Revising OpenWrt Rules - Minimal-invasive approach

[Rich Brown]

Thank you again for all the well-reasoned comments. I accept Adrian's push toward a minimal set of changes. I have taken the liberty of putting an updated set of rules in a playground page on the wiki (link below) 

I have incorporated Adrian's suggestions to the current rules. The biggest change is to address my concern that the current rules don't specify HOW a proposal gets a formal vote. Consequently, I added a rule that states:

> A formal proposal to vote shall follow this process: A brief description of the proposal must be moved and seconded on the OpenWrt-Adm list. After any discussion has settled, any decision maker may call the question, request a vote on a final draft of the proposal, and specify how long the vote will be held open.

This makes it clear that;

- There's a clear process to advance a proposal for a formal vote
- We have a written description of what we're being asked to voted on
- There's a mechanism for "limiting debate" when the positions have become clear
- Each proposal can set its own duration for keeping the vote open

Other changes:

- s/committer/decision maker/
- s/Decisionmaker/decision maker/
- Certain refactoring/combining of rules re: majority/two-thirds vote, rights & privileges, etc.
- *All* infrastructure requires three admins
- A few other edits

SOOOOO... I move that we discuss the RC3 proposal at https://openwrt.org/playground/richb/rules-rc3

Do I have a second? :-) 

(NB: A person who seconds the motion isn't necessarily agreeing to vote for the motion - only that we should continue to discuss it...)

Thanks.

Rich

> On Nov 29, 2020, at 4:43 PM, Adrian Schmutzler <mail at adrianschmutzler.de> wrote:
> 
> Hi again to this old thread,
> 
>> My main problem is that a lot of descriptive text is added that - in my opinion
>> - is not necessary.
>> 
>> After all, the proposal reads more like a (explanatory) comment to a set of
>> rules than a set of rules itself. (E.g. point 3 is actually not a rule at all, but just
>> an explanation why the other rules are chosen like they are. In a law or
>> constitution, stuff like that would be moved into a preamble.)
>> 
>> And where it actually adds a new precise detail (the vote deadline), my
>> personal view is that this shouldn't be carved into stone, as it would make us
>> inflexible. (I'd actually also drop point 7 entirely, as its first part is actually
>> trivial).
>> 
>> So, my problem is a general one. I will try to have a look how we can resolve
>> this situation (always speaking from my personal point of view, of course)
>> during the next few days.
> 
> I've had a look at the rules and tried to implement the changes in a more minimal-invasive way. This essentially takes up the motivation of the decision maker tasks from Rich's proposal, but keeps everything else to the existing set of rules. I.e. this is only about the "decision maker" role and how it is named and framed, but not touching the other things.
> 
> This approach will only change the rules 1, 4 and 5, while everything else is untouched except for the replacement of "committer" with "decision maker". Update rules 1, 4, 5:
> 
> 1. The OpenWrt project is governed by a group of „decision makers“, who have demonstrated a strong commitment to OpenWrt, e.g. by high quality contributions of code, documentation, organization and/or leadership. The only role distinction within the project is between decision makers and non-decision-makers, there is no core developer group or other specially privileged members.
> 
> 4. Decision makers being unreachable for three months in a row shall get their status revoked in order to retain the ability to do majority votes among the remaining active decision makers.
> 
> 5. Decision makers have the right to get access to all project compartments, there is no partial or otherwise restricted access.
> 
> Apart from that, we have a typo in rule 9:
> 
> likelyhood -> likelihood
> 
> Of course, this is just meant as an offer as well, aiming at those people that don't want to rewrite the entire set of rules.
> 
> Best
> 
> Adrian
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