python-peps/pep-8014.rst

PEP: 8014
Title: The Commons Governance Model
Author: Jack Jansen
Status: Active
Type: Informational
Content-Type: text/x-rst
Created: 2018-09-16

Abstract
========

This PEP proposes a governance model with as few procedures, defined terms and
percentages as possible. It may also be called *The Anarchist Governance Model*
but uses *Commons* for now because of possible negative connotations of the
term *Anarchist* to some audiences.

The basic idea is that all decisions are in principle voted on by the whole
community, but in practice voted on by a only subset of the
community. A subset, because although the whole community is
entitled to vote in practice it will always be only a small subset that vote
on a specific decision. The vote is overseen by an impartial council that
judges whether the decision has passed or not. The intention is that this
council bases its decision not only on the ratio of yes and no votes but
also on the total number of votes,  on the gravity of the proposal being
voted on and possibly the individual voters and how they voted. Thereby this
council becomes responsible for ensuring that each individual decision is
carried by a sufficient majority.

Introduction
============

The Commons Governance Model tries to ensure that all decisions are endorsed
by, or at least is acceptable to, a sufficient majority of the Python
community.

Unfortunately the previous paragraph has two terms that are very hard to
quantify in the general case: *sufficient majority* and *Python community*.
This is because both terms in reality depend on the *specific* case that is
being decided. To give an example of this difficulty: for a PEP that
proposes a backward-compatible change to some API a simple majority of the
core developers that were interested in voting on the PEP in the first place
is probably sufficient. But for a change that has more farreaching
consequences such as a Python3 to Python4 transition a real majority may be
wanted, and a demonstration that at least there seems to be sufficient
support in the user base. And for a change that transcends the
Python-the-language, such as decisions on abolishing non-inclusive language,
it becomes very vague.

The Commons Governance Model attempts to sidestep this issue by *not*
defining what the terms *sufficient majority* and *Python community* mean in
the general case, by proposing a body that will decide so in *specific*
cases.

The model proposes creating a *Council of Elders* that oversees the decision
process, determining whether a specific proposal has enough support on a
case by case basis. There will be a vote on every individual PEP,
and the Council of Elders will declare whether the
outcome of the vote is sufficient to carry the decision *in this specific case*.

The model addresses only the roles traditionally held by the BDFL in the
decision process, not other roles.

The term Commons_ in the model name is loosely based on its historic use as
a shared resource to be used by all and cared for by all. The picture you
should have in mind with this model is a sizeable group of peasants
discussing some plan for the future on the village green on a warm summer
evening, after which the vote is taken and the village elders pronounce
the outcome. Then the banquet begins.

.. _Commons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons

The Commons Governance Model is different from most of the other governance
proposals (with the possible exception of 8012), because it explicitly places
supreme power with the whole community.

Rationale
=========

The rationale for the model is that a model that casts everything in concrete will
have unintended negative side effects. For example, a governance model that
assigns voting rights to Python committers may cause an individual not
to be accepted as a committer because there are already a lot of committers
from the company the new candidate works for. 

As another example, setting a fixed percentage for PEP acceptance may lead
to party-formation amongst the voters and individual PEPs no longer be being
judged on individual merit but along party lines (if you support my PEP I
will support yours).

There is also the issue that one-person-one-vote is not the best model for
something like Python. Again an example: in case of a split vote (or a vote
sufficiently close to being split) the opinion of core developer Guido
van Rossum should probably outweigh the opinion of core developer Jack
Jansen. Trying to formalize this in a voting model is going to lead to a
very complex model, that is going to be wrong on boundary cases anyway. The
model presented here leaves deciding on such issues to the (hopefully
sensible) council of elders.

Decision Process
================

All important decisions go through a PEP process. Each PEP has someone
responsible for it, called the *author* here, but that does not have to be a
single person, and it does not have to be the person that actually wrote the
text. So for author you could also read *champion* or *shepherd* or
something like that.

The PEP author is responsible for organizing a vote on the PEP. This vote is
public, i.e. the voters are identified and the results are known to all.
Voting may be simple +1/0/-1, but might also be extended with +2/-2 with a
very terse explanation why the voter feels very strong about the issue. Such
an annotation would serve as an explanation to the Council of Elders. Voters
are annotated with their community status (core developer, etc). 

The vote is clearly separated from the discussion, by using a well-defined Discourse
category or tag, a special mailing list or a similar technical method
(such as a website vote.python.org where people have to log in so their
community status can be automatically added, and their identity can be somewhat
confirmed).

The PEP author presents the PEP and the vote results to the Council of Elders. 
The council ponders two things:

- the PEP gravity and its implications,
- the measureable vote results (how many people voted, which individuals voted, what they voted).

They pronounce a tentative decision on whether the vote passed and this decision is published.

If the decision is that the vote results do not demonstrate enough support
from the community for the decision the burden is on the author to try and
gather more support and resubmit the vote at a later date. Alternatively the
author can retract the proposal. The period for gathering more support is
time-limited, a month seems a reasonable time, if no vote has been resubmitted
after that period the proposal is rejected.

If the tentative decision is that the results *do* demonstrate enough support
a fairly short waiting period starts (in the order of weeks). During this
period anyone can appeal to the Council of Elders, but *only* on the grounds
that the vote does not reflect a sufficient majority of the community.
After the waiting period the council pronounces a final decision. The PEP
is either accepted or, if the council is swayed by an appeal, goes back to
the state where more support has to be demonstrated.


Council of Elders
=================

The intention of the Councel of Elders is that they, together, are capable
of judging whether the will of the Python community is upheld in a specific
vote. 

The Council of Elders is *not* a replacement of the BDFL by a group of
people with the same power as the BDFL: it will not provide guidance on the
direction of Python, it only attempts to ensure the outcome of a vote
represents the will of the community. 

The Council of Elders is *not* like the US Supreme Court, which has actual
decision power, the council only oversees the voting process to ensure that
the community is represented in the vote. And the Council of Elders is most
definitely not like the Spanish Inquisition, because fear, surprise and
ruthless efficiency are things we can do without (but there is some merit in
using the cute scarlet regalia). 

The council is somewhat like the dutch
`Hoge Raad`_ (which is unfortunately often translated as Supreme Court in
English) in that they judge the process and the procedures followed and can
only send cases back for a renewed judgement.

.. _Hoge Raad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_Netherlands

It is also somewhat like the *election commission* that many countries have 
(under different names) in that it oversees elections.

Council operation
-----------------

The council members are volunteers, and most likely have other roles within
the Python community as well (not to mention a life outside Python). This
means that the workload on the members should be kept to a minimum. It also
means that it should be clear when an individual council members speak as
council member and when they speak as themselves. And we should care about
the emotional load: council members should not be held accountable for
decisions by random flamers on the Python mailing list.

The proposal attempts to minimize the workload through two methods:

- Most of the actual work is to be done by the PEP author and the community,
  the Council of Elders does not organize the vote and tally the results.
- The idea behind the first tentative decision is mistakes by the Council
  of elders (misjudging how far-reaching a PEP is, most likely) are not fatal, because
  the community has a chance to point out these mistakes. 
  
  Practically speaking this means that the tentative decision can be taken by
  a subset of the council, depending on the community to correct them.
  Getting seven hard-working professionals together every two weeks, even by
  email, may be a bit much to ask.
  
Clarifying when an individual Elder speaks on behalf of the Council is
probably best done by using a special email address, or some Discourse topic
into which only Elders can post. There is an analogy here with the Pope
speaking `Ex Cathedra`_ or just as himself (in which case he is not
infallible). The elders are most likely respected members of the community
and it would be a bad idea if they feel they cannot voice their personal opinion on
a PEP because they are on the council.

Discussion of community members *with* the Council of Elders, i.e. when appealing a
decision, should be done in a different forum (Discourse topic, mailing list).

