future
[13:52] <\sh> now, when there is somehow a 2 out of 3 rule i.e. for SRU (which isn't) then the team can't work anymore, without a replacement/new elected member
[13:52] <\sh> therefore the team is stucked into some black hole. and waiting for a decision of motu-meeting or motu members could stop the workflow for important tasks in general.
[13:53] <persia> OK.  We're getting to the end of the hour.
[13:53] <persia> So, the big choice now is whether we have enough information to build consensus on the mailing list in the next two weeks, or we should defer this until a future meeting, and discuss on IRC and the ML in the meantime.
[13:54] <persia> Thoughts on that?
[13:55] <\sh> regarding the importance of this meeting, we are only a few people here...so it could be that the topic is not important for others, or the time was wrong..
[13:55] <\sh> (i hope it was the latter)
[13:56] <\sh> therefore I would like to have some more opinions on IRC + ML
[13:56] <\sh> to have more people involved...
[13:56] <persia> soren: geser: txwikinger;, snbrown; RainCT: warp10: ?
[13:57] <geser> \sh: first the team should be bigger as members might be busy for some weeks (or on vacation) without needing to step down immediately to keep the team working
[13:57] <\sh> geser: for sure...
[13:57] <persia> geser: Yes, but do you feel we're ready for consensus, or do we need more discussion first?
[13:57] <\sh> geser: vacations are not covered by "important RL things" ;)
[13:59] <\sh> persia: I would like to propose a further discussion on ML + IRC (when people are interested)
[13:59]  * sistpoty|work just finished with reading backlog
[13:59] <persia> \sh: You did.  I'm looking for a second :)
[14:00] <persia> sistpoty|work: Excellent: what's your position re: readiness for consensus?
[14:00] <sistpoty|work> I'd actually like very much if s.o. would wrap up all the discussed things from here and on the ml to a nice summary dividing bits which have consensus already and bits we should discuss further
[14:00] <geser> a "final" proposal would be nice as I don't currently know for what "proposal" exactly we try to find a consensus
[14:01] <persia> sistpoty|work: That's a great idea.  Are you willing to volunteer?
[14:01] <\sh> persia: you appointed emgent for that ,-)
[14:01] <sistpoty|work> well, as I wrote on the mailing list, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to act as such a shepherd (as I started the thread)
[14:01] <sistpoty|work> persia: but if that's ok, I'd volunteer
[14:01] <emgent> sorry I have to go in the office, i will see log later.
[14:01] <emgent> ?
[14:02] <persia> sistpoty|work: I don't think we're at the shepard point yet, but you're certainly welcome to help define the questions for discussion.
[14:02] <persia> emgent: Thanks.
[14:02] <txwikinger> ?
[14:03] <sistpoty|work> persia: isn't that what's a shepherd supposed to do? (unstall stalled discussions) or did I misinterpret that one?
[14:03] <persia> OK.  So on this point, sistpoty|work will write up a fresh summary of current discussions, and we'll continue with the ML+IRC and come back next time to appoint a shepard.
[14:03] <persia> sistpoty|work: At least your interpretation differs from mine.
[14:03] <sistpoty|work> persia: also your spelling :P
[14:03]  * txwikinger wonders how many ways there are how you can discuss how people should be enable to volunteer and do a job
[14:03] <persia> :)
[14:04] <txwikinger> Otherwise, I think you are doing fine :D
[14:04] <geser> txwikinger: too many else it would be easy
[14:04] <persia> My understanding was that when we came to a loose conclusion, we'd appoint a shepard to judge consensus on the mailing list.
[14:04] <persia> In this case, I don't feel like we understand the question.
[14:07] <persia> sistpoty|work: Do our positions differ significantly enough to be a disagreement worthy of discussion, or shall we move on?
[14:07] <sistpoty|work> persia: feel free to move on :)
[14:07] <persia> OK.
[14:08] <persia> That concludes our agenda.
[14:08] <persia> The next MOTU Meeting will be 25th July, 20:00 UTC.
[14:08] <persia> Any volunteers to take care of the announcements?
[14:11] <persia> Anyone?
[14:11]  * RainCT not as he always forgets about meetings :P
[14:11] <persia> OK.  I'll do them again, but I'm not doing it next time :p
[14:11] <persia> Thank you all for coming.
[14:11] <RainCT> heh
[14:12] <sistpoty|work> thanks for hosting persia
[14:45] <emgent> back
[14:45] <emgent> yeah 20:00 UTC sounds good.
[15:48]  * freeflying 
[15:56] <freeflying> sorry, type wrong