Some thoughts about OpenJDK Constitution

[Andy Tripp]

Here are some random thoughts on the OpenJDK constitution.

I assume you're way ahead on this, but using the
OpenSolaris constitution as a starting point would make sense.

One thing that the constitution should be explicit about is the scope of
"the OpenJDK Community". From your first two meeting minutes, you seem to
be clearly headed towards covering just the OpenJDK implementation, not
other implementations or the Java development community in general.
Clarity on this in the constitution is needed so that later
you don't get stuck if confronted with
an issue where you have to decide between what's best for
the OpenJDK community and what's best for some larger community.

The constitution should specify the bounds of the JDK:
Is the TCK considered part of the OpenJDK?
Are licensing issues part of OpenJDK?
Is compatibility with other implementations considered part of the OpenJDK?

What will your relationship be with alternative implementations? For
example,
should you be having any discussions about Harmony at all? At what point
would IcedTea
be considered a part of the JDK? Will you support the interests of
OpenJDK only,
or also other implementations? For example, suppose you need to handle a
dispute or a
request that involves an alternate implementation; would it matter
whether that alternate
is Harmony, Classpath, or (a not-yet-merged) IcedTea? Or suppose you
need to choose
between two competing implementations for a new feature, say one from
Sun and one
from IcedTea. What would be the guiding principles for choosing?

What will be your stance be on "Open Source" and "Free Software"? I
noticed that
in your first two meetings, you often talked about "open source" but rarely
about "free". The OpenSolaris constitution mentions "Open source" and
the OSI,
but never "free software" and the FSF. The easy answer is "we're both", but
what if some issue comes down to "that goes against what Free Software
is all about"?
Is Freedom a goal? For that matter, assuming that "Open Source" a goal,
should that
be stated in the constitution? And if stated, should you specify
that OSI compliance is a goal, do you say something about "Open Source
principles",
or just leave it ambiguous? The reason I bring this up is that if you
look at the current
TCK/Harmony issue, you might find that it comes down to whether to
follow the
spirit or the letter of "open source". Better to get the GB all on the
same page
of guiding principles right off the bat.

What will the relationship be between the GB (and OpenJDK in general)
and Sun?
The OpenSolaris contitution simply says that their GB is the "official
liaison" to Sun.
I think this may be too vague. For example, if OpenJDK decides on a
change, but the
Sun employees can't or won't make the change, what happens? What's the
relationship
between the GB/OpenJDK and the JCP?

Will there be any mechanism to avoid "ballot stuffing", for both the GB
and the groups, such as Microsoft just
did with OSI for OOXML? What's to stop one company from adding
a few hundred JCP members and controlling the JCP elections and the GB?

I'm surprised that the OpenSolaris constitution says nothing about
overall principles.
I think it should state some guiding principles, such as:
* The ongoing maintenance, enhancement, and viability of OpenJDK
* Increased community participation in OpenJDK development
* Collaboration with alternative implementations (or not)
* Collaboration with ports of the reference implementation (or not)
* Adherence to principles of Open Source and/or Free Software (or not)

Finally, you say the GB will be both a legislative and a judicial "branch".
But I haven't seen what "laws" or rules the GB would be creating, so I
don't
see how it's legislative. Will the GB have any role in creating rules,
or is
it strictly for settling disputes?

I hope you find these thoughts useful.
Thanks for making the process open, and good luck with it.

Andy Tripp

Hi Andy, you've got some great questions and ideas here.

The core thing I see here is a matter of 'scope', what scope does the
OpenJDK community encompass?

I know we at Sun in establishing the OpenJDK project intend the scope to
be just the source code of Sun's JDK.

For example...

'Compatibility with other implementations': That's the job of the JCP..
because it's the JCP and JSR's and TCK's which define compatibility with
the specification.  It's the joint compatibility with the specification
which determines compatibility between Java implementations.

Um, as the Quality rep in this... I can say that we at Sun are doing
testing of the jdk7 binary builds and are trusting that since the source
for openjdk and jdk7 is almost entirely the same that jdk7 testing is
enough to ensure the openjdk is good quality.  But we generally don't do
specific testing of openjdk builds.

'TCK considered part of the OpenJDK': Um.. this raises some interesting
questions for me, that are related to the proposed Conformance group.  
I'm thinking the Java TCK (JCK) belongs in the JCP scope rather than the
OpenJDK scope.  All TCK's are defined as part of a JSR, and the JCK is
no different.

Those are all the thoughts I have, and I wish to thank you for stirring
up some good thinking on my part.  I hope to help stir others to discussion.

- David Herron



Andy Tripp wrote:

> Here are some random thoughts on the OpenJDK constitution.
>
> I assume you're way ahead on this, but using the
> OpenSolaris constitution as a starting point would make sense.
>
> One thing that the constitution should be explicit about is the scope of
> "the OpenJDK Community". From your first two meeting minutes, you seem to
> be clearly headed towards covering just the OpenJDK implementation, not
> other implementations or the Java development community in general.
> Clarity on this in the constitution is needed so that later
> you don't get stuck if confronted with
> an issue where you have to decide between what's best for
> the OpenJDK community and what's best for some larger community.
>
> The constitution should specify the bounds of the JDK:
> Is the TCK considered part of the OpenJDK?
> Are licensing issues part of OpenJDK?
> Is compatibility with other implementations considered part of the
> OpenJDK?
>
> What will your relationship be with alternative implementations? For
> example,
> should you be having any discussions about Harmony at all? At what
> point would IcedTea
> be considered a part of the JDK? Will you support the interests of
> OpenJDK only,
> or also other implementations? For example, suppose you need to handle
> a dispute or a
> request that involves an alternate implementation; would it matter
> whether that alternate
> is Harmony, Classpath, or (a not-yet-merged) IcedTea? Or suppose you
> need to choose
> between two competing implementations for a new feature, say one from
> Sun and one
> from IcedTea. What would be the guiding principles for choosing?
>
> What will be your stance be on "Open Source" and "Free Software"? I
> noticed that
> in your first two meetings, you often talked about "open source" but
> rarely
> about "free". The OpenSolaris constitution mentions "Open source" and
> the OSI,
> but never "free software" and the FSF. The easy answer is "we're
> both", but
> what if some issue comes down to "that goes against what Free Software
> is all about"?
> Is Freedom a goal? For that matter, assuming that "Open Source" a
> goal, should that
> be stated in the constitution? And if stated, should you specify
> that OSI compliance is a goal, do you say something about "Open Source
> principles",
> or just leave it ambiguous? The reason I bring this up is that if you
> look at the current
> TCK/Harmony issue, you might find that it comes down to whether to
> follow the
> spirit or the letter of "open source". Better to get the GB all on the
> same page
> of guiding principles right off the bat.
>
> What will the relationship be between the GB (and OpenJDK in general)
> and Sun?
> The OpenSolaris contitution simply says that their GB is the "official
> liaison" to Sun.
> I think this may be too vague. For example, if OpenJDK decides on a
> change, but the
> Sun employees can't or won't make the change, what happens? What's the
> relationship
> between the GB/OpenJDK and the JCP?
>
> Will there be any mechanism to avoid "ballot stuffing", for both the GB
> and the groups, such as Microsoft just
> did with OSI for OOXML? What's to stop one company from adding
> a few hundred JCP members and controlling the JCP elections and the GB?
>
> I'm surprised that the OpenSolaris constitution says nothing about
> overall principles.
> I think it should state some guiding principles, such as:
> * The ongoing maintenance, enhancement, and viability of OpenJDK
> * Increased community participation in OpenJDK development
> * Collaboration with alternative implementations (or not)
> * Collaboration with ports of the reference implementation (or not)
> * Adherence to principles of Open Source and/or Free Software (or not)
>
> Finally, you say the GB will be both a legislative and a judicial
> "branch".
> But I haven't seen what "laws" or rules the GB would be creating, so I
> don't
> see how it's legislative. Will the GB have any role in creating rules,
> or is
> it strictly for settling disputes?
>
> I hope you find these thoughts useful.
> Thanks for making the process open, and good luck with it.
>
> Andy Tripp
>

[Dalibor Topic]

Andy Tripp wrote:
> Here are some random thoughts on the OpenJDK constitution.

Thank you for posting them, Andy.

> One thing that the constitution should be explicit about is the scope of
> "the OpenJDK Community". From your first two meeting minutes, you seem to
> be clearly headed towards covering just the OpenJDK implementation, not
> other implementations or the Java development community in general.

It's a self-bootstrapping definition. We're starting with the simplest
definition of community we have, and as the OpenJDK project adds further
groups & projects, I believe the boundary of what constitutes the
OpenJDK community will become less and less OpenJDK implementation
specific, and expand to include hybrid implementations, for example.

> The constitution should specify the bounds of the JDK:
> Is the TCK considered part of the OpenJDK?

As long as its code is not published as part of OpenJDK, probably no.

But the proposed conformance group, otoh, would be part of the OpenJDK
community, even if some of the tools it uses aren't.

> Are licensing issues part of OpenJDK?

Licensing changes are out of reach of the (interim) governance board per
its charter, if that's what you mean.

> Is compatibility with other implementations considered part of the OpenJDK?

That's what we have the JCP, and the OpenJDK TCK license for.

> What will your relationship be with alternative implementations?

Good, I hope!

> For
> example,
> should you be having any discussions about Harmony at all?

As long as they relate to development on OpenJDK, sure, why not.

> At what point
> would IcedTea
> be considered a part of the JDK?

s/JDK/OpenJDK.

Once there is an official group / project proposal and it's accepted.

> What will be your stance be on "Open Source" and "Free Software"?

To borrow a bit from Simon Phipps, I'd call OpenJDK "Free Software
developed in an Open Source fashion".

But to me, personally, both are rather interchangeable, and I use one
when I want to emphasize the liberties, and the other one when I want to
emphasize the process.

> The reason I bring this up is that if you
> look at the current
> TCK/Harmony issue, you might find that it comes down to whether to
> follow the
> spirit or the letter of "open source". Better to get the GB all on the
> same page
> of guiding principles right off the bat.

The TCK is orthogonal to OpenJDK's Free Software status. You don't need
the TCK in order to use, learn from, modify, or distribute OpenJDK, or
to contribute to it.

You need it if you want additional privileges and compatibility
guarantees (which are all very desirable things, of course).

> What will the relationship be between the GB (and OpenJDK in general)
> and Sun?

That remains to be formalized.

> What's the
> relationship
> between the GB/OpenJDK and the JCP?

Orthogonal. See http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/java/faq.jsp#l

I'd expect OpenJDK to have a bit of a halo effect on JSR RIs going into
it, as it makes sense to develop them with the OpenJDK community, rather
then behind closed doors.

But I don't expect OpenJDK or the GB to take (or even desire) a formal
role in the JCP as such.

> Will there be any mechanism to avoid "ballot stuffing", for both the GB
> and the groups, such as Microsoft just
> did with OSI for OOXML?

s/OSI/ISO.

OpenJDK != ISO, so paying a few thousand dollars here and there won't
get Microsoft influence. Coincidentally, We've discussed in our face to
face meeting how to avoid control of the GB by a single entity, and I
hope we'll get the minutes published soon.

> What's to stop one company from adding
> a few hundred JCP members and controlling the JCP elections and the GB?

JCP members != OpenJDK members.

In general, the interim rules, afair, require members to be approved by
their peers. That should suffice to avoid egregious stuffing, I hope.

