re-vision on the ARB - restaffing

[Allison Randal]

On 08/24/2012 07:00 AM, Bhavani Shankar R wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 12:33 PM, Andrew Mitchell <ajmitch at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>>
>> Sure, I'm happy to wait (far too busy at the moment :) ). One thing that I
>> noticed this week was that 4 of the 7 ARB members will expire from the team
>> in about 3 weeks time. While it might be good to set up an election for new
>> members now, I think it may be better for any new process to be agreed upon
>> prior to restaffing, when we have a better odea of what will be required of
>> people and how many people may be needed.

And since Jonathan resigned, that means it'll be down to 2 members.

> +1 here.  So that any new members can start off with the new process
> when selected. (Instead of pushing it after restaffing and spending
> some time on the transition later to a new process)

Here are the current requirements:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AppReviewBoard/Restaffing

We arranged a different voting scheme with the Community Council after
the last round, since the m-of-n candidates didn't fit very well.
Instead we'll use a simple +/-/Abstain poll, and take all candidates
that show reasonable support from the Ubuntu Developers. I'll update the
text.

> Apart from the above how about having a "stricter criteria" of
> selection (when restaffing does take place) like below
> 
> An ARB member applying should be/have:
> 
>  1. Strong technical background.

+1

>  2. Should be a MOTU/Core Dev (+ being a Debian developer would be
> "nice to have")

We may have a hard time recruiting if these are requirements. I'd lean
toward keeping the current *requirement* of Ubuntu membership and Ubuntu
developer status, with a note that we're looking for more experienced
developers, so any work in MOTU/Core Dev/DMB/Backports/Debian is be a plus.

>  3. Prior experience of reviewing apps (for instance, prior experience
> of helping with the app-review-contributors would be desirable)

Yes, I hope several of the current contributors will apply. One thing to
keep in mind is that we're moving toward automatic publishing, but the
code won't be in place to make it work until around 13.04 or 13.10, so
in the mean-time the ARB will still need a good number of members who
can do manual reviews.

>  4. Endorsement by atleast 1 ubuntu developer on the wiki page while
> applying (as an evidence of work within the ubuntu development
> community.)

+1, we required this last time, and it worked out well.

Allison