Seeking volunteers for the post of Debian Project Secretary
Steve McIntyre
As most people reading this will already know, Manoj Srivastava
resigned from the position of Project Secretary last week [1]. I'd
like to take this opportunity to publically thank him (again) for the
huge amount of effort he has put into the job over the years. He has
been a loyal servant of the project for a very long time, and ran many
votes for us on all kinds of topics.
We now have a vacancy to fill. A couple of people have been in touch
already to volunteer, but rather than just take one of the first few I
explicitly want to see if anybody else is interested. If you'd like to
take the job on, you will need to be a Debian Developer. You will also
need to have a good understanding of our constitution and how the
Condorcet voting system works. For reference, the constitution says
the following about the Secretary position:
=======================================================================
7. The Project Secretary
7.1. Powers
The Secretary:
1. Takes votes amongst the Developers, and determines the number and
identity of Developers, whenever this is required by the
constitution.
2. Can stand in for the Leader, together with the Chairman of the
Technical Committee.
If there is no Project Leader then the Chairman of the Technical
Committee and the Project Secretary may by joint agreement make
decisions if they consider it imperative to do so.
3. Adjudicates any disputes about interpretation of the constitution.
4. May delegate part or all of their authority to someone else, or
withdraw such a delegation at any time.
7.2. Appointment
The Project Secretary is appointed by the Project Leader and the
current Project Secretary.
If the Project Leader and the current Project Secretary cannot agree on
a new appointment, they must ask the Developers by way of General
Resolution to appoint a Secretary.
If there is no Project Secretary or the current Secretary is
unavailable and has not delegated authority for a decision then the
decision may be made or delegated by the Chairman of the Technical
Committee, as Acting Secretary.
The Project Secretary's term of office is 1 year, at which point they
or another Secretary must be (re)appointed.
7.3. Procedure
The Project Secretary should make decisions which are fair and
reasonable, and preferably consistent with the consensus of the
Developers.
When acting together to stand in for an absent Project Leader the
Chairman of the Technical Committee and the Project Secretary should
make decisions only when absolutely necessary and only when consistent
with the consensus of the Developers.
=======================================================================
As head of the Technical Committee, Bdale is currently the acting
Secretary and will take care of currently outstanding business:
specifically the currently-running Lenny firwmare vote. Manoj and Neil
McGovern (assistant secretary) have been handing things over to Bdale
in the last few days, and he will be sending mail shortly to summarise
the current situation. We've been discussing things already and I'm
happy that things are in capable hands for the time being. However,
this is clearly just a temporary state and we should find a new
secretary soon.
Due to the time of year and many of our developers already being on
vacation, I'll give people 3 weeks time to volunteer their services
(until the end of Monday 12th January, UTC). Please reply to
leader@. Of course, if you want to discuss the position in more detail
before then, Bdale and I (and hopefully Manoj and Neil too!) will be
more than happy to talk with you.
[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2008/12/msg00275.html
Thanks!
--
Steve McIntyre, Debian Project Leader <lea...@debian.org>