Project governance: tweak voting majority threshold

[kenhys]

Describe the bug

Currently, the voting requires 2/3 majority which is described in Voting

More contributors involved, it tends to be hard to satisfy with 2/3 majority if there are many inactive maintainers in the future.

Also mentioned #4150 (comment)

To Reproduce

N/A

Expected behavior

Introduce the new threshold in a practical manner.

Instead of 2/3 majority, changes the threshold like this:

UPDATED: based on #4151 (comment)

• No objection ballot
• At least effective 3-person affirmative vote
• At least effective 2-organization affirmative vote
  • Effective organization affirmative vote means:
    • One member of the organization made an affirmative vote (even though other colleagues didn't vote, it was treated as an effective affirmative organization vote)
    • An affirmative vote of a member not belonging to an organization is considered as one organization's affirmative vote
• At least 2-week for voting

Some ballot scenario:

• effective 3-person (all individual) affirmative vote 🙋🙋‍♂️🙋‍♀️=> approved

• effective 3-person (1 individual🙋, 2 person who belong to the same organization🙋‍♂️🙋‍♂️) affirmative vote => approved

• effective 3-person (1 organization🙋, 2 individuals🙋‍♂️🙋‍♀️) => approved

• effective 3-person but, who belong to the same organization 🙋🙋🙋 => declined

• effective 3-person but 1 objection 🙋🙋🙅‍♂️ => declined

The important point is not to be dominated by certain organizations and to make the project's decisions by maintainers appropriately.

Your Environment

N/A

Your Configuration

N/A

Your Error Log

N/A

Additional context

• If these change was introduced, the previous organization's vote was easy to make things forward.

• Before call for voting Project governance: introduce "emeritus" member status #4150, this issue should be processed. (it makes easy to process Project governance: introduce "emeritus" member status #4150 afterwards)

• well-known similar voting threshold is mentioned Project governance: introduce "emeritus" member status #4150 (comment)

ref: code modifications and veto of Apache Voting Process

• https://www.apache.org/foundation/voting#apache-voting-process

  the proposal requires three positive votes and no negative votes in order to pass

For the record, the previous proposal:

• No objection ballot
• At least effective 3-organization affirmative vote

Both of the above conditions are met, the voting agenda will be approved.

[daipom]

Thanks for summarizing this issue!

I agree.

[daipom]

We will vote on the new rules with the current rules.

For the new rules, the followings are currently assumed.

• No objection ballot
• At least effective 3-organization affirmative vote

I think this is fine, but how about the next idea?

• No objection ballot
• At least effective 3-person affirmative vote
• At least 1-week for voting

Currently, ClearCode organization alone can gather 3 votes,

• https://github.com/fluent/fluentd/blob/v1.16.1/MAINTAINERS.md

but I don't think we need to see these situations as a problem at this point since one negative vote takes precedence over the affirmative votes.

In addition, I added a rule about the voting period.
We need to avoid a situation where the approval was done so quickly by particular people, and there was no time to cast a negative vote.

[kenhys]

Adding a rule about the voting period is a good idea, but I doubt whether "At least 1-week" is enough or not.
(more longer period may be suitable)

About Plan B #4151 (comment) (which is proposed by @daipom) , "effective 3-person affirmative vote" with a shorter voting period can't solve "Hey, I forgot to vote for a objection, but voting period is over and the proposal was accepted by 3-person in the same organization" issue.

A bit modified new rule proposal:

• No objection ballot (didn't distinguish the individual or member of the organization)
• At least effective 3-organization affirmative vote
  • effective organization affirmative vote means:
    • case 1: all member of orginization do affirmative vote
    • case 2: one member of organization do an affirmative vote (even though other colleagues didn't vote, it was treated as effective affimative organization vote)
• At least 3-weeks for voting period

[daipom]

"effective 3-person affirmative vote" with a shorter voting period can't solve "Hey, I forgot to vote for a objection, but voting period is over and the proposal was accepted by 3-person in the same organization" issue.

I think it is good to have a longer voting period for this, but as long as we guarantee a certain voting period, I feel that we do not need to be so concerned at this point about the issue of people forgetting to express their opinions during that period.
If such a thing actually becomes a problem, then we can revise the rules.

If we adopt "effective 3-organization affirmative vote" condition, I think the voting period rule does not be necessary or could be much shorter.
(Seems to me that there is a low risk of fast approval by only specific people, since an affirmative vote from each organization needs to be gathered.)

Regarding the rules about affirmative votes and the voting period, I think one of the following 2 directions is fine.

• "effective 3-organization affirmative vote" with no voting period (or shorter period just in case)
• "effective 3-person affirmative vote" with some voting period

[daipom]

Summarizing the opinions so far, how about the following rule?

• No objection ballot
• At least effective 3-person affirmative vote
• At least effective 2-organization affirmative vote
  • Effective organization affirmative vote means:
    • One member of the organization made an affirmative vote (even though other colleagues didn't vote, it was treated as an effective affirmative organization vote)
    • An affirmative vote of a member not belonging to an organization is considered as one organization's affirmative vote
• At least 2-week for voting

[daipom]

@kenhys Thanks for updating the Expected behavior.

I'm working on a rough draft to update GOVERNANCE.md based on the current Expected behavior.

I will make a PR later, and I would like to have it reviewed before voting.

Although not directly related to this case, I was curious about the following statement.

• https://github.com/fluent/fluentd/blob/v1.16.1/GOVERNANCE.md?plain=1#L22

  a link to that issue or PR added to the maintainers meeting agenda document

What is the maintainers meeting agenda document?
Is this obsolete?

[kenhys]

As many individuals or organizations are becoming involved, it is difficult to hold the maintainers meeting nowadays.
(At least, I have not attended the maintainers meeting) thus I think it is an obsolete sentence.

[daipom]

As many individuals or organizations are becoming involved, it is difficult to hold the maintainers meeting nowadays. (At least, I have not attended the maintainers meeting) thus I think it is an obsolete sentence.

Thanks! I see!

[daipom]

Now I created a rough draft:

• Project governance: Fix voting rule #4160

I would like to have some reviews before voting.