Re: [Gdbheads] Steering Committee nominations

[Jim Blandy]

Andrew Cagney <address@hidden> writes:
> > Independently of this, I would like to make the recommendation that an
> > exit criterion be decided for committee members.  Doesn't have to be
> > complicated or controversial, just a simple one, like, 'your last known
> > e-mail address is bouncing' or similar.
> 
> For area and core developers, not subscribed to gdb@ and gdb-patches@
> would be one clear trigger.

There should be some stated procedure, but I'm not enthusiastic about
setting up automatic rules for this.  I think this kind of thing
should be handled by humans, allowed to discuss the situation and
exercise their best judgement.

If someone is generally unreachable, then they're obviously not
serving the committee much.  But what if a person had been very active
and interested, and then suddenly their E-mail started bouncing?
Clearly you'd want to try a little harder to get in touch with such a
person before booting them.

And we have some people now where E-mail doesn't bounce --- but they
never respond.  If you send someone four messages over the course of
two months, and they never reply, then that seems like a resignation
to me.  Unless they'd made a post about going on a vacation but hoping
to resume their responsibilities once they return in June... etc. etc.

Anyway, you can see why I think these decisions should be made by
humans, not by binding rules.

Similar arguments apply to the mailing list subscription criteria.
Perhaps someone sent an unsubscribe request to the wrong list
accidentally.  Perhaps the mailing list software dumped them because
it thought they were posting spam.  There needs to be a chance for
people to say, "Well, let's look at this..."