FESCo elections

[Josh Boyer]

On Sat, 2007-06-23 at 17:25 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-06-20 at 14:25 -0500, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
> > >>>>> "JS" == Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta at gmail.com> writes:
> > 
> > JS> If someone was going to attempt to ask for sponsorship without
> > JS> submitting a new package...where do they start?
> > 
> > Apply for cvsextras membership in the account system and find someone
> > to sponsor them through whatever channels they wish.
> 
> OK, so, if I really want to vote for FESCo, I can sneak my way into the
> voting pool if I know somebody?

It is possible.  Would be odd if someone were added to cvsextras without
a decent reason though.

> This does not sound like the kind of "democracy" that we want.  

Who said it was a democracy?

> Why have
> a special pool of citizens?  

Almost every election system I know of has some kind of qualifications
for potential voters.

> And does the special pool have to be made
> up only of the kind of people who are being elected?

>From where I sit, to a degree, yes.  Or at least of a similar role.
FESCo makes the _engineering_ decisions.  Those decisions effect the
package maintainers, rel-eng, QA, infrastructure, docs, etc. groups
directly.  If you aren't in one of those groups, it is a rare occasion
that a FESCo decision has direct impact on you.  If you want to open it
up to anyone with the CLA signed, fine.  I'm not directly against that.
I don't see what benefit that has, but ok.

Frankly, I think the FPB election is the one that should be more "open"
if you will.  Those decisions will likely have far more impact on the
broader Fedora universe.  Remember, FPB is "big idea, big change, big
impact" type decisions.

> Special pools of voters for special positions:
> 
> * Only lawyers can vote for Federal Judges.
> * Only medicos are allowed to vote for Surgeon General.
> * Only white males are allowed to vote for President. 
> 
> What if you are not in that special pool and want to run or vote?  Put
> on some whiteface and fake a law degree?

Do not attempt to compare the election process with some form of racism.
It is not, and the comparison is so far off base that I'm fairly pissed
you even made it.

josh