[dpl-helpers] Proposed first draft for TO definition. (More of a braindump)

[Stefano Zacchiroli]

cc: auditor at d.o (as I'm not sure if any auditor is actually on
dpl-helpers)

On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 09:10:54PM -0400, Brian Gupta wrote:
> > Thanks a lot for raising this topic.

AOL!

> > Debian Trusted Organizations (TO) are organizations that hold and manage
> > assets on behalf of the Debian project. The list of TOs is maintained by the
> > Debian Project Leader (following Debian Constitution 5.1.11 and 9).

<nitpick mode="on">

I'm not sure about what's the target public for this description, but if
it is general public I'd try to drop as many technicalities as
possible. Specifically, I'd drop the second sentence from the above
paragraph, and possibly hyperlink "on behalf of the Debian project" to
the relevant constitution section.

> > Generally:
> > - Trusted Organizations share Debian's general visions and support Debian's
> >   general goals
> > - Trusted Organizations have a legal structure that enables them to accept
> >   donations and/or hold assets in trust for Debian, and provide Debian with
> >   guarantees that those assets will only be managed according to the Debian
> >   Project Leader (or delegates) decisions.

For the same reason as above I'd rather conclude this paragraph with
"according to the Debian Project decision" (*who* actually takes the
decision should be a detail for the reader, and it's well documented
elsewhere anyhow).

> >   For example, the leadership structure of the organization could
> >   always have a minimum number, and/or a majority of Debian
> >   Developers, or the decision making processes of the organization
> >   could explicitely delegate decisions to the Debian Project Leader.

Is this actually interesting to mention? To me it seems that either we
want to make something like this mandatory to approve a TO (and in that
case we drop the "For example" incipit), or it is not mandatory and as
such this whole paragraph can be dropped, no?

> > - Trusted Organizations provide accountability on assets held in trust
> >   (for example, through detailed and regular reports of assets
> >   transfers and balance sheets).

s/for example/usually/ maybe ?
or even "are expected to" if we want to make clear that this is
something we really really want to happen.

> > - I prefer to use "Debian Developers" rather than "Debian Project Members".
> >   That matches the working of the constitution.

Uhm, AFAICT this is actually a common gotcha. The constitution uses as
*synonyms* the terms "[debian] project member" and "debian developer".
This is the actual constitutional basis we have used for renaming in
various important project processes, including NM.  So I'd rather to as
Brian suggested, using "Debian Project Members", and I think that's
totally fine with the Constitution wording.

> That said, I think we have to clarify what the initial purpose of this
> exercise was, as envisioned by Martin and Zack. My reading of the
> constitution seems we already have set forth a definition that isn't
> too specific on implementation details, and if memory serves they were
> trying to rectify that, by lowering confusion, and reigning in
> potential misinterpretation by either Debian or Debian TOs (present
> and future.)

So, IIRC the initial attempt was to actually *implement* the
Constitution requirements to have an authoritative list of T.O., that we
never had before. Now we have the wiki page but, well, that's not
particularly satisfying as an implementation, given its potential
volatility.

As a side benefit of that, having to create such a list brought to
discuss with the auditors what are the actual requirements (and
therefore a definition) for being a TO, and I think that is a very
useful exercise for the project.

I never directly thought about the communication part around this, but
given we are going to have a mass public page listing TOs, yes, thinking
about the corresponding TO description is definitely useful.

HTH,
-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli  . . . . . . .  zack at upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o
Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o
Former Debian Project Leader  . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o .
« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 828 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/dpl-helpers/attachments/20130926/ef05f30e/attachment.sig>