Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH 3/3] Significant changes to decision making; some new roles and minor changes

[Lars Kurth <lars.kurth@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 26/08/2016 10:51, "Wei Liu" <wei.liu2@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 03:35:38PM +0100, Lars Kurth wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On 26/08/2016 07:49, "Wei Liu" <wei.liu2@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> 
>> >On Sat, Aug 13, 2016 at 09:28:49AM +0000, Lars Kurth wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >> How about:
>> >> >> +-   Failed: Only **-1** or **0** votes by all stake-holder whose
>> >> >>approval
>> >> >> is necessary
>> >> >
>> >> >That would still leave 10 -1's overruled by a single +1.
>> >> >
>> >> >> Although maybe someone can come up with a clearer way to express
>> >>this.
>> >> >
>> >> >Maybe when there are no +2's, simply take the sum of all votes,
>> >> >and require it to be non-negative?
>> >> 
>> >> That would work. Any other opinions?
>> >
>> >When there are no +2's *and -2's* ?
>> 
>> I guess we are a little confused here.
>> 
>> A -2 is a strong objection. So what we are saying is that with a strong
>> objection we can't move forward. Now we are only using this scheme for
>> expressing opinion informally and on Lazy Consensus. The central idea
>> behind Lazy consensus is that WE DO NOT NEED to explicitly express
>> agreement: in other words, the default when someone does not saying
>> anything is a +1 (an implicit agreement).
>> 
>> I added the "Only **-1** or **0** votes by all stake-holder whose", as
>> this would be a strong signal that people generally think we don't have
>>a
>> good proposal and nobody is willing to defend it in any way.
>> 
>> +2's and -2's are in some sense a way to highlight that we have a strong
>> disagreement on an issue, whereas if we had +1's to -1's we only have a
>> minor disagreement.

>> 
>> I am not quite sure how to encode this using a formula. Looking for
>> feedback, but will do a little research in Apache, Eclipse and other
>>FOSS
>> projects
>> 
>
>I wish we can't get into a situation that more than one rule could be
>applied. So with your original words, a vote with one -2 and six +1's
>(assuming 7 valid votes in total) can have two interpretations.

Sorry for the late reply.


Agreed. I wanted to end up with something simple for lazy consensus,
which also takes into account that a non-reply states implicit consensus.

We already have a more complex mechanism, in the section "Leadership
Decisions",
which makes decisions by 2/3 majority, which we can always fall back to.

> Failed: A single **-2** by a stake-holder whose approval is necessary

This would fit into the above set of requirements: simple and assumes that
a non-reply states implicit consensus.

> Passed: No +2's but total sum >0

I think the challenge is that there is a grey area. Also, I think that in
general, 
we should only use "lazy consensus" where only a few people are involved
(e.g. a 
2-4 maintainers/committers in an area). Where everyone is affected, it
seems to
me that we should just follow the "Leadership Decisions" model. I think
your 
Proposal may be simple enough: but I think there is a problem with


Passed: No +2's but total sum >0


because it is probably fair to assume that the proposer of a proposal, will
by default have at least a "+1" position. If the proposer is willing to
argue
for his/her proposal (which is likely), then the proposal could never pass.
In any case, a single "+2" in absence of any "-2"'s should pass.

How about

The proposer of a lazy consensus is assumed to implicitly have an opinion
of **+1**,
unless otherwise stated.


Passed: A total sum of opinions **>0**

Failed: A single **-2** by a stake-holder whose approval is necessary
Failed: A total sum of opinions **<=0**

In case of failed lazy consensus, follow the pattern described in
"Leadership 
Team Decisions"

This would mean that a proposal would pass, if a proposal is made and
no-one else 
expresses any opinion, which seems fair enough. In this case, the sum
would be a "+1".

It would also mean that it can't pass if there was a single -1 (as
+1-1=0), unless 
- the proposer started out with a "+2" or
- other people expressed a "+1" or "+2" in addition to the original
proposer. 
Again, this seems fair enough.

If a proposal was started with a "+2" by the proposer, a fellow maintainer
could raise 
an objection by expressing a "-2", arguing that this specific proposal is
too important 
to be left to lazy consensus and we would have to defer to the leadership
team. In
other words, we would discourage proposers to start out with a "+2"
raising the bar
for negative votes.

This would also allow for some odd boundary cases, if a proposer started
out with a
**0** or **-1** to basically solicit opinions on something he/she is not
100% sure 
about or to verify that a way of doing something is probably not a good
idea.
 
Maybe the following background reading helps with terminology
- http://oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/meritocraticgovernancevoting


I think this does retain enough of lazy consensus, with some elements of
lazy voting
thrown in for the whole approach not to be too different to standard
terminology. It
does raise the question, whether we should call this lazy consensus, lazy
voting or
something else. Which I guess would only be relevant for labelling the
process.

@George: do you have an opinion?

I think it also addresses Jan's concerns and your concerns regarding
simplicity.

Does this makes sense?

Regards
Lars

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