Principia / DevOps / leadership and governance

[Matthew East]

On 27 May 2011 18:04, Mark Shuttleworth <mark at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> Right now, this is all embryonic, so I don't want to create a large group.
> But I do want us to signal (a) that this is part of Ubuntu, and (b) who to
> go to for resolution of technical and social issues related to Principia and
> Ensemble. So I think we should create a Principia Council, with a chair,
> appointed by the CC.

My concern would be that it is unusual to create a council before an
established community is in place. We have traditionally looked for a
community to evolve, set in place some established procedures, and
grow to a decent level before appointing a council. I think that the
reason we have done this traditionally is because a community in its
earlier stages deserves more hands on attention from the CC and TB
before governance is delegated to a body which arises out of that
community. It gives a chance for the community to settle in and for
the candidates for a governance board to become known by the team
which ultimately will appoint and report to them, which I think is
important. It's also because until a particular team has grown to a
significant level, the need for a council for delegating governance
issues to doesn't arise.

If this is to be a part of the Ubuntu community rather than a separate
or upstream project (that part is not clear to me, although Mark you
obviously see it that way), I'd like to see the community take shape
first, under the more direct auspices of the CC for governance issues
and the TB for technical issues, and a council appointed later once
the community is up and running.

-- 
Matthew East
http://www.mdke.org
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF