MicroProfile Voting Processes

[John Clingan]

I am re-posting a summary the voting aspect from the push vs pull thread here.

There are two voting mechanisms within MicroProfile:

1) Consensus. We have always made decisions on the live hangout up until this point. It's basically our version of the steering committee meeting, but with a community/collaborative approach. MicroProfile markets the Live Hangout in general and these working group discussions frequently. We label "DECISION'  in bold in the meeting minutes on key decisions made. This approach has been a contributing factor for the velocity that MicroProfile has been able to achieve.

2) Committers (meritocracy). The eclipse process for voting on committers is well established, and we've been using the EDP for voting on committers.

To date (from day one) we have been able to make decisions based on consensus. However, there will be times when this is not an ideal approach - like when consensus cannot be achieved. If consensus cannot be achieved, then then the voting will have to fall back on committers.

There is no formal definition of consensus that I know of, but it has in practice meant unanimity to move forward with a decision, even though there may not be agreement that it is the right or best decision. This is has been the MicroProfile process since day one.

[Mark Little]

Inline ...

On Mon, Feb 17, 2020 at 3:39 AM John Clingan <jcli...@redhat.com> wrote:

I am re-posting a summary the voting aspect from the push vs pull thread here.

There are two voting mechanisms within MicroProfile:

1) Consensus. We have always made decisions on the live hangout up until this point. It's basically our version of the steering committee meeting, but with a community/collaborative approach. MicroProfile markets the Live Hangout in general and these working group discussions frequently. We label "DECISION'  in bold in the meeting minutes on key decisions made. This approach has been a contributing factor for the velocity that MicroProfile has been able to achieve.

Agreed. And whilst I sympathise with those who say the timing isn't good, I need to repeat that no timing will ever be perfect for everyone. Furthermore, the Jakarta EE Steering Committee makes decisions in a similar way but doesn't do so publicly. OK the time may be easier/better for some and if that's the time we should change the hangouts to then fair enough. But major decisions are made by the SCs either in the open like MP, or closed like Jakarta EE.

 

2) Committers (meritocracy). The eclipse process for voting on committers is well established, and we've been using the EDP for voting on committers.

To date (from day one) we have been able to make decisions based on consensus. However, there will be times when this is not an ideal approach - like when consensus cannot be achieved. If consensus cannot be achieved, then then the voting will have to fall back on committers.

+1

 

There is no formal definition of consensus that I know of, but it has in practice meant unanimity to move forward with a decision, even though there may not be agreement that it is the right or best decision. This is has been the MicroProfile process since day one.

+1

 

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[Ondro Mihályi]

Hi,

I need to repost this here again then.

As an MP committer, I'm definitely against taking major decisions during hangouts. At least unless it's possible to vote asynchronously before or after a hangout. If decisions like we're about to make now are taken as summarized above I'm really worried about the direction of MicroProfile and the way how it operates.

The community hangout isn't a PMC or steering committee or anything close to it. As a committer, I feel that my rights are ignored because I'm not able to join the hangouts regularly because the time doesn't suit me. However I watch most of the recordings and the mailing list, where I am also very active, and I can say I'm competent to cast my vote and I want to have a voice in major decicions. It has been always my issue but only now the things being discussed are game-changing and may affect whether MicroProfile will remain relevant to me or not.

Ondro

[Kevin Sutter]

Totally agree with you, Ondro.  Even myself -- I don't want to miss being part of a major decision just because I can't make a Hangout for some reason.  If a vote is required on a major decision point, it has to be done via our Google Group with a written record of the votes.

Getting back to the voting process...  We ran into a similar situation with the Jakarta EE 9 Release Plan content.  We needed to determine the "direction" for Jakarta EE.  We wanted input from all involved members.  But, we couldn't fall back to just the Committer Election Vote process defined by the EDP since a -1 vote would veto the vote.  We needed to be efficient with everyone's time and to ensure a timely outcome for the Jakarta EE 9 Release Plan.  I think we're nearing that same condition with the MicroProfile Working Group decision.

Based on John's initial note and the background from the Jakarta EE Release Plan process, here are some proposed voting rules:

• Only the votes from the MicroProfile committers will count.  Other non-committers are welcome to vote to express their desires, but only the committer votes are binding.
• Once initiated, the votes are kept open for one week to ensure sufficient time due to trips, vacations, sickness, etc.
• Need quorum (simple majority) of MicroProfile committers to cast a vote in order for the overall ballot to be binding
  
• Super-majority of the voting committers need to be in favor to pass the vote
• If the super-majority is not achieved, then conduct a second vote with simple majority wins (we have to pick a winner)

Definitions:

• Currently 56 committers on MicroProfile project
• Quorum would require at least 29 committers to cast a vote
• Super-majority is 2/3 of the voting members
• Simple-majority is at least 50% of the voting members
  

Would this work?  I'll bring this up on the second half of our Hangout call tomorrow for discussion.  But, let's try to get this ironed out *before* we figure out what we're voting on...  :-)

Thanks,

Kevin

[m.reza.rahman]

Looks good to me. I am glad this is moving forward. I believe it will lead to a broader set of people feeling more engaged with the technology. That is invaluable.