The decisions of the Council of Elders should be seen as decisions of the
council as a whole, not as decisions of the individual members. In a first implementation
Elders should post under their own name (with the fact that they speak as a
council member conferred by the topic they post to, or possibly a special badge).
If it turns out that Elders become individual targets for ad-hominem attacks
we should revisit this and come up with some method of anonimity.

.. _Ex Cathedra: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility

Limitation of freedom
---------------------

If a specific vote has a true majority (for or against) of core team members
(more than 50% + 1 of all core team members) that outcome passes. If a specific
vote has a true majority (for or against) of PSF voting members
(more than 50% + 1) that outcome passes. And, for completeness, if both of the
previous statements are true but with opposite outcomes the core team members
win.

The main reason for having this limitation is that it allows decisions to be
made (albeit with effort) if there is no functioning Council of Elders at
any particular moment.

Council composition
-------------------

The council should not be too big nor too small, probably somewhere between
5 and 10 members. There is no reason to fix this number.
The members should be knowledgeable about Python and the
Python community, and willing to be impartial *while operating as part of
the council*. Council members may be core developers but this is not a requirement.

Everyone in the community should feel represented by the council so it would
be good if the council is diverse: 

- scientists and technologists, 
- progressives and conservatives (with respect to the Python language),
- people with different cultural backgrounds, genders, age,
- etc

But: this should hold for the council as a whole. Individual council members
should not be seen as representing a specific interest group.

Council membership
------------------

Because the powers of the council are purely procedural it is probably good
if members serve for a fairly long time. However, it would still be good if
the council was reinstated regularly. Therefore the suggestion is to have the council
operate under the PSF umbrella and be subject of a yearly vote of confidence. This
vote is for the council as a whole: people who vote against the council should be
aware that they are basically saying "Python is better off without a Council of Elders
than with you lot".

The council normally co-opts new Elders, probably because an individual is seen
to have knowledge about a specific part of the Python community (or language) in which
the council is lacking. Everyone is free to suggest new Elders to the council
(including themselves) but the council is free to ignore the suggestion.
Council members should be free to retire at any time. An individual council
member can be retired by a unanimous vote by the rest of the council.

There is an emergency brake procedure to get rid of a non-functioning council.
A single Elder or a group of 10 core developers or PSF voting members can ask for
an immedeate reinstating vote of the council as a whole (presumably with the
intention that the council lose their mandate). If this vote has been requested by an
Elder that individual immedeately lose their council position, independent of
the outcome of the vote. If the vote has been requested by community members and
the council is reinstated this procedure cannot be invoked again for a year.

If there is no functioning council (the current initial situation, or after the
council have lost their mandate after a vote of no confidence) an initial
council must be selected. Through the normal communication channels (discourse,
mailing lists) members can be suggested by anyone (including themselves). After
discussion amongst the nominees and in the whole community a group of at least
three individuals should emerge that ask for an initial vote to instate them
as Council of Elders. The intention of this procedure is that by the time such
a group of individuals emerges and asks for a vote of confidence they expect an
overwhelming mandate.

Discussion
==========

This PEP does not handle other roles of the BDFL, only the voting process.
Most importantly, the direction of Python in the long term is not expected
to be handled by the Council of Elders. This falls to the community as a whole
(or to individual members of the community, most likely). 

There is also the role of figurehead or spokesperson to represent Python and
the Python community to the outside world. Again, this is *not* a role that
should be handled by the Council of Elders, in my opionion, but by some
other person or body.

Note that this proposal most likely favors conservatism over progression. Or, at least, the
danger of it leading to stagnation is bigger than the danger of it leading
to reckless blazing ahead into unknown territories. So: we should realise
that it is unlikely that a PEP like PEP 572 will pass if this model is in
place.

Copyright
=========

This document has been placed in the public domain.



..
   Local Variables:
   mode: indented-text
   indent-tabs-mode: nil
   sentence-end-double-space: t
   fill-column: 70
   coding: utf-8
   End: