Majority voting (Was: [VOTE] [POLICY] Allow extra release distribution channels like the central Maven repository)

[Jukka Zitting <ju...@gmail.com>]

Hi,

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 7:34 PM, Noel J. Bergman <no...@devtech.com> wrote:
>> The current tally is extremely close (9 +1 vs. 8 -1 binding)
>> I don't want to close an issue with such a small margin.
>
> I suggest that we should not change policy on anything like this lack of
> concensus.

IMHO this issue needs to be resolved one way or another as even the
current policy is undocumented and confusing. A negative result on
this vote will also serve to clarify the position of the IPMC.

The IPMC already has 85 members and I'm afraid this is probably just
the first example of an issue where we will not be able to form
consensus through discussion. Consensus doesn't scale, and we need to
find ways to deal with that. Adopting and accepting majority rule is
IMHO one key element in dealing with growth. Yes, it'll change
community dynamics, but I can't see a way around that without
decreasing the size of the the community.

A big issue with majority votes (and the key reason why I wanted to
extend the vote period) is legitimacy of the decisions when a large
part of binding votes are not cast. To increase confidence that the
result of this vote reflects the wishes of the IPMC as a whole, I'd
appreciate more IPMC members to cast their votes. Even an explicit 0
vote is better than silence.

I appreciate that majority decisions without clear community consensus
are a new aspect at Apache, and it would be best to discuss the
ramifications and related rules when there is no active vote ongoing.
I'll be following up on this at members@ once the dust settles, and
until that I'm ready to table this issue if more votes won't made the
result clearer.

BR,

Jukka Zitting

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org