Reza Rahman

Jakarta EE Ambassador, Author, Blogger, Speaker

Please note views expressed here are my own as an individual community member and do not reflect the views of my employer.

Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S7, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

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[Alasdair Nottingham]

I prefer this to expecting people to join hangouts.

Alasdair Nottingham

On Feb 17, 2020, at 5:58 PM, Kevin Sutter <kwsu...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Ondro Mihályi]

Kevin's proposal looks good to me. 

Dňa ut 18. 2. 2020, 1:01 Alasdair Nottingham <alasdair....@gmail.com> napísal(a):

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[Steve Millidge]

Looks good to me. Allowing non-committers a non-binding vote is great as during the Jakarta EE 9 release plan decisions those votes significantly changed the outcome.

[Emily Jiang]

+1! Sounds good to me!

Emily

[Mark Little]

+1

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[John Clingan]

+1

[Ken Finnigan]

+1

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[Martin Stefanko]

+1

I will just note that not all committers are still actively working on MicroProfile. So it may come into the picture for the individual quorums.

+1

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[Kevin Sutter]

Yes, I noticed that as well.  We actually have one committer that has retired from IBM and I don't think he's too concerned about OpenTracing any more...  :-)

[Emily Jiang]

I think Heiko B and Heiko P also left MicroProfile community unfortunately.

Emily

[Laird Nelson]

+1

On Monday, February 17, 2020 at 2:58:10 PM UTC-8, Kevin Sutter wrote:

[Scott Stark]

+1

On Monday, February 17, 2020 at 4:58:10 PM UTC-6, Kevin Sutter wrote

[Ken Finnigan]

Do we need to review current MP committer list to make sure there aren't large numbers of non active committers?

We don't want to miss a quorum for an important vote because there were too many inactive committers.

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[Emily Jiang]

+1. I'll start a separate discussion.

Emily

On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 2:02:06 PM UTC-5, Ken Finnigan wrote:

Do we need to review current MP committer list to make sure there aren't large numbers of non active committers?

We don't want to miss a quorum for an important vote because there were too many inactive committers.

On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 1:34 PM Scott Stark <sst...@redhat.com> wrote:

+1

On Monday, February 17, 2020 at 4:58:10 PM UTC-6, Kevin Sutter wrote

Would this work?  I'll bring this up on the second half of our Hangout call tomorrow for discussion.  But, let's try to get this ironed out *before* we figure out what we're voting on...  :-)

Thanks,

Kevin

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[Rudy De Busscher]

+1 On Kevin Proposal

[Emily Jiang]

By the way, we also need to mention the voting period. According to Apache Voting pocess, votes should generally be permitted to run for at least 72 hours to provide an opportunity for all concerned persons to participate regardless of their geographic locations.

Should we use 72 hours or one week (7 days) voting window? Personally, I will go with one week for people to catch up with emails. Thoughts?

Emily

On Monday, February 17, 2020 at 5:58:10 PM UTC-5, Kevin Sutter wrote:

[Kevin Sutter]

Yep, one week was already part of the proposal:

• Once initiated, the votes are kept open for one week to ensure sufficient time due to trips, vacations, sickness, etc.

[Ken Finnigan]

+1 to 7 days

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[Roberto Cortez]

+1

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[Ed Bratt]

In several posts, I have seen references to +1, 0, -1 votes. In Eclipse committer nominations, -1 is a veto. Amy committer may veto a nomination. Is that proposed here? Alternately, it could be that +1 is a vote in favor of the question at hand, -1 is vote against and 0 counts for quorum, but does not express an opinion for or against and does not alter any of the pass/fail thresholds (simple majority, super majority, etc.). Perhaps the voting proposal could be updated to reflect, whatever the group feels should be followed.

[Kevin Sutter]

Correct, Ed.  We're proposing not to follow the EDP where the -1 vote is a veto.  Basically, the proposed voting structure follows what you wrote.  It will depend, of course, on how the vote is written.  If we write the vote as an either/or or multiple choice, then that's what we would expect for the input.  If we write the vote as a yes/no/neutral type of response, then the +1/-1/0 response would work.  We just want to avoid the idea that somebody has veto power.

-- Kevin

[Mark Little]

Agreed!

Sent from my iPhone

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[John Clingan]

+1. A -1 veto vote would mean immediate stalemate.

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