Earlier this year, the Technical Board agreed to establish a Developer Membership Board (DMB) with responsibility for approving new Ubuntu developers and granting them the appropriate privileges in Launchpad.
Previously, this had been the responsibility of the Technical Board itself. For various reasons, it was prudent to separate this function into its own governance board, for example:
- The Technical Board had been responsible for new core developer applications, while the MOTU Council was responsible for new MOTU applications. This was confusing for applicants, as the two groups evolved different processes, and doesn’t make as much sense in the context of the reorganization of developer privileges. The DMB will be a central governing body for all developers, regardless of which teams they contribute to.
- The Technical Board would prefer to conduct all of its discussions in public, while DMB may have cause for private deliberation. This means that the TB mailing list can be public now.
- The TB had difficulty keeping up with applications in addition to serving its other functions. In particular, TB meetings were difficult to keep on schedule.
Now that the DMB is formally established and active, we would like to hold an election to determine its membership. Until now, the members of the Technical Board have been standing in to fulfill the functions of the DMB.
Because the DMB comprises the functions previously served by the Technical Board and the MOTU Council, the current members of those teams are automatically nominated. Any members of the Technical Board or MOTU Council who *do not* wish to stand for election to the DMB will need to explicitly decline the nomination.
This is an open election, so anyone else may be nominated as well. Candidates should be well qualified to evaluate prospective Ubuntu developers and decide when to entrust them with developer privileges.
There will be a total of 7 seats on the board, chosen by Condorcet voting, similar to the Technical Board election earlier this year.
Nominations should be sent to developer-membership-board@lists.ubuntu.com.
[Discuss the Ubuntu DBM Call for nominations on the Forum]
Originally posted by Matt Zimmerman here on 8 December, 2009 at 19:04