Principia / DevOps / leadership and governance

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 29/05/11 09:11, Matthew East wrote:
> 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.

Right. This is a slightly unusual case because the media in question is
new, so the whole thing is embryonic. In the case of translations, IRC,
forums etc we have all the participants and tools already lined up,
whereas here we are bootstrapping both at the same time.

I think it's absolutely reasonable to keep the membership-related
aspects, like CoC governance and membership itself, limited to the
existing CC and RMB's. I would still like to designate the leadership of
Principia as a part of Ubuntu, but we could separate that from the
community/membership elements for now.

> 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),

Hmm... I guess it's like translation: gettext is the upstream, and PO
files are the Ubuntu community part. In this case, Ensemble is an
upstream but then, separately from that, there will be formulas, which I
see as part of the Ubuntu experience. Deploying a formula is a little
like installing a package, except it shapes the whole machine.

>  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.

I am happy with the CC / RMB for governance / membership. I think the TB
will struggle to provide the detailed technical leadership needed, given
that this is a new field that's moving very fast. I think the TB can
certainly provide a supervisory oversight role, with the dedicated team
providing the daily policy and practice guidance.

Mark