Call for votes: Developer Membership Board restaffing

[Scott Kitterman]

On Thursday, January 31, 2013 05:08:22 PM Jani Monoses wrote:
> On Thu, 31 Jan 2013 09:06:31 -0500, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > On Thursday, January 31, 2013 09:23:39 AM Jani Monoses wrote:
> >> On Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:22:58 -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> >> > Hello,
> >> 
> >> [snip]
> >> 
> >> > That's certainly true, but I think this is something that the DMB has
> >> > a duty to correct.  Frankly, I think there's no reason that Adam and
> >> > Björn couldn't have been ready for upload rights by January, *if* the
> >> > DMB's
> >> 
> >> I must ask the same question as the Debian maintainer who endorsed
> >> Björn's application: 'Are you kidding? :)'
> >> I never assumed for a moment that he had not long been an uploader of
> >> LibreOffice.
> >> 
> >> I think the DMB members did their job well by following the existing
> >> guidelines for such approval procedures and I also think those
> >> guidelines are in need of adjustments.
> > 
> > What's in the current guidelines that needs changing?
> 
> I am only talking about PPU rights below, I think the current process for
> getting broader rights is ok.
> 
> There is too much coupling between Ubuntu membership and upload rights.
> While there are many developers who are both uploaders and contribute
> broadly to other non-technical aspects of the project, I think PPU should
> be seen as a focused technical role closer to that of traditional
> upstreams.

One of the tricks here is that currently PPU makes someone a part of ubuntu-
dev which, among other things, means they have voting rights for tech board 
elections.  I think non-members should not be in ubuntu-dev.

This is a common enough problem that we should be able to have non-ubuntu-dev 
PPU that aren't members, but there are obviously some details that need to be 
worked out.

> I'd also argue that endorsements from people who had sponsored and worked
> closely with the applicant in the past should have a greater weight than
> they apparently do and the process should not be about interview style
> packaging related questions.

I agree they should have significant weight.  In the end though the DMB is the 
body delegated to decide and they have to make a decision.

Scott K