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LoCo Teams Community Governance Codification

This is a work in progress document, and as yet is not an officially recognised council in the Ubuntu community. Jono Bacon (jono AT ubuntu DOT com) is maintaining updates to refining this document and the codification of the LoCo Council.

The Ubuntu LoCo Teams represent many people's first experience with Ubuntu and is an important resource for support and social interactions and has become one of the most important subprojects within Ubuntu.

This document aims to:

• Provide a clear delegation and codifications of the existing leadership in the LoCo project and plan for handling these decisions in the future.

• Describe clear democratic and meritocratic processes for the appointment of leadership in the LoCo project.

• Remove several "single points of failure".

• Better handle resource requests and allocation in the LoCo project.

• Describe methods for both preventing and resolving conflicts within the LoCo community.

• Provide for a reporting process so that news, ideas and work done in the project by LoCo members will be communicated to the broader community and appropriately recognized.

Team Councils

For active teams and subprojects with Ubuntu, the Ubuntu Community council delegates many of its responsibilities to "Team Councils." These councils act as proxies for the Community Council over a particular team or scope of activity within the Ubuntu community. These governance councils are ultimately responsible for the actions and activity within their team or scope and resolves disputes and manage policies and procedures internal to their team and frequently appoint Ubuntu members on behalf of the CC.

The Ubuntu LoCo Teams Council (ULTC) is the team governance council for the the Ubuntu LoCo Teams project.

LoCo Teams Council Charter

The LoCo Teams Council is the group that is ultimately responsible for the governing the LoCo Teams project and interfacing between it and the rest of the Ubuntu community and governance systems. It will:

• Consist of five (5) members. Membership should be public and published.

• Decisions will be made by a majority of voting LoCo Team Council members when at least three and more than half of the total members have voted.

• LoCo Team Council members should be accessible by and responsive to the LoCo Teams community (i.e., through a dedicated mailing list).

• Hold meetings regularly and visibly in #ubuntu-meeting.

• Be appointed by the Ubuntu Community Council in consultation with the LoCo Teams Council and active contributors in the LoCo project. Nominations would be open and public and would be considered and evaluated by the CC. Each candidate should prepare a wiki page summarizing their nomination and their contributions and including and referencing testimonials (e.g., something similar to what is prepared for Ubuntu membership). The CC commits to evaluating all nominations on the following criteria, listed in order of importance:

  • - The nominees active status as an Ubuntu member (essential).

    - The nominees support from at least one active LoCo Team Council member (essential).

    - Opinions and testimonials (positive and negative) from current members of the LoCo Teams Council;

    - Opinions and testimonials from Ubuntu Members, Ubunteros, and other active participants in the LoCo community;

    - Evidence of activity within the LoCo project (quality, quantity and duration);

• Serve terms of two (2) years. LoCo Teams Council members could serve multiple or repeated terms. Weight will be given to proved contributors and reelection of consistently active members should be both easy and common.

• Have a chairman with a casting vote, appointed by the Community Council, initially to be ######FIXME######.

The LoCo Council would have a number of rights and responsibilities, and be ultimately responsible for the smooth operation of the LoCo project. These include:

• Making decisions about resource requests. This includes mailing lists, domains, web space and other resources.

• Resolving disputes between teams and LoCo community members.

• With advice, feedback, and help from the LoCo community operators, maintaining the LoCo Teams wiki pages and associated infrastructure.

• Provide regular monthly reports of the decisions made by the LoCo Teams Council using the Team Reporting process.

Approving / Rejecting Resource Requests and Teams

One of the core functions of the LoCo Council is to help make decisions about resource requests. These requests will be submitted via the standard RT mechanism, and the council will manage the request queue and make decisions. Once a decision has been made, the RT ticket will be passed back to the Canonical IS team to be actioned.

The LoCo council will help decide on the following resource related requests:

• Mailing Lists - requests for LoCo related mailing lists. The council can approve/reject list requests and ensure that correct list naming conventions are used.

• Resource Ownership Changes - the council will deal with changes in owner/admin contacts and evaluate if the change is acceptable.

• Hosting - the council should decide if the hosting request is acceptable and will be used for the purpose of running a LoCo team.

• The LoCo Council will also make decisions about the approval of LoCo teams, providing the primary means of approving teams instead of the Community Council. The Community Council will still retain the ability to approve teams where required though.

In all cases, the council should seek to ensure all resources are used to help further the LoCo project and the wider Ubuntu project. The council is also there to ensure the correct naming of resources (such as mailing lists).