[ubuntu-in] The Community Stucture

[Soumyadip Modak]

Speaking form the position of a non-Ubuntu volunteer (in the strictest sense
of the phrase) who was not involved in the formation of the Indian LoCo
team:

On 3/24/06, vid <svaksha at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> As an Ubuntu volunteer who was involved in the formation of the
> IN-team, I regret to say that this Team Structure was formed without
> my knowledge or involvement.


Well,  the formation of the Structure document was discussed on IRC, but the
text has been on the Wiki for quite some time, for people to comment on. It
is hardly possible to form a complete structure document on IRC.

If the meetings were conducted on IRC
> there was no email to this mailing list informing everyone of the
> timings and date of the said meeting for aforementioned purpose. So I
> request that logs of the said IRC chat be made available publicly.


This point has already been addressed, IMHO


After going through the wiki draft, here are my observations :
>
> [0] Clause#3 of Functions of the Council arbitrarily grants the
> council the right to assign and remove any Community volunteer from
> any responsibility, as it deems fit. This does seem detrimental to the
> *free* spirit that the Ubuntu community as a whole functions under.
> To the best of my knowledge, even the CC and Ubuntu members don't
> remove people without proof and assigning valid reasons.


The Clause is #2, and it does say there will be a public meeting convened,
before any decisions are taken.

[1] Redressal clause - There is no mention of this in the wiki draft.
> In the event that any IN-volunteer has grievances how would the
> IN-Council Members solve the same. Would redressal avenues be open to
> all or restricted to Council Members and Admins.


My oversight. I actually wrestled with the idea of including a clause to
address this problem, but I couldn't find any satisfactory way to go about
it. Vidya, why don't you take up this issue, and draft a modification to the
Structure that allows such redressal ?

[2] Post of Council Member and Administrators - I propose a clause
> that a single person should not hold both posts. They should be
> mutually exclusive, otherwise it will be a conflict of interest (hence
> denial of justice) in the event of a disagreement between a volunteer
> and a Member holding both Council and Admin posts.


To deny Administrators any say in the policy making, as would be the case
according to your proposal, they might feel aggrieved that decisions are
being forced arbitrarily upon them. IMHO the executive should always have a
say in the legislative, so that the executive has a chance to air their
view, before policies are finalised.

IMHO the language used is too strong, and implies that the people who are
making the effort to get the infrastructure of the Team up and running, have
ulterior motives.

[3] Election of Council Members : New Ubuntu volunteers should be
> given a chance to participate in the IN-team, hence Admin posts should
> not be renewed consecutively, instead a fresh team should take charge
> with open polls for posts.


Is there any precedent for such a drastic measure ? Even the US precidency
allows two terms of four years each. To deny people the right to continue
their good work would be to discourage them. And if they don't do any good,
then I believe we already included a clause that handles such a situation
(to which I believe Vidya has already voiced her opposition)

It is not that easy to bring in talented individuals skilled in System
Administration into the fold. Besides, the nomination of people into the
Council is to be handled by the Community, so if the Community feels there
is a talented individual who'll be useful as a Council member, then I'm sure
that person will be nominated.

Election to the Administrator posts directly is IMHO a bad idea. As an
example, what is to stop me from opening up multiple launchpad accounts and
rig the vote ?

[4] Policy formation : To ensure transparency, the names of all the
> IN-team people involved in policy formation should be clearly
> mentioned. All IRC discussions should be made public as it is done in
> Ubuntu proper. If this is already being done, the URL where logs can
> be accessed should be prominently displayed.


My oversight again. Obviously, all members to the Indian LoCo team Council
will have their names listed on a public wiki page. And yes, I agree that
all IRC meetings should be logged.

I request these be clarified on this mailing list since it is
> transparent and documented as opposed to IRC and will ensure greater
> heights for the IN-Ubuntu Team.


I'll agree that the mailing list provides a measure of permanency, in that
all posts are archived. However, to call say that IRC is not transparent is
to say that the traditional way of real time interactions among geeks is
flawed.

There is a strong focus on the fact that the Community members (I assume
that is what Vidya means by the word 'volunteers') do not have direct access
to legislative and executive functions. My limited experience in LUGs and
the democratic system makes me believe that giving carte blanche to all
members to do as they please is counter-productive. There should be
freedoms, but there should also be checks ( I deliberately use that word) to
see that in the exercise of these freedoms, we shouldn't come in the way of
others exercising their freedom.

On a parting note, I'd like to mention that while much has been made of the
fact that the Indian LoCo Team has been founded due to the unselfish
contribution of a few, there are others too who have contributed
significantly to help this Team grow. To deny their contributions and claim
primacy, is to deny justice.

--- Soumyadip Modak
soumyadip.modak at gmail.com
soumyadip at nipl.net
http://soumyadip.nipl.net/blog
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