> I think it should state some guiding principles, such as:
> * The ongoing maintenance, enhancement, and viability of OpenJDK
> * Increased community participation in OpenJDK development
> * Collaboration with alternative implementations (or not)
> * Collaboration with ports of the reference implementation (or not)
> * Adherence to principles of Open Source and/or Free Software (or not)

Thank you, those are all good suggestions, and I'd put them on the
agenda for the next call, with your approval.

> Finally, you say the GB will be both a legislative and a judicial "branch".
> But I haven't seen what "laws" or rules the GB would be creating, so I
> don't
> see how it's legislative. Will the GB have any role in creating rules,
> or is
> it strictly for settling disputes?

Legislative: changes to the constitution, charter, defining membership,
voting, etc.
Judical: actual dispute resolution.

There are some legislative necessities to be dealt with by the GB per
charter, but I am sure no one on the current IGB has legislative
ambitions that go far beyond that, as the minutes of the phone calls show.

We haven't really discussed a way to formalize dispute resolution yet.

> I hope you find these thoughts useful.
> Thanks for making the process open, and good luck with it.

Thanks, Andy, and thank you for contributing to make them better.

cheers,
dalibor topic

[Andy Tripp]

Hi Dalibor,
Thanks for responding. I was starting to wonder if anyone was out there :)
Great responses, and great work so far on the GB.
I just have a few responses.

One thing that the constitution should be explicit about is the scope of
"the OpenJDK Community". From your first two meeting minutes, you seem to
be clearly headed towards covering just the OpenJDK implementation, not
other implementations or the Java development community in general.
    

It's a self-bootstrapping definition. We're starting with the simplest
definition of community we have, and as the OpenJDK project adds further
groups & projects, I believe the boundary of what constitutes the
OpenJDK community will become less and less OpenJDK implementation
specific, and expand to include hybrid implementations, for example.
  

Just to pick a hypothetical situation to help you think about the scope of OpenJDK...
suppose you end up with two implementations of the encumbered parts - both IcedTea
and Sun-developed code. If the GB constitution says that it's concerned only
with current OpenJDK projects, the GB would have no basis for doing anything involving
IcedTea (such as helping to figure out how some of their stuff might be incorporated
into OpenJDK or encourage them to become an OpenJDK project).

The constitution should specify the bounds of the JDK:
Is the TCK considered part of the OpenJDK?
    

As long as its code is not published as part of OpenJDK, probably no.

But the proposed conformance group, otoh, would be part of the OpenJDK
community, even if some of the tools it uses aren't.
  

OK, so that says to me that the GB really shouldn't be concerned with TCK issues and
Harmony issues. Looking back at the meeting minutes from the first meeting, there looked
to be a non-trivial discussion on these.

What will your relationship be with alternative implementations? 
    

Good, I hope!
  

Well, you need to choose between "good" and "nonexistant" :)

For
example,
should you be having any discussions about Harmony at all? 
    

As long as they relate to development on OpenJDK, sure, why not.
  

Yes, that makes sense. Again, I ask because it sounded like the discussion of Harmony
in the first meeting went beyond that. I don't mean to sound paranoid about any discussion
of Harmony, it's just that I think it could be very easy to make decisions based on
Harmony. I could imagine a discussion on some OpenJDK feature containing
the argument "...but we should do X because that would benefit Harmony and other
implementations". To which the appropriate response (IMO) would be "But we
have never established whether helping other implementations is a good thing or not".

At what point
would IcedTea
be considered a part of the JDK? 
    

s/JDK/OpenJDK.

Once there is an official group / project proposal and it's accepted.
  

So if the constitution says something along the lines of "...current OpenJDK projects...", then
discussions like "how can we encourage IcedTea to become an OpenJDK project?" might
be technically out of bounds.

What will be your stance be on "Open Source" and "Free Software"?
    

To borrow a bit from Simon Phipps, I'd call OpenJDK "Free Software
developed in an Open Source fashion".

But to me, personally, both are rather interchangeable, and I use one
when I want to emphasize the liberties, and the other one when I want to
emphasize the process.
  

