MOTU Leadership Teams - Membership Policy

[Scott Kitterman]

On Friday 25 July 2008 17:30, Emmet Hikory wrote:
> Cody A.W. Somerville wrote:
> >  Currently, the MOTU community feels that it is beneficial to delegate
> > certain responsibilities and permissions to a subset of trusted
> > individuals; for example the MOTU Release Team and Universe Stable
> > Release Update Team. Since these bodies represent and act on behalf of
> > MOTU-at-large, it is argued that for these leadership teams to be
> > legitimate that they must accurately reflect the MOTU via an electoral
> > process. Others feel alternative solutions would instead be optimal.
> > Regardless, over the last few releases, the methodology used to populate
> > these teams has been inconsistent. It is desired that a standard
> > practice/policy be adopted.
>
>     This topic was again discussed at the 25th July MOTU Meeting.
> Please find below a summary of one of the proposed mechanisms by which
> team members might be selected.
>
> For each of the MOTU-SRU and MOTU Release teams, a maximum size (e.g.
> 5 or 7) is selected.  Note that the selected time values are
> arbitrary, and may be adjusted if required.
>
> Any MOTU with interest in joining a key team may apply to me a member
> of that team by sending mail to ubuntu-motu at lists.ubuntu.com
> indicating their desire to join the team, and outlining their
> qualifications to be on the team.
>
> This is followed by a discussion period of one week where any MOTU is
> able to ask questions about the application.  If during this period,
> any MOTU strongly disagrees that the candidate is qualified to join
> the team, the candidate is rejected, and must wait at least two months
> to reapply.
>
> If the acceptance of a candidate would push the team oversize, a
> multicandidate election is held, with a number of winners equal to the
> maximum size of the team selected from the current members and any new
> applications.  This election may be delayed if there are multiple open
> applications at one time (apologies to those who may have to wait to
> join a team in this instance).
>
> Any current member may resign at any time, if they are no longer
> active in the team.  Any MOTU may call for resignation of a team
> member if they are perceived as inactive or unsuitable in some way.
> In the case where a resignation is requested, there is a two week
> period of discussion.  If the request has not been withdrawn and the
> member has not resigned at the end of the discussion period, the issue
> will be resolved by MOTU Council using the dispute resolution process.
>
>     Please note that if this model is selected, there will be a need
> to determine a voting system to handle the case where there are too
> many applicants.
>
I think this is an interesting approach.  A few questions:

Is there a maximum term before one must stand for election again or is it 
until one quits/some MOTU asks to have you out?

Is there some minimum before one can re-apply if one is not accepted (I see 
DoS potential in the approach without such a rule)?

Scott K