To bring this back on topic, I’m seeing one actionable TODO here (documenting registration processes) and, maybe, some extra notes to be added about why we’re going with the PSF membership as the voting body.
To avoid another round of “but wait, what about…” in this discussion, so I’d like to ask folks who have concerns that haven’t been voiced yet to please do so.
I would like to be sure that there is a way to register to vote in the packaging council elections while clearly stating that I do not want to vote in the PSF elections, or to get any non-packaging communications from the PSF. That will be part of the documentation item, but I want to call it out separately as it’s a key point that could influence how I vote.
Also, can we have some provision in place to cover the possibility that the PSF changes their membership rules in a way we don’t like - an extremely unlikely but illustrative example could be if they remove or tighten the “community contribution” option. Not supporting such changes isn’t really sufficient - I doubt that even a 100% unified packaging community would be enough to sway a full PSF vote.
The PEP defines the Changing the governance process, which is actually pretty simple: The Steering Council must approve it.
So in your scenario, if something like that happened, I’d imagine the process would be: Packaging Council or some voting members would submit a proposal to detach voting from PSF membership, along with some proposal for how PC voting would proceed, which the SC would vote on.
Does that cover your concerns?
Works for me, thanks for the clarification!
I will just say that I agree with @AA-Turner’s post above and the responses to his points haven’t really convinced me. I still don’t think equating the PSF membership with packaging council voters is a good idea.
It’s the least bad among several imperfect choices, but definitely seems worth a try IMO. Perfect is the enemy of the good here - especially as the pool of candidates (people passionate and knowledgeable about packaging) will not change in any significant way depending on who’s allowed to vote or not.
I don’t see what’s the harm in adding that clause. As others mention covering your bases for all imaginable use cases is kinda the point of such bylaw documents; just because there wasn’t a need for it until now doesn’t mean it will not be in the future.
I’ve lost track – which clause? Is there specific language being proposed?
Another option would be to raise quorum to 4 non-abstaining members.
Has any consideration been given to the fact that a 2-year term (for comparison, the current SC term is 1 year) represents quite a commitment, and could put people off running for the council? I know that personally, I’d have fewer reservations running for a 1-year term. How important is the mechanism of overlapping terms providing continuity? I doubt that we’ll often see an election where no-one from the outgoing council will be re-elected.
You could always resign after 1-year.
I could, but that doesn’t seem like a good position to take in general - “terms are 2 years, but it’s OK to resign after one year if you don’t want to commit to 2 years”. And on an individual basis, I wouldn’t feel right campaigning for a 2-year position knowing I was going to resign after one year. And stating up front that I only planned on serving for one year seems needlessly disruptive.
I’ll also note that I was asking if consideration had been given to the possibility that a standard 2-year term might put people off running, not asking for advice on how to handle things if I only wanted to commit to 1 year. I’m perfectly happy to come up with my own answers to the questions I raise above (and that answer might be “I don’t feel comfortable running”), but I can’t speak for others. Maybe it’s not a big deal - the PC can presumably change the rules on this if they choose[1].
All the PEP requires for governance changes is SC approval, and I doubt the SC would reject such a change if the PC felt it was needed ↩︎
Fair enough! I don’t remember if this concern was specifically called out, but it was more the opposite, i.e. considering what potential disruption could occur if the entire PC was replaced in a single term.
I’ve seen the question about 2-year terms come up on the SC thread, and I’m not sure there’s a perfect answer either way. In practice on the SC, there’s always been continuity, so maybe there’s really nothing to worry about, and maybe there’s enough institutional knowledge to handle even that case[1]. And maybe if it does happen it’ll all be fine.
There’s also the 2-release term for release managers we’ve practiced for a long time, and that’s a much longer commitment, albeit only for one person, and yet we’ve been able to recruit some amazing RMs undaunted by that commitment.
although I don’t think everything useful can be documented ↩︎
I don’t have a strong opinion on 1 year or 2 year terms. Both could be effective. I think the primary benefits of each are:
Potential concerns:
Overall, I would lean slightly toward 2 year terms though 1 year terms can certainly work as well.
I had to go back almost to the start of the thread to find the original suggestion! I also lost track, other than that I recalled it as a “reasonable sounding protection”.
I still think this is very unlikely to matter in practice, but I also don’t see much harm in including it.
Some folks said they don’t think it’s necessary.
Excessively bloating the doc with pointless rules is harmful, so that is an argument against.
A voting quorum of 4 also solves the problem.
Since that’s a simpler change, and provides the same level of protection, I prefer that solution.
@bernatgabor Safeguards are healthy in governance. One challenge is being overly prescriptive on quorum rules that make it difficult for the council to transact business if a vacancy happens on the board for any reason.
I would recommend that we set the quorum at 75% of the seated board. This would provide a quorum of 4 for a 5 person board. Yet, would allow business to be transacted if there is a vacancy on the board: 3 out of a 4 person board. In the very unlikely event that there are 2 board vacancies, 75% would require 3 of 3 person to meet quorum.
My worry was purely on not letting a majority of 2 from the same company making decision 
Independent of how many active board members there are. 
I’d think we should always have at least 2 persons from different company sign off on any decision.
I would like to see a safeguard:
If only 3 members are voting, all 3 must be from different employers.
If 4 or more members are voting, the existing “at most two from the same company” rule suffices.
Could someone give a quick summary about what exactly are their concerns with having majority voting from people who share the same employer?
As it will still be up to individual projects to choose to implement or not implement the standards, I guess I am not that concerned if the Packaging Council “goes rouge", as a maintainer I can simply choose to ignore any standards that was " approved” but has not actually achieved a community consensus.
That scenario would be unfortunate and damaging, but it also seems like a breakdown in communication and trust could happen in ways other than the directive of a single employer, so such protections are potentially ineffective anyway.
Or is there some power that the Packaging Council could have more significant consequences? Or am I missing something else all together?
I personally have no qualms with 772’s current language around this topic, for a number of reasons:
If this is the only hang up for folks on the PyPA to approve the PEP, then I wouldn’t veto a specific language change, assuming @Deb and @pradyunsg are also on board. But FTR, I don’t think there’s anything that needs to be changed to ensure that the community’s best interests can never be subverted.
Gotcha. I think it would be fine to state it a bit differently: “For a vote to pass, the majority must include individuals from more than one organization/company.”