Proposal for titled positions of the GA
777arc opened this issue · comments
Sorry for using Issues, I just wanted to use the github web gui and couldn't find any other way to add a file. Consider this an informal version that we can use to all get on the same page, and once we all agree on it we can draft up something more formal.
Overview: As stated in the AoA, the GNU Radio leadership is made up of a group known as the General Assembly. Within this group of leads, we will have a set of titled positions. These titled positions don't carry any specific additional powers called out formally, each one has its own set of roles inherent to the title. For example, the Lead Code Maintainer will have additional git-related privileges and responsibilities, but the AoA and bylaws purposefully do not specify the details related to git-related privileges, as we are not intending to formalize every little detail associated with running the GNU Radio Project. All members of the GA should be on the same page regarding what each role involves, and if there is ever a specific dispute, the GA will vote to resolve. For example, if someone in the role of Documentation Lead claims that they deserve to be able to reverse a code-specific decision made by the Lead Code Maintainer, and members of the GA disagree, a vote will resolve the dispute. The whole point is that we don't want to formally call out every little role/detail/rule, but in the rare situation where that lack of specificity leads to a dispute, we'll just have a GA vote, and problem solved.
Motivation: The title will show up on this page https://www.gnuradio.org/about/organization/ as well as any other location the GR organization is outlined, such as the grcon yearly project update presentation. This detail is important, these titled positions are primarily so everyone in the community is aware of who is in charge of what, they aren't meant to give some people more power than others, it's purely an awareness and recognition thing. 99.9% of people outside of the leads aren't going to read or care about the specifics of our AoA or bylaws, so these titled positions are where we need to make things clear to everyone else who is leading what parts of the project. Obviously leads (and non-leads) will work on areas outside of their titled position, and some leads might not have a specific titled position, but that's expected for an open source project full of volunteers.
Voting: Members of the GA will volunteer themselves into these titled positions, and the GA will vote to approve. Someone in a titled position has it indefinitely, until they either step down or are voted out by the GA <insert info about majority/etc> for a specific reason, or leave the GA. When someone leaves a titled position, anyone can volunteer to take that position and be voted in, and if there are multiple people who want the titled position then an election will take place. If someone desires a titled position, essentially taking it from someone else, they will have to have a good reason, and GA will vote to decide where it happens, either via co-<title> or just substituting the person out. There is no need for a specific "term length" because these titled positions don't carry any specific additional powers called out formally, they are a role, meant for recognition and organizational coherence.
Other Details: Any of the titled positions listed below can have 1 or 2 people assigned to it, and in the case of 2, the prefix "co-" will be added everywhere the title is used. In addition, someone filling multiple positions can have an "and" between multiple titles, for example "President and SETI PI". Also, some positions (e.g. Debian Packaging) in which we want to potentially have someone who's not in the GA, are left off this list on purpose. Everyone who gets a title on this list must be part of the GA, because the GA represent the project leads, and these are leadership-specific titles.
List of titled positions:
Lead Code Maintainer (Marcus- feel free to put in whatever title you want)
Community Manager
DevOps Admin
Documentation Lead
Lead of Scheduler Improvements (anyone have a better idea?)
PyBOMBS Maintainer (might not want this on the list, if we anticipate they wont be in GA)
<feel free to add more, ideally all the leads prior to adoption of our AoA can get a title>
In addition to the above, the following titles also exist based on positions called out in the AoA, the following just specifies the title wording that will be used in https://www.gnuradio.org/about/organization/ and similar places:
Project President
SETI PI
Board Member (will not appear next to a person's name, instead there will be a *, and at the bottom it will say *Board Member)
PLEASE PROVIDE FEEDBACK, THIS IS JUST A PROPOSAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also, down the road we might want to switch to a more complex thing like Rust does with different teams, see https://www.rust-lang.org/governance, so think of this proposal like a shorter term solution to just get a stable system going while we look into other ideas that would be more "disruptive" (not meant to be negative). What I wrote here is essentially just trying to formalize what we already had going.
I'd like to argue that these "titles" are not just visual enhancements for the organization page but each of these roles will also carry authority about a certain part of the project.
E.g. lead code maintainer has the last say on disputes about how to merge something or can break ties, community manager has the last say & leads the effort on doing community things, devops admin leads the effort on running the infrastructure, documentation leads the effort & has the last say on how we documentation.
These roles shall be also entitled to represent GNU Radio in their specific field. E.g. the community manager can organize events hosted by GNU Radio. As @bastibl said before, right now only the board is allowed to do any sort of representation of the org and if you don't give out a right to speak for the project on a certain topic to other people essentially the three board members have to do a lot more than you might have in mind.
Edit: Also if we write something on the webpage it also has to represent the reality. We cannot put some title on there for someone even though this person does not have the authority to speak in these matters.
As @bastibl said before, right now only the board is allowed to do any sort of representation of the org and if you don't give out a right to speak for the project on a certain topic to other people essentially the three board members have to do a lot more than you might have in mind.
If this is how multiple leads feel, we need to deal with it ASAP, like let's put the rest of this discussion on hold for now and deal with this one issue. No lead should feel like they can't represent the project in the manner you're talking about. It clearly stemmed from a miscommunication and the fact that the AoA is very much legalese, so let's modify the AoA or put in whatever bylaw is needed to remedy this. I don't think it should be a factor with these titled positions, it needs to be fixed on its own. It would have been nice for someone to bring up a concern while we were crafting the AoA but whatever, we'll deal with it now.
Let's deal with #12 before moving forward with these titled positions, imo
Also there's been some ideas for not calling out the specific positions in the bylaw/AoA but instead just calling out the ability for the GA to create these positions and vote in people, so I'm closing this for now, we should chat more about it at next week's meeting