Fwd: Expiry of 4 DMB members on the 12th of May - election needed?

[Dan Streetman]

On Tue, May 10, 2022 at 9:58 AM Thomas Ward <teward at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>
> Notice: This response is with my Community Council hat on.
>
> On 5/9/22 18:12, Dan Streetman wrote:
>
> On Mon, May 9, 2022 at 4:22 PM Robie Basak <robie.basak at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, May 06, 2022 at 03:41:59PM -0400, Thomas Ward wrote:
>
> The Developer Membership Board members (myself included) expire from the DMB
> in under six days - is an election required for new DMB members, or will the
> TB simply extend our current expirations until an election can be held?
>
> Thanks Thomas for raising this.
>
> We need to run another election. We can arrange the details at our next
> DMB meeting I guess. From the TB end, I assume it's fine for the DMB
> just to go ahead and run their own election again unless there is any
> objection?
>
> In the meantime, I (acting for the TB) can just extend the current
> DMB memberships for as has been done in the past - unless there is any
> objection?
>
> Well, maybe it's just me, but it seems like there is at least an
> appearance of conflict of interest, as you're on both the TB and DMB?
>
> What exactly is the conflict of interest you see?

To clarify this as my email maybe wasn't clear, I think:
- it would have an appearance of a conflict of interest for someone on
the TB to *decide* to extend their own term on the DMB
- it would have an appearance of a conflict of interest for someone
running in the DMB election to also administer the election

I'm not sure why either of those statements appear surprising or controversial.

>  I reviewed the current procedures which are available in public documentation - the only things that Robie would do here are:
>  1. send out the request for nominations (which has been done in the past by him or others),
>  2. gather nominations on the private list for DMB,
>  3. punch the nominations into CIVS, and then
>  4. press the buttons to fire off the CIVS election - there's no way for them to influence the election as a result that way because at that point its out of their hands.
>
> Alternatively, what if it were me running the election?

Of course it would be the same, presuming you are running in the new
election. I'd also consider it an appearance of conflict of interest
if I ran the election.

>  I sit on the DMB, but I also sit on the Community Council which is the highest community governance body in the Ubuntu community.  Would you have a conflict of interest if I ran the election from the administrative perspective?  And if so, given that the process is *administrative* and not able to be influenced by whomever runs the election, what *is* the conflict of interest?  You say there is one, but don't describe it, which means that at the core you cannot support your argument that there is a CoI.

Not sure if there is any need for you to assert that I can't support
my position, I don't think that statement lends itself to a useful
discussion.

>
> So I guess that yes, I do object to both questions, and I also suggest
> that someone from the TB who isn't also on the DMB should handle both
> of these questions - both deciding if it's appropriate to extend the
> expired DMB member's terms (and performing the action) as well as
> actually executing the DMB election. I certainly don't feel it is
> appropriate for a DMB candidate to also be the administrator of the
> election.
>
> See above about executing the election.  There is precedent for people who are members of the board or council itself to run the election themselves in the cases where such rights are delegated to the board or team (see any of the Flavor councils/boards/teams as examples), partly because the administrative bits are not open to influence by whomever runs.  Ultimately, the vote is a CIVS vote and when that vote happens it is no longer under anybody who adminstrates the elections' purview to influence the outcome.  One of the major reasons we use CIVS voting.
>
> I also should point out that if the TB wants to continue to 'own' the
> DMB membership, the TB might want to add something to its calendar so
> the next election happens in a timely manner? Or, alternately, the TB
> might want to simply delegate membership decisions to the DMB itself,
> and then the DMB might want to have some kind of 'administrator' who
> would be responsible for (and keep track of) these kind of
> administrative issues.
>
> As stated above, there is precedent for teams running their own elections regardless of who is on the team or whatever because the administration process is straightforward for elections.  Further, as it was stated here, the TB seems to have no problem with the DMB running its own elections - as a result, in your argument, nobody would be able to run the election due to time constraints, personal availability, etc. which is the main problem - there's people on councils and groups who sit behind the scenes voting on policy and such, and then there's the people who action based on those votes - it's why many of the CC actions get my public responses on them because I'm the "doer" who gets stuff done at the CC level, but the actions represent the CC's ultimate decisions.
>
> As well, the TB/DMB relationship has been the way it's been **for years** without arguments here, and the arguments you are making are counter to the function of leadership in the Community.

Personally, I don't find "tradition" to be a strong argument for
anything, but of course this is only my opinion.

>
> The DMB *must* be staffed in order to allow developer applications to be processed.  It is NOT unheard of for a governing team to expand its current members terms just long enough for there to be an election run, in order to keep continuity of processes going.  Which is where the "extend membership" part comes in - and there's precedent for THIS as well - CC has been asked by lower councils it oversees to temporarily extend the membership to allow an election to run and then restaff according to the election results.  This has been done in many cases - DMB, TB, other membership boards, etc. - and there is extremely strong precedent already set for this to be the case.  To that end, the TB is within their rights as 'oversight' for DMB to extend DMB members' permissions long enough to let an election run *and* to allow continuity of operations until the election completes.  It is my interpretation as a member of the Community Council of the preexisting precedent that, whether there's objection to Robie doing this or not, it is the TB's purview and right to extend DMB members' terms just long enough for an election to be held to allow continuity of operations and governance.  Robie is a member of the TB.  The fact that Robie is actioning this on behalf of the TB to permit continuity of operations and governance is inconsequential to the fact that the DMB must be staffed and properly provided permissions to allow continuity of operations for developer membership and upload applications.
>
> Once the election vote is held, DMB members will be restaffed according to the vote.  That includes myself, even though I sit on the highest community governance council.  If the vote ends up not in my favor, that's the voters choice and I accept it.  If the vote ends up keeping me on the DMB, then so be it as well, that's not a conflict of interest of my roles, that's the Community's decision, not the decision or actions of any one person or board/council member.

I don't see how any of this is relevant to my objection. Additionally,
I don't understand the urgency that requires extending the terms of
expiring members; the DMB has frequently gone for at least a month at
a time without reaching quorum. What exactly will break if the DMB
falls to only 3 members until the new election is held?

IMHO the expiration of the current member's terms *should* be
inconvenient. Otherwise, some key issues that *should* be discussed
will simply be ignored and are likely to happen again in the future.
For example:
- is it a good idea for the entire DMB team's terms to expire a couple
weeks after an Ubuntu LTS release (which will always be the case since
DMB members serve 2 year terms)? Since most (sometimes all?) of the
DMB members are involved in devel releases, especially LTS releases,
it seems quite likely this end-of-term-date is not really a good date,
and a more convenient end-of-term date should probably be decided. As
a side note, the 3 new members elected in the special election 2
months ago do *not* have the same end date; it's entirely unclear to
me if this has moved the DMB to staggered elections, or if their terms
will be 'fixed' at some point in the future. That's another important
clarification that probably should be made, presumably by the TB.
- is it a good idea for the DMB itself to keep track of when members
expire, and to prepare for and carry out the election(s) directly,
while the DMB also has no authority over when it needs to hold
elections or how many members the team should have? Responsibility
without authority is rarely a good thing (and likewise, authority
without responsibility isn't usually good either).

While the question *was* asked if anyone objected, and I answered that
question honestly, it's possible my opinion isn't actually desired; if
that is the case, please feel free to ignore my objections ;-)

>
>
> Thomas