Open Stack

On 10/10/2013 11:16 AM, Mark McLoughlin wrote:
> Hi
> 
> Since the foundation list thread kicked off, there's been a bunch of
> discussion on the foundation-board list and directly amongst ourselves. 
> 
> Now that we have this list, I think the first thing we need to do is
> summarize where those discussions have lead to.
> 
> Here's my attempt, but please pile on with anything I missed. Also, I
> haven't put anyone's name against any of these positions for fear of
> misrepresenting anyone.

Thanks Mark!

> 
>  * The advice that we cannot tweak the cumulative voting system without 
>    a bylaws change changes things. We now have the choice between:
> 
>      1) do nothing
>      2) hold a vote on making any change change to the system
>      3) hold a vote on tweaking the cumulative system
>      4) hold a vote on changing to a particular system like
>         STV/Condorcet
> 
>    I have expressed my order of preference as 4, 2, 3, 1

My preference is also 4, 2, 3, 1

I specifically also support the system being Condorcet. My specific
proposal is this:

"The election shall be conducted using a preference/ranking voting
system. The particular configuation of the voting system will be
determined by the election coordinators, in consultation with the board,
and will be announced before the election.

The voting configuration should use the same configuration as the
previous year, unless analysis of the previous year's voting shows an
unfair or inaccurate result and analysis of the same voting data shows
that a change to the configuration would solve that bias without
introducing a new one.

The initial configuration should be the one currently in use by the
OpenStack TC and PTL elections."

>  * Apparently the membership numbers have greatly increased over the 
>    6,000 members which I talked about. I don't see a public reference 
>    to this number anywhere, so I won't repeat it here.
> 
>  * There is debate over whether we could take a vote on a bylaws change 
>    in time for the next election cycle or whether it would have to be 
>    taken at the same time as the next round of elections.
> 
>    My take is that doing it with this years elections could give a
>    better chance of turnout and we're unlikely to get a vote ready with 
>    sufficient campaigning in advance of that anyway.
> 
>  * Some feel that having multiple members affiliated with the same 
>    organization on the board is a serious and related issue. We have 
>    discussed whether we should hold a vote on this. Personally, I'm fine
>    with including it as another vote along with the election system 
>    vote.

I do not feel that it's a problem - however, I am fine with including it
as another vote on the ballot. It was suggested that boards do put
things to vote that they're not crazy about with wording along the lines
of "we don't necessarily think this is a good idea, but it's possible
you disagree, so go nuts" I am not in favor of putting this to a general
vote with wording that makes it seem like we're actually recommending it.

>  * We discussed whether our concern about getting a sufficient turnout 
>    for a bylaws change points to a more fundamental underlying issue 
>    with our membership. Some discussion about whether members should 
>    automatically lose their membership if they do not vote in an
>    election.
> 
>  * We have had some discussion about STV vs Condorcet that would be 
>    great to share, but I'm not best placed to summarize it

I have a couple of reasons of being most in favor of Condorcet.

First and foremost, it's what we use for the rest of the OpenStack
elections, and it has served us well. Anecdotally the results have
always seemed 'fair' or 'correct' based on my feelings of the community.

It's also designed to be as fair as it can be. It might still not be
perfect, but its intent seems to match with the spirit of our community.

STV seems certainly better than cummulative, but I think a decent
argument was made about how a land-rush on an STV vote could still sway
towards block voting. Given that it's an unknown, and we do have a
system we're elsewhere happy with, I'm strongly in favor of aligning on
Condorcet.

Finally, there was a sentiment a year ago when we talked about this that
Condorcet might be a tricky choice due to lack of legal precedent of its
use in Delaware for board meetings. I think we're trying to do what we
can to run our Foundation based on our community values and not
necessarily how other people run theirs. With that in mind, I think we
should, unless we are actually disallowed explicitly from doing so,
choose the solution that best fits us and then if we need to be the
first to back it up in court, let us use some of our resources for that.

>  * Our original report is still waiting to be published along with all 
>    other supporting materials from the Oct 3rd meeting
> 
> Mark.
> 
> 
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