This list (was: Security Policies)

[Waldo Bastian]

>The first policy to be discussed might be the policy of this list itself
>:) That means subscription rules for example. As the membership list was
>readable anyway I allow myself to list it here:

I would like to propose that this list should be restricted to "KDE 
Developers/Contributors" and that, till we have better defined who 
that are, use "having a .kde.org address" as criteria. (I think 
that's backwards, because I think that being a "KDE 
Developer/Contributor" should warrant having a .kde.org address and 
not the other way around but we need to bootstrap somehow.)

>On Tue, 12 Nov 2002, David Faure wrote:
>
>>  > Did I understand it right that this list is for discussion upon 
>>policies of
>>  > KDE e.V ?
>>
>>  No. IMHO it should be all policies affecting KDE development.
>
>My opinion as well.

I agree.

>In fact, the intention was to have a forum _not_
>restricted to Verein members as some topics will benefit from input (and
>support) of a broader group of people. While such a list lacks any
>decision maker power itself it could help to develop a model for doing so.

Based on a previous thread on kde-ev-membership and inspired by the 
Debian constitution, I had the following idea for a KDE organization 
structure. It tries to solve questions like "who are KDE 
developers/contributors" and how can KDE as a whole adopt policies.

Make sure to read http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution first 
before reading the rest of this mail.


Although I don't think KDE should copy the Debian structure (e.g. a 
"project leader" is not something that fits well in the KDE culture) 
I do think we should create some sort of similar organizational 
structure.

I was thinking of something like:

* Developer/Contributor ("KDE Contributor") This term is meant to 
include "developer", "graphic artist", "translator", "doc writer", 
etc. People who contribute to KDE with their labour. (as opposed to 
money)

* Oversight Committee. This would be some sort of cross between 
Debian's project leader and Debian's technical committee. It's tasks 
would be:
- Overseeing of voting procedures
- Installing people as "KDE Contributor" according to policy. As well 
as deinstalling them in case of gross violations of that same policy.
- Conflict resolution/mediation and handling of complaints from KDE 
Contributors
All actions of the oversight committee can be overridden by KDE 
Contibutors by means of a resolution. For this to work it is very 
important that the oversight committee shows accountability and gives 
public account of all its actions. (e.g. by sending out a weekly 
statement of its actions) The oversight committee should consist of 5 
to 9 active KDE Contributors. A position in the oversight committee 
is an active role, members who no longer have sufficient time for it 
should resign from it. Goal of the oversight committee is to 
facilitate KDE development. It can either be voted in place in its 
entire by KDE Contributors, a vote could be called to fill vacancies 
or it could self-appointment new members in case of vacancies. (Pick 
one)

* The ultimate decision making power would be through the means of a 
voting procedure in which all KDE Contributors have a vote. With such 
a voting procedure the KDE Contributors can adopt resolutions 
applicable to KDE as a whole. Pretty much like the general assembly 
of an association (verein) but since it does not have to engage in 
any legal transactions (we have KDE e.v. for that) we can skip the 
legal paperwork required for a true association.


In a previous version of this model I had added some additional tasks 
and the notion of a "coordinator" but that clearly made it too 
complex since I got no reactions at all to that >:-) The above should 
be enough to have an organization that can actually make decisions. 
It will able to decide itself to add more bells and whistles :-)

Cheers,
Waldo