TB: Urgent Escalation of DMB Member Removal / New Vote Decision due to DMB Stalemate

[Thomas Ward]

Technical Board:

During the Developer Membership Board meeting today[1], there was an 
action item / discussion item regarding the removal of two DMB members 
who have been inactive for an extended period of time. Unfortunately, 
there was an increased amount of argument and disagreement by members in 
attendance over how to execute this policy.

In August of 2021, the DMB proposed [2] and then in November approved 
[3] a requirement for DMB members as follows:

 > Any DMB member who fails to attend 6 consecutive scheduled DMB 
meetings (during a period no shorter than 12 weeks) shall be considered 
inactive and removed from membership in the DMB. Since the number of 
members required for quorum is 1/2 the number of active DMB members, 
rounded up, the change in the number of active members will affect 
quorum. At such time as any DMB member is found to be inactive due to 
this rule, the current DMB chair will add an action item to schedule a 
public vote for a new DMB member. Previous DMB members, including those 
changed to inactive due to this rule, are eligible to run in the new 
election and any later elections. This proposal is not retroactive, and 
the attendance requirement shall start the first meeting after this 
proposal is adopted.

(see 
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DeveloperMembershipBoard/KnowledgeBase#Rules_and_Regulations)

There are currently two individuals on the DMB who are in violation of 
this policy decided upon over 3 months ago; the specific names can be 
provided upon request privately for the TB's knowledge if the 
information is required or pertinent.

Both of these members have not been present for at least 6 consecutive 
meetings and as such are in violation of the agreed upon policy that was 
passed in November.

During the DMB meeting today (Feb. 7, 2022), a major disagreement came 
up between Dan Streetman and Robie Basak, over the fact that, "While we 
have decided upon this policy, we never discussed *how* we would do 
this."  As such, a massive point of contention rose today in the meeting.

Dan Streetman has proposed removing the members who meet this criterion 
immediately and begin the process of drafting elections for two new 
members to replace the individuals who are now in violation of this policy.

Robie Basak is against any action until both aforementioned individuals 
have had a chance to respond before we remove them. He is also of the 
position that any response from the absent members would not necessarily 
affect any decision on their removal, however Robie is of the opinion 
that all individuals must be contacted first and must have a chance to 
respond before we simply remove any absent members.

Unfortunately, the DMB could not come to agreement on this, and have 
requested to escalate this to the Technical Board for determination of 
how we should address this, and help to determine the proper procedure 
in this case.

I would request that the TB make a decision as to how the DMB should 
proceed, or if the TB chooses to not handle this, escalate to the proper 
group to handle this decision.



Thomas Ward

https://launchpad.net/~teward

Developer Membership Board Member

[1]: https://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2022/02/07/%23ubuntu-meeting.html#t16:13

[2]: 
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/devel-permissions/2021-August/001726.html

[3]: 
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/devel-permissions/2021-November/001780.html
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