This is based on the Mailing List and IRC. If anything is wrong or
incomplete, feel free to comment on it.
As usual, everyone, please keep it civil.

Last week the "Devuan Council" concept was introduced, the very basic
consensus seems to be expanding what currently is a group of 3 "LEAD"
roles, to a "Council" of 5 *active* "LEAD" roles.

There is agreement when it comes to which access to infra these people
should have.
There is no agreement when it comes to the way decisions are made
(majority of 3 vs. consensus) or the kind of authority.
Agreement when it comes to who these 5 people are is also lacking.
Also no obvious agreement when it comes to nextime's immediate future
status in the project.

A very basic observation: if currently there are 3 LEAD roles who are
supposed to make decisions, there has to be consensus amongst them when
it comes to this. We, as a community can provide useful input, but in
the end it is this group of 3 that is supposed to decide. Therefore it
is a critical moment for Devuan and nextime *himself* has to make his
position clear.
Specially if in the future his involvement could be decisive. *Now* is
the time to set precedent and show that, when needed, he will be there.
(please, please, don't read that as a personal attack on him; these are
cold facts. It's not a moment to read what he said to X or Y, but what
he has to say himself)

*** opinions follow this line ***

>From what I've read, what is more likely to be *currently* accepted by

all parties is:
- Consensus-based leadership of 5
- These 5 people:
  - Centurion_Dan: current LEAD
  - Jaromil: current LEAD and parazyd as a proxy for this vote
      parazyd: good will, tech ability and great work on devuan
  - KatolaZ: tech ability, enabler, initiative and great work on devuan
  - rrq: cold-headedness, problem-solver, tech ability
  - fsmithred: cold-headedness, Desktop-User vision, great work
- nextime: as inactive LEAD, whose input should be consulted when
consensus is missing. When he is able to regularly devote time to Devuan
and expresses his intention of doing so himself, state of affairs should
be revisited to include him.

Notice my name was thrown around as well for the group of 5, yet I am
not listing myself. I would be OK with that, however: I'd think having
someone with a more end-user oriented vision in that group is a positive
thing for Devuan, therefore fsmithred.
rrq is a cold-headed and very problem-solving person, that makes him
perfect for the role. Plus he is already deeply involved with solving
blockers in infrastructure.
As for KatolaZ, he has shown ability and initiative when it comes to
both doing and enabling people so they are able to do.

Having a defined process for decision-making and *everyone involved
being active* should help channel energy and efforts towards things that
can be deployed in a mostly frictionless fashion.

Notice this doesn't mean nobody else has access to parts of the infra,
just about the way big decisions are made. For example, giving/revoking
access to specific services/servers.

Having said that, I link to a related email I wrote about a month ago
which may be worth revisiting:
https://lists.dyne.org/lurker/message/20170914.060050.e2c93067.en.html


*** useful comments supporting the above follow this line ***

Am 05/10/2017 um 11:03 schrieb Jaromil:
> Devuan will never be the result of a single person
> masterplan, nor that of a group (not even us at Dyne.org). It is the
> achievement of a community effort which is *OPEN* to new developers
> and contributors and must be for its own survival, while carefully
> establishing each other expertise and capacity.

*Jaromil's Nomination of parazyd and KatolaZ for LEAD position, which:*
> will bring the LEADS to 5 with a quorum of 3 on votes.

Am 05/10/2017 um 11:03 schrieb Jaromil:
> At last please keep in mind the LEAD position in Devuan entails of
> 'executive' powers on infrastructure decisions, meaning that all LEADS
> have in custody password accesses to all Devuan infrastructure and can
> grant access to volunteers when this is decided and clearly
> communicated. Also and only in case of controversy LEADS are called to
> express an opinion about it and the majority will enforce this
> decision (as in infrastructure changes, firewall setups and what not)

Am 05/10/2017 um 23:50 schrieb Daniel Reurich:
> It's not about who does what, but about critical project
> decisions, which should be consensus driven rather then will of the
> majority. This is why with the expansion of the committee I believe we
> also define the rules of the council.

Am 05/10/2017 um 23:50 schrieb Daniel Reurich:
> I second Ralphs nomination, because it gives us better geographical and
> timezone diversity in the council, and he's proven himself as a key
> contributor to dev1glaxy. Additionally he has been an active regular
> attendee of the council meetings.
>
> In addition I also nominate fsmithred a contributor and early adopter,
> because he adds again more geographical and timezone diversity, and also
> will bring a strong representation of the more typical desktop users.
> fsmithred has a proven a strong contributor to user support and a
> regular attendee of the Devuan meetings.

Am 07/10/2017 um 14:23 schrieb golinux@???:
> Cooperation, collaboration and finding common ground is always
> preferable to majority rule which is rather bullyish.

Am 09/10/2017 um 11:10 schrieb Jaromil:
> Therefore in light of current nominations I am in now favor of having
> a new 5 person leadership that drives Devuan forward and establishes
> priorities, composed by me and Daniel as remaining leaders and then
> Evilham, Ralph and Parazyd as new leaders, with a total 5 quorum 3 on
> votes when needed.

Am 09/10/2017 um 16:33 schrieb Arno Schuring (tremon):
> I believe that Devuan needs a leadership that facilitates more than one
> that does. I can't go into specifics because I don't know any, nor do I
> particularly care to know. But simply going by parazyd's list, it seems
> that most issues are about communication and delegation, not about
> technical disagreement. It would seem that we need people in the core
> with the skills to remove blockers, but it appears that we're instead
> looking for authority to push through. So what exactly is the
> authority/remit of the "council" we're nominating for?

Am 09/10/2017 um 16:33 schrieb Arno Schuring:
> In my view, we should not make too
> much distinction between Devuan-native package development and
> downstream distro's: if we treat D1 package development as just another
> downstream (from a system administration point of view), the inclusion
> of 3rd-party distro's becomes one of configuration (and scale) only.

Am 10/10/2017 um 1:50 schrieb Daniel Reurich:
> I will consider acceptable that he [parazyd] is
> able to stand as your proxy when you are not around. Jaromil, having
> you and parazyd holding 2 of 5 positions when you work so closely
> creates an imbalance of authority and allow for more easily steering
> decisions in favour of Dyne or your preferred direction, in essence
> scuttling the foundation for consensus building in that each member of
> the leadership would represent an equal voice.

Am 10/10/2017 um 1:50 schrieb Daniel Reurich:
> I'd be happy to have Ralph, and Evilham or fsmithred added to the
> leadership, but prefer nextime to remain, provided he will weigh in when
> a deciding opinion is sought.

Am 10/10/2017 um 1:50 schrieb Daniel Reurich:
> Jaromil, I hope we can reach a consensus that doesn't throw nextime
> under the bus, or give you/Dyne an unequal weight in leadership

Am 10/10/2017 um 9:07 schrieb Jaromil:
> I do believe either parazyd or katolaz should be included
> in the 5th as active leads because of their overview and team playing
> skills and I believe that your exclusion of active people connected to
> the Dyne community is purely political.