The question I'm raising here is, suppose in your discussions on some issue you say "...we should
do X because it's in the spirit of FOSS". Unless you've established that the "spirit of FOSS"
is a goal, the argument holds no weight. So I guess I'm just suggesting a simple
"we support the principles of Free Software and Open Source Software" type of statement
somewhere.

The reason I bring this up is that if you
look at the current
TCK/Harmony issue, you might find that it comes down to whether to
follow the
spirit or the letter of "open source". Better to get the GB all on the
same page
of guiding principles right off the bat.
    

The TCK is orthogonal to OpenJDK's Free Software status. You don't need
the TCK in order to use, learn from, modify, or distribute OpenJDK, or
to contribute to it.

You need it if you want additional privileges and compatibility
guarantees (which are all very desirable things, of course).
  

Right. Some have argued that Sun/Java/JDK goes against the "spirit of FOSS" because
Sun will only allow the "Java" trademark on something that passes the TCK, and
of course the TCK has terms that Apache can't agree to. Obviously, I'm worried
about members of the [i]GB getting involved in that issue, even though it's separate
from OpenJDK.

What's to stop one company from adding
a few hundred JCP members and controlling the JCP elections and the GB?
    

JCP members != OpenJDK members.

In general, the interim rules, afair, require members to be approved by
their peers. That should suffice to avoid egregious stuffing, I hope.
  

Yes, OK. I guess this comes down to how the GB is elected, which to be defined in the constitution.

Putting on my paranoid-of-Microsoft hat, I picture a new OpenJDK group getting formed that
happens to have a MS or MS-friendly expert group lead. He puts 1000 MS employees on the
expert group in an attempt to influence all elections. I know that sounds paranoid, but hey,
just look at what they've actually done :) Alternatively, IBM could do something similar
with a group who attempts to give Harmony an advantage.

I think it should state some guiding principles, such as:
* The ongoing maintenance, enhancement, and viability of OpenJDK
* Increased community participation in OpenJDK development
* Collaboration with alternative implementations (or not)
* Collaboration with ports of the reference implementation (or not)
* Adherence to principles of Open Source and/or Free Software (or not)
    

Thank you, those are all good suggestions, and I'd put them on the
agenda for the next call, with your approval.
  

Yes, please do.

Finally, you say the GB will be both a legislative and a judicial "branch".
But I haven't seen what "laws" or rules the GB would be creating, so I
don't
see how it's legislative. Will the GB have any role in creating rules,
or is
it strictly for settling disputes?
    

Legislative: changes to the constitution, charter, defining membership,
voting, etc.
Judical: actual dispute resolution.

There are some legislative necessities to be dealt with by the GB per
charter, but I am sure no one on the current IGB has legislative
ambitions that go far beyond that, as the minutes of the phone calls show.
  

OK. Clearly absent from your "Legislative" list above is "passing new laws" - you might want to
be explicit about that in the constitution, because I always think of a constitution as mainly about
how new laws are formed and bounded.

We haven't really discussed a way to formalize dispute resolution yet.
  

That seems like the easy part to me :) Have a hearing and simple majority rules.

I hope you find these thoughts useful.
Thanks for making the process open, and good luck with it.
    

Thanks, Andy, and thank you for contributing to make them better.

cheers,
dalibor topic
  

Thanks again,
Andy

[Dalibor Topic]

Andy Tripp wrote:
> Hi Dalibor,
> Thanks for responding. I was starting to wonder if anyone was out there :)
> Great responses, and great work so far on the GB.
Thanks, Andy.

> I just have a few responses.
>
>>  
>>> One thing that the constitution should be explicit about is the scope of
>>> "the OpenJDK Community". From your first two meeting minutes, you seem to
>>> be clearly headed towards covering just the OpenJDK implementation, not
>>> other implementations or the Java development community in general.
>>>    
>>
>> It's a self-bootstrapping definition. We're starting with the simplest
>> definition of community we have, and as the OpenJDK project adds further
>> groups & projects, I believe the boundary of what constitutes the
>> OpenJDK community will become less and less OpenJDK implementation
>> specific, and expand to include hybrid implementations, for example.
>>  
> Just to pick a hypothetical situation to help you think about the
> scope of OpenJDK...
> suppose you end up with two implementations of the encumbered parts -
> both IcedTea
> and Sun-developed code. If the GB constitution says that it's
> concerned only
> with current OpenJDK projects, the GB would have no basis for doing
> anything involving
> IcedTea (such as helping to figure out how some of their stuff might
> be incorporated
> into OpenJDK or encourage them to become an OpenJDK project).

The GB has no way of faithfully micro-managing the projects inside
OpenJDK: it is unlikely
that it would always have the necessary expertise to make informed
choices about, for example,
the technical merits of alternative implementations.

That's something the groups/projects working with the code in question
would decide on
autonomously.

Otoh, growing the OpenJDK community in a healthy fashion is something
that's implied in
GB's charter, so I consider helping related projects find their way into
becoming part
of the OpenJDK community to be an important part of the task.

>>> The constitution should specify the bounds of the JDK:
>>> Is the TCK considered part of the OpenJDK?
>>>    
>>
>> As long as its code is not published as part of OpenJDK, probably no.
>>
>> But the proposed conformance group, otoh, would be part of the OpenJDK
>> community, even if some of the tools it uses aren't.
>>  
> OK, so that says to me that the GB really shouldn't be concerned with
> TCK issues and
> Harmony issues. Looking back at the meeting minutes from the first
> meeting, there looked
> to be a non-trivial discussion on these.

The problems the Apache Harmony project has with getting the JSE 1.5 TCK
under a license
acceptable to it are of interest to some OpenJDK (IGB) members, like
myself.  But it's nothing
we can really aspire to 'fix' via the OpenJDK project governance, until
either Apache Harmony
or the JSE TCK become parts of it in one way or another.
>>> What will your relationship be with alternative implementations?
>>>    
>>
>> Good, I hope!
>>  
> Well, you need to choose between "good" and "nonexistant" :)
Wherever we can share code, a relationship will exist, and I'd work on
making it a good one (though
my focus is on the Free Software implementations, personally).

It's much harder to build a web of relationships without any code to share,
in particular as OpenJDK is very code-centric.

>>> For
>>> example,
>>> should you be having any discussions about Harmony at all?
>>>    
>>
>> As long as they relate to development on OpenJDK, sure, why not.
>>  
> Yes, that makes sense. Again, I ask because it sounded like the
> discussion of Harmony
> in the first meeting went beyond that. I don't mean to sound paranoid
> about any discussion
> of Harmony, it's just that I think it could be very easy to make
> decisions based on
> Harmony. I could imagine a discussion on some OpenJDK feature containing
> the argument "...but we should do X because that would benefit Harmony
> and other
> implementations". To which the appropriate response (IMO) would be "But we
> have never established whether helping other implementations is a good
> thing or not".

I wouldn't want to see the GB to make decisions on features.

If other implementations start using and contributing to OpenJDK's code
base, I'd expect their
developers to become members of the parts they contribute to, and to
influence such decisions on
the appropriate level.

>>> At what point
>>> would IcedTea
>>> be considered a part of the JDK?
>>>    
>>
>> s/JDK/OpenJDK.
>>
>> Once there is an official group / project proposal and it's accepted.
>>  
> So if the constitution says something along the lines of "...current
> OpenJDK projects...", then
> discussions like "how can we encourage IcedTea to become an OpenJDK
> project?" might
> be technically out of bounds.

As long as there is no constitution, there are no bounds, technically. :)

I think that putting in a preamble that the GB's mandate is to work
(among other things) to help the
OpenJDK community grow and prosper would cover 'community building' efforts.

>>> What will be your stance be on "Open Source" and "Free Software"?
>>>    
>>
>> To borrow a bit from Simon Phipps, I'd call OpenJDK "Free Software
>> developed in an Open Source fashion".
>>
>> But to me, personally, both are rather interchangeable, and I use one
>> when I want to emphasize the liberties, and the other one when I want to
>> emphasize the process.
>>  
> The question I'm raising here is, suppose in your discussions on some
> issue you say "...we should
> do X because it's in the spirit of FOSS". Unless you've established
> that the "spirit of FOSS"
> is a goal, the argument holds no weight. So I guess I'm just
> suggesting a simple
> "we support the principles of Free Software and Open Source Software"
> type of statement
> somewhere.

Sounds good to me.

>>> What's to stop one company from adding
>>> a few hundred JCP members and controlling the JCP elections and the GB?
>>>    
>>
>> JCP members != OpenJDK members.
>>
>> In general, the interim rules, afair, require members to be approved by
>> their peers. That should suffice to avoid egregious stuffing, I hope.
>>  
> Yes, OK. I guess this comes down to how the GB is elected, which to be
> defined in the constitution.
>
> Putting on my paranoid-of-Microsoft hat, I picture a new OpenJDK group
> getting formed that
> happens to have a MS or MS-friendly expert group lead. He puts 1000 MS
> employees on the
> expert group in an attempt to influence all elections. I know that
> sounds paranoid, but hey,
> just look at what they've actually done :) Alternatively, IBM could do
> something similar
> with a group who attempts to give Harmony an advantage.

Different election models make sense for different communities. :)

We have discussed how to avoid the problem of a single company
having the majority on the GB. I think one could limit the number of GB
members per
group/project to two, maximally, if stuffing the groups with members
turns out to be a
problem or introduce a staged election process, where each group can
propose up to two
candidates for the GB elections, for example.

I'm not sure that concern is warranted, though, given the current size
of the community,
and given that the GB can dissolve groups, if it turns out that a group
acts to harm the
OpenJDK project, for example.

>>> Finally, you say the GB will be both a legislative and a judicial "branch".
>>> But I haven't seen what "laws" or rules the GB would be creating, so I
>>> don't
>>> see how it's legislative. Will the GB have any role in creating rules,
>>> or is
>>> it strictly for settling disputes?
>>>    
>>
>> Legislative: changes to the constitution, charter, defining membership,
>> voting, etc.
>> Judical: actual dispute resolution.
>>
>> There are some legislative necessities to be dealt with by the GB per
>> charter, but I am sure no one on the current IGB has legislative
>> ambitions that go far beyond that, as the minutes of the phone calls show.
>>  
> OK. Clearly absent from your "Legislative" list above is "passing new
> laws" - you might want to
> be explicit about that in the constitution, because I always think of
> a constitution as mainly about
> how new laws are formed and bounded.

I'd prefer to avoid adding more layers of pseudo-legalese, so I'd be
quite happy if the only 'law' the
IGB ever gets to deal with is the constitution. Later GBs can change the
constitution accordingly.
>> We haven't really discussed a way to formalize dispute resolution yet.
>>  
> That seems like the easy part to me :) Have a hearing and simple
> majority rules.

The way it works in gcc is that the 'GB' politely and repeatedly reminds
people that they should
behave as reasonable adults, and figure out for themselves how to solve
the dispute, until they
start behaving as reasonable adults. That may take some time, in some
cases, as can be expected,
and in general results in people not liking the lazy governance body too
much. :)

A process that makes it easy to obtain fast decisions can have a
counter-productive effect of
encouraging people to drag conflicts to the decision body, rather than
cooling off, and solving
them themselves. So I'd like to give the GB ample time to deal with
disputes, say 6-12 months,
before coming to a decision. If an issue really persists over the course
of 12 months without
a solution, then it is probably something that the GB needs to deal
with, one way or another.

cheers,
dalibor topic