[OpenStack Foundation] board chair == two votes -was- Re: Technical Committee: new draft

Carl Trieloff cctrieloff at redhat.com
Thu Jul 12 17:52:28 UTC 2012


+1
Carl.

On 07/12/2012 11:06 AM, Jim Jagielski wrote:
> Agreed. Anytime you need someone to forcibly "break a tie", you've
> created a precedent than driving consensus really isn't needed since
> the chair will just decide stuff anyway.
>
> Believe it or not, when a community *really* feels totally empowered,
> they understand that it's in everyone's interest to have collaboration
> and consensus.
>
> On Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 10:58 AM, Christopher B Ferris
> <chrisfer at us.ibm.com> wrote:
>> Kurt,
>>
>> While I fully agree with your description of the goals and the sad state of
>> affairs where we have dueling corporate interests that have split the
>> community, if the issues really are just about two equally good ideas, then
>> you don't need a chair making the decision, what you need then is an
>> effective chair who understands how to tease consensus out of a group, say
>> by asking thinks like "who cannot live with option X", etc
>>
>> My $0.02 USD
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>>
>> On Jul 11, 2012, at 5:29 PM, Kurt.Garloff at telekom.de wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Doug,
>>>
>>> no reasonable committee of any kind should be happy to pass votes with 50%
>>> plus a tie-breaking  double-count ...
>>> I have been working in OSS projects for most of my life and reaching
>>> consensus or near-consensus was the norm, not the exception in any project
>>> that I participated in.
>>>
>>> That should be the goal for any decision-body as well, and if we end up
>>> being in a situation where we often have near 50% decisions, we're in
>>> serious trouble. I would dare to say that this would rather be an indication
>>> that most of our discussions are driven by conflicting corporate interests
>>> rather than enthusiasts who try to work out the best solution to a problem.
>>> We're in deep trouble if this happens and the fact we may have tie-breaking
>>> rules that we don't like is one of our smallest problems then ...
>>>
>>> That said, there might be situations where we have two options and one is
>>> as good as the other ... if for some reason people can't agree, it is
>>> sometimes the worst option to not take a decision, so having some
>>> tie-breaking capability then is useful. It should be used in exceptional
>>> cases only -- if we are afraid that it might be abused, we might want to
>>> restrict it. Maybe create a rule that the tie-breaking double vote can't be
>>> used when a topic is brought up for decision first -- only when we could not
>>> come to a decision and need to reconvene a second time to discuss and take a
>>> decision on the same topic, then it may be used.
>>>
>>> Just my 0.02EUR.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> --
>>> Kurt
>>>
>>> Kurt Garloff | VP Engineering DBU Cloud Services | Products & Innovation |
>>> Deutsche Telekom AG | http://www.telekom.com/
>>> Landgrabenweg 151 | 53227 Bonn | Germany
>>> B2/5.15 | +49 151 6130 9858 (mobile), +49 228 936 17013 (office), +49 228
>>> 936 17009 (fax) | kurt.garloff at telekom.de
>>> (T-Online-Allee 1 |64295 Darmstadt | Germany | 4B.K26 | +49 6151 680 6312)
>>>
>>> Life is for sharing.
>>>
>>> Deutsche Telekom AG | Supervisory Board: Prof. Dr. Ulrich Lehner
>>> (Chairman) | Board of Management: Ren? Obermann (Chairman), Reinhard
>>> Clemens, Niek Jan van Damme, Timotheus H?ttges, Dr. Thomas Kremer, Claudia
>>> Nemat, Prof. Dr. Marion Schick
>>> Commercial register: Amtsgericht Bonn HRB 6794 | Registered office: Bonn |
>>> WEEE reg. no. DE50478376
>>>
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Doug Davis [mailto:dug at us.ibm.com]
>>>> Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2012 10:48 PM
>>>> To: Lloyd Dewolf
>>>> Cc: foundation at lists.openstack.org
>>>> Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] board chair == two votes
>>>> -was- Re: Technical Committee: new draft
>>>>
>>>> Yes, its the tie situation that I'm preferring to.  To me
>>>> either the vote reaches the threshold or it doesn't.  50%
>>>> isn't the threshold so it fails.
>>>>
>>>> There's also the interesting case where multiple people from
>>>> the same company get to vote in the same ballot - I think its
>>>> because the same company can have  both platinum (or gold -
>>>> can't remember which right now) as well as individual
>>>> members, and that's another sore point for me but I'll leave
>>>> that for another day.  :-)  But its those kinds of rules that
>>>> make things seem a lot more complicated than they need to be.
>>>>  Once company, one vote is much easier.
>>>>
>>>> thanks
>>>> -Doug
>>>> ________________________________________________________
>>>> STSM |  Standards Architect  |  IBM Software Group
>>>> (919) 254-6905  |  IBM 444-6905  |  dug at us.ibm.com The more
>>>> I'm around some people, the more I like my dog.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Lloyd Dewolf <lloydostack at gmail.com>
>>>> 07/05/2012 04:35 PM
>>>>
>>>> To
>>>> Doug Davis/Raleigh/IBM at IBMUS
>>>> cc
>>>> foundation at lists.openstack.org
>>>> Subject
>>>> board chair == two votes -was- Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Technical
>>>> Committee: new draft
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 1:26 PM, Doug Davis <dug at us.ibm.com> wrote:
>>>>> For example, I mentioned that I didn't like PTLs having
>>>> more power than
>>>>> anyone else, I think the same goes for the board chair.  In
>>>> the current
>>>>> foundation by-laws it talks about the chair having more
>>>> than one vote.
>>>>
>>>> Would you point to a specific section(s) where this comes into play?
>>>>
>>>> My understanding is the two vote only comes up in a scenario that
>>>> requires a tie break, often in a scenario when the chair won't have
>>>> voted in creating the tie, and the fact that it is two votes is just
>>>> how Delaware works.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> --
>>>> @lloyddewolf
>>>> http://www.pistoncloud.com/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>
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