Gentoo council election

amne · Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 5:48 pm Post subject: Gentoo council election

The results for the Gentoo council election 2006 just came in:
Council election master ballot
unofficial council election results
unofficial results -- full ranking
Results now more official

For those to lazy to read the mails on gentoo-dev, here's the list of people in the new council:

amne · Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 5:00 pm Post subject:

What, no replies? No general interest in what the council does and who's in there? C'mon folks, disucssing CFLAGS isn't all, is it?

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Gergan Penkov · Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 5:19 pm Post subject:

What does the council do?

I hope that this new council will be more proactive and wish them all much luck and success in tackling Gentoo!
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amne · Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 5:39 pm Post subject:

split off amne's troll thread.

Gergan Penkov: here are some informations what the council does.
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energyman76b · Advocate Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 2022 Location: Germany

congratulations.

Who are the guys?
Why were these guys elected?

Why was.. oh, I have read it.. yes. Once a year... *yawn*

The problem... from the user side the council is totally invisible. So why should users care?
Maybe some more presence would be helpfull...
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Icer · Guru Joined: 26 Aug 2003 Posts: 395 Location: @home

So what are they up to now? I read sometimes at GWN that there was council meeting but I dont remember much more about council activity. Do they have an agenda, or are the meetings about BBQ and beer? The developer doc didnt reveal much.

Lets send cokehabit/any other user rep to spy them.
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ciaranm · Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 9:53 pm Post subject:

Chances are, they will unfortunately be up to not much, just like the last lot -- why Gentoo has had so little progress over the past year. The council voting system is designed to eliminate anyone with an opinion or a backbone; the fourth most popular candidate, for example, ended up coming second last in the rankings because of this.

There's a good summary of all this in the August 31 LWN. Not sure that it's open to non subscribers yet...

cokehabit · Advocate Joined: 23 Apr 2004 Posts: 3302

cokehabit · Advocate Joined: 23 Apr 2004 Posts: 3302

ciaranm · Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:37 pm Post subject:

cokehabit · Advocate Joined: 23 Apr 2004 Posts: 3302

christel · Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:47 pm Post subject:

christel · Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:50 pm Post subject:

cokehabit · Advocate Joined: 23 Apr 2004 Posts: 3302

Wonkey_Donkey · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 14 Oct 2003 Posts: 93

Ooh. Im feeling inquisitive now. What is this council really about ?

And how (if in any way) does it affect the usability and future direction of Gentoo ?

I love Gentoo and have done for a long time; and I have often wondered how I could contribute more than just posting in the forums.

Is there a way that ordinary everyday users, who use Gentoo as a working desktop system and not just for /testing/dev/messing about/scoring points on mates/ can actually get actively involved ? I would be interested in this....

ciaranm · Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 12:43 am Post subject:

Wonkey_Donkey · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 14 Oct 2003 Posts: 93

Well I'll go in reverse order here.

I'm not a linux developer of any kind, and probably never will be. For reasons I will not go into here.

(The user reps are the way to go here)i

Do you mean in terms of making suggestions/getting ideas officially taken onboard, or something else ?

Does the council make the final yay/nay decision on these 'bigger' changes, or do they exist purely in an advisory capacity ?

I can for example (as Im sure loads of other forums members can too), envisage how I would like to see something work, what it should do, what it should not do, etc etc. The technical details behind such ideas, I'm much less clued up on.

As a regular user, how do I become more involved, and have my say on how I would like to see Gentoo progress ?

Although it may sound like it, I'm not repeating my last post. I simply want to learn more and possibly get involved at a level over and above the normal forum user.

As a side note, the systems in use at my place of work, which are 100% mission-critical, were designed and written by what was then British Aerospace. Subsequently Motorola/EADS/Printrak etc etc. They produced a 'system' which they vowed would 'just work' for the task in hand. My colleagues and I subsequently pulled it to pieces in the space of around 2 days, and we then collectively spent over 6 weeks full time working with the devs to produce a system that was up to the task. The resulting product is now in use in a number of sites across the UK, all of which are mission critical and have accepted the newer product.

My point here, is that its not the dev's idea of how they would like something to work, but rather the end users experience of what should happen, and what doesn't, which ultimately results in the system being usable or not.

I dont mean to denounce the work that the devs do. I would simply like to see a clear focus on the end user experience. As a regular Gentoo user and forum user, it feels like I have no access to the upper echelons and the decision making process.

And that just feels all wrong.

yngwin · Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 2:00 am Post subject:

I'm sorry, but I feel it's just lots of red tape. I understand you need some kind of structure in an organisation of this size, but I don't think the democratic committee structure is very helpful. The strong-leadership/meritocracy model of the linux kernel, for example, is much more productive, IMO.
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Gergan Penkov · Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 6:00 am Post subject:

Well probably the right decision is the council to be disbanded in favour of or having it headed with triumvirate or caeser, having more or less godlike authority.
It seems that the ancient form of democracy does not work that good, in fact it was not thought out/replicated that good, where is the possibility to ostracise for example in its original form?
_________________
"I knew when an angel whispered into my ear,
You gotta get him away, yeah
Hey little bitch!
Be glad you finally walked away or you may have not lived another day."
Godsmack

loki99 · Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 12:05 pm Post subject:

I posted this on July the 25th, but didn't get any replies. :cry:

Kloeri · Retired Dev Joined: 02 Sep 2002 Posts: 144

The council do have godlike powers in that they can overrule all other decisions and that council decisions can't be appealed as such (You can try convincing the council that some decision was bad and hope they'll reverse it though).

The old council didn't really use this power and mostly just waited for issues to be brought to them instead of taking a more active role. As one of the newly elected council members I'm hoping the new council will take a much more active role and help define directions and goals for Gentoo.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 12:19 pm Post subject:

You can speak to council members as they gather for the meeting and after the formal session, so you get an opperchancity to attempt to influnce things. During the formal session, the channel is moderated to avoid interruptions from the floor.

Council members are not quite the Gods that Kloeri made out - you need not pray to them.
They can all be reached by more normal channels
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Kloeri · Retired Dev Joined: 02 Sep 2002 Posts: 144

cokehabit · Advocate Joined: 23 Apr 2004 Posts: 3302

loki99 · Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 4:46 pm Post subject: