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

James Bottomley
2007-08-24T16:11:05Z

On Fri, 2007-08-24 at 08:57 -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 23, 2007 at 10:22:28PM -0500, Matt Mackall wrote:
> > On Thu, Aug 23, 2007 at 08:55:04PM -0600, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > > On Thu, Aug 23, 2007 at 09:52:54PM -0500, Matt Mackall wrote:
> > > > The other part of the puzzle is including the wider Linux community.
> > >
> > > As I said; what's wrong with just using SPI membership? It's not like
> > > it is remotely hard for kernel hackers to gain membership in SPI. And
> > > somebody else takes care of the bureaucracy for you.
> >
> > Ahh, I didn't realize you were suggesting making -them- do the work
> > instead of just stealing their model. I suppose that could work,
> > provided no one finds being an SPI member objectionable and they'd
> > provide us with their member list.
>
> I currently object to becoming an SPI member due to a number of personal
> reasons at this point in time.

There's another alternative: and that's that we could use the voting
mechanism of the LF itself. When the LF was formed, it inherited the
individual affiliate members from the FSG (These members actually elect
two of the board seats to the LF). We could simply use that pool as the
electorate for the TAB ... of course, coming from the FSG it will be
more user space centric.

To be brutally frank, I couldn't give a toss about choosing the perfect
representational system for the TAB election. In true Open Source
fashion, all I really care about is that we have a mechanism whereby
committed people can get their contributions accepted, plus we have a
check to keep the TAB straight and make it report to its constituency.
Also, being a kernel developer, I'm not unhappy with the kernel
community bias. Various members of the kernel community worked very
hard a few years ago to get OSDL to accept a list of demands and form
the TAB, so the kernel community currently has the motivation necessary
to keep it going.

So, currently, the KS election system, while not perfect, serves its
purpose adequately. The section of the TAB charter that deals with
member elections is easy to modify. However, I really don't see us
changing it until either someone comes up with a better system that's
almost as simple to operate or we actually have motivated interest in
joining the TAB from outside the Kernel community that necessitates
moving away from KS as the electorate.

James