Re: [Tech-board-discuss] Re: [Ksummit-2007-discuss] Re: Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board Elections

[James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com>]

On Wed, 2007-08-22 at 20:19 -0500, Matt Mackall wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 22, 2007 at 06:42:09PM -0600, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 22, 2007 at 07:37:48PM -0500, Matt Mackall wrote:
> > > On Wed, Aug 22, 2007 at 06:26:18PM -0600, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Aug 22, 2007 at 11:44:00PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, Aug 22, 2007 at 10:22:59AM -0500, James Bottomley wrote:
> > > > > > The elections for five of the ten members of the Linux Foundation
> > > > > > Technical Advisory Board[TAB] are held every year, currently the
> > > > > > election will be at the 2007 Kernel Summit in a BOF session.
> > > > > 
> > > > > The reasons for this may be obvious with more understanding of how the 
> > > > > TAB came into existence, but given that the Linux Foundation isn't 
> > > > > limited to kernel development (see the desktop architects stuff, for 
> > > > > instance) it seems a bit odd for it to have a technical board that's 
> > > > > determined at a kernel-only event. 
> > > > 
> > > > I was under the impression that the TAB elections were being held at
> > > > Kernel Summit purely as a stop-gap; that this wasn't to be a regular
> > > > event.
> > > 
> > > And we're still looking for a better solution. Patches welcome.
> > 
> > Software in the Public Interest has a system you can steal ...
> 
> Unfortunately, it's fairly burdensome:
> 
>  Any contributing member of SPI is eligible to vote.
> 
>  ...
> 
>  Contributing memberships are open to persons and organizations who
>  have made significant contributions to the free software community,
>  as determined by the membership committee.
> 
>  The membership committee and its charter will make reasonable and
>  fair procedures for these determinations, including for acquiring
>  necessary information such as lists of projects a prospective member
>  has participated in or testimonials, and for regularly reviewing the
>  status of contributing members.
> 
> While I think that's laudable, we definitely don't have the resources
> for that, as everyone on the TAB already has a full workload. And it
> hardly seems worth the trouble for a once-a-year election.

Exactly ... we want a process that's simple and transparent.  We chose
voting at the KS because almost all the attendees satisfy the "made
significant contributions to Linux" requirement without us having to do
anything or make any controversial determinations.  Like Matt said,
better suggestions are welcome.

James