Revising OpenWrt Rules - Minimal-invasive approach

[Sam Kuper]

On Sun, Nov 29, 2020 at 10:43:51PM +0100, Adrian Schmutzler wrote:
> [snip] 
>
> 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".

Whatever else I feel about the rules (e.g. my concerns about the 3-month
rule, as expressed in my email of 28 Oct 2020 22:56:43 +0000), I admire
your effort to find a minimally-invasive solution.  Good call :)

Thank you, too, for upholding the thoughtful, conscientious approach
that everyone has been taking recently re: this fundamental topic.  (It
is literally a pleasure to be subscribed to this mailing list.)


> 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.

Seems reasonable to me :)


> 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.

I know that not everyone agrees with this rule (including me, see
above).  But given that...

- there *does* seem to be a majority in favour of expanding "committer"
  privileges to "decision makers", and

- there does *not* currently seem to be a majority in favour of
  otherwise altering this rule

... your proposed minimal modification seems eminently sensible :)


> 5. Decision makers have the right to get access to all project
> compartments, there is no partial or otherwise restricted access.

"have the right to get access to all project compartments" seems OK but
maybe non-idiomatic, especially the word "compartments".

Perhaps this instead:

"receive an offer of access to all project resources"

or

"receive a standing offer of access to all project resources"?

Non-idiomaticness is only a minor concern though.  Your change is
fundamentally good :)


> Apart from that, we have a typo in rule 9:
> 
> likelyhood -> likelihood

Well caught :)


> 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.

A minimally-invasive approach like you suggest, which implements the
"committer -> decision maker" change that (unless I'm mistaken) has
already been agreed in principle, is a great idea.  It lets the project
make the maximum non-contentious progress that is available in this area
at this time.

There will still be room for people to propose other changes in future,
if they wish.

Again, good call.

Best wishes,

Sam

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