[illumos-Advocates] [Developer-council] changing the procedure for nominating "advocates"

[Bryan Cantrill]

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 10:07 PM, Garrett D'Amore <garrett at nexenta.com> wrote:
>  We have a problem.  Or at least the *appearance* of a problem.
>
> The current list of "advocates" for illumos is 75% Nexenta employees.  Of
> course, that probably is proportional to the number of integrations made by
> Nexenta employees.
>
> But it does make the list of advocates seem less ... fair, especially since
> new advocates are confirmed by the existing advocates.
>
> So I want to change this process.
>
> Developer-council is a much more diverse organization, and is not one that
> Nexenta has a majority representation in.  Current DC members:
>
> Adam Leventhal
> Bryan Cantrill
> Jim Carlson
> Richard Lowe
> Garrett D'Amore
>
> The current list of advocates is:
>
> Garrett D'Amore
> Albert Lee
> Richard Lowe
> Gordon Ross
>
> I'd like therefore to make the selection of advocates (which will include
> both selecting new advocates, *and* firing any old ones if that is ever
> appropriate) a matter handled by developer-council.
>
> I *hope* that DC will continue the wisdom of ensuring that advocates are
> selected that will perform an unbiased integration review with a keen eye
> towards thoroughness.  Advocates also need to understand the special
> restrictions for ZFS integrations (ZFS Working Group needs to approve such
> integrations in code review).  I think merit should be given to advocates
> that demonstrate actual contributions (particularly post-Oracle
> contributions) -- we had been assuming that this was a measure by which we
> would nominate new advocates, and I hope to see advocates representing
> Delphix and Joyent and other parties in the mix soon.  Either way, I think
> it makes sense to hand over the power to manage the list of advocates to the
> Developer Council.
>
> Note that I don't expect any immediate changes to the list of advocates as a
> result of this change, although the privilege to make such changes will fall
> upon developer council.
>
> I hope also that DC will be willing to entertain the recommendations of the
> project-at-large when selecting new advocates, including accepting
> nominations presented by the tech lead or existing advocates.
>
> Anyway, I'm using my special Grand Poobah +18 powers to make this change,
> unless someone raises some significant concerns about this.  (This change
> will also facilitate clearing up our "governance" to the larger conservancy
> once we join.)

I applaud this use of Grand Poobah powers. ;)  If you're interested in
sharing the load a bit, we can easily get some Joyent folks in there
(assuming that the others on the DC agree, of course).  Areas in which
we have coverage (and have submitted or will be submitting patches)
are DTrace, SMF and Zones.  (We are doing ZFS work as well, but that's
thoroughly covered elsewhere.)  Not sure what the process should be,
but I imagine that between us we can just come to quick consensus on
who to add; let me know if that's desired and we'll put some folks
forward...

        - Bryan