Ubuntu Backports charter

[Robie Basak]

On Tue, Mar 22, 2022 at 04:10:38PM -0400, Dan Streetman wrote:
> The team has had previous discussions around governance, yes, and of
> course those discussions played a part in forming this document. I
> don't really know what exactly you mean by any/all discussions being
> 'incorporated' into the document?

For example, I had suggested the text "Any review process must accept or
reject every backport request on its technical merit, and be neutral to
who is requesting it" with a footnote that explained the rationale as
"the process must avoid the current situation where only privileged
people can get their uploads reviewed, and everyone else is blocked"

("current" there is now, I believe, "past")

However the equivalent text you have now only says "The mission of the
Ubuntu Backporters Team is to maintain the backports pocket of all
stable Ubuntu releases." with no mention of that.

In fact that's the case for basically everything I proposed previously.

Is this deliberate? Would you consider replacing your "Mission
Statement" with the text I suggested previously? And if not, why not?

> > IMHO it's best if each team - including the backporters team - decides
> > for themselves how they want to operate, and are free to change things
> > as and when they want. To that extent, if the backporters team wants
> > have a detailed document like the one you have written, then that's
> > absolutely fine.
> >
> > But why are you looking for the TB to "ratify" it
> 
> So that the powers delegated to the team are explicitly stated...

I agree that this part makes sense.

> that the "main" rules are also explicitly stated (with "main" being
> subjective, and decided by our team).

Why do you want this to be part of the TB's ratification?

> > and lock in the
> > requirement that the TB must approve any changes? For example, you've
> > said "This charter, and any changes to it, must be approved by the TB
> > before taking effect" but also you've got minutiae in there such as
> > which IRC channel is used and on what network. Won't causing the TB to
> > "lock this in" be excessively beaurocratic? And what if you need a minor
> > change? Are you expecting to go to the TB every time? Won't that be
> > impractical?
> 
> Sorry, these questions seem subjective and rhetorical - I'm not sure
> if you intend for our team to answer them? Do they need to be answered
> for the TB to review and/or ratify this charter?

I don't think the questions are rhetorical. I do think they need
answering because if unanswered then I don't understand why it's within
scope for the TB to consider ratifying these details at all.

Summary:

1) Details of team responsibilities and "powers delegated to the team"
make sense for the TB to ratify.

2) Details of how the team carries out their responsibilities seem like
matters for the team to manage themselves and I currently don't see why
they're any business of the TB unless some kind of conflict or other
problem arises (and I don't know of any). I invite further discussion
and argument to why they should be within the scope of the TB today, but
in the absence of any explanation or argument, I'm inclined to consider
this part out of scope and therefore (wearing my TB hat) decline to get
involved.

Robie
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