1. Does that mean that if a member changes employment in a cap-violating way, they are expected to resign (unless one of the two members from the new employment place prefers to resign themselves)? Should this be explicitly recorded?

2. I want to have this question on the record: do we want to respect the other dimensions of conflict of interest? I think it would be feasible to ask that if a full SC of five members is being selected, at least one member of the incoming committee should have used Nix outside the single most popular setup (currently NixOS on x86_64). It would be a nightmare in a large election procedure, but for unanimous selection of successors it seems feasible.

1. I don't think it is necessary, but if someone cares to resign no one will stop them.
2. I also think we don't have to specify this, as the RFCSC should always try and set up a balanced shepherding team, familiar with the affected parts and the RFCSC can realistically not cover everything themself.

1. I am OK with that, but then maybe reword it to say that there is a cap of appointing at most 2 people working for the same employer? Because right now it seems to mean my interpretation.

2. It might be easier to evaluate experience (and relevance of that experience) of people working on special use cases for a SC including someone who doesn't use the «default setup» exclusively. But I do not insist.

Does ths old SC hold one more meeting (so that the new SC has a week to agree on their meeting schedule without interruption in RFC processing)? Or does the old SC continue to work until Christmas-New Year week (when everybody expects interruptions anyway)?

+1 for "new year, new committee" :)

It takes immediate effect at the beginning of December.

The motivation is to not tie things around the new year when there's already lots of personal errands to be completed :)

Immediate takeover has the problem of coordination; from the point of view of end-of-year, second half of December and first half of January are all bad anyway.

(Just in case: the literal current text of RFC explicitly sets January as the takeover time)

Nit: among others is redundant because included doesn't imply completeness

That's debatable, at least from a common law framing where the set phrase "included but not limited to" sometimes does kind of imply the completeness of includes (and is an instance of the legal principle expressio unius est exclusio alterius). That is, of course, just an equally debatable nitpick in the other direction 😄. I do think we can simply remove the among others without loss of meaning. We're not negotiating a liability waiver, after all. For me personally however, it adds to the flow just enough to make it worthwhile.

The RFC Steering committee has been established by RFC 36

? More straightforward phrasing.

Is "directly" needed here? I'm interpreting it as "immediately", but it could lead to confusion ("direct democracy"), and the "after" adequately describes the timeframe IMHO.

Maybe shall be elected without delay would make this clearer?

Feels awkward to specify the relative frequency of membership-ending mechanisms :) maybe leave the explanation of the order out?

I guess the order is intended to vaguely guide the norms and expectations without creating formal rules.

Rules nit: what if two members are absent?

Doesn't have to be on the same meeting, vote would be cast per member.

Do you mean to add that

If the number of members of the RFCSC drops below 4 people

it also shouldn't be able to apply (3) or (4)? (Though any relevant situation would probably be a "political crisis" anyway.)

If it was about members being present, I thought it's clear that "all other" means all other on the committee (not just present ATM).

I think the natural interpretation here is «all the other current members», I think reaching (3) instead of (2) is unfortunate and reaching (4) is outright bad whatever you do, and I think in both cases it is less bad to thave the possibility of removal before selecting replacement.

+1 for "new year, new committee" :)

The process (and grammar — should that be "holds"?) is a bit unclear here.

<personal-opinion> "learnings" is a nasty businessese word, "experience" would be better.

@leckermann btw you can click the "plus minus" button when commenting to suggest a wording change like this :)

Run-on sentence! 🚨 The "mandate for life" and "healthy rotation" bits are also just restating that the committee will change and that that is in some vague way good. Here's an attempt at rephrasing with a bit more structure and justification:

This RFC provides mechanisms for beginning and ending Steering Committee membership. The purpose of this is to ensure that the committee:

• continues to consist of well-informed and motivated members;
• continues to represent the evolving community;
• remains active and keeps the RFC process running.

Maybe rephrase as «Membership of a member in the Steering Committee can end by …»

(I tried to do a two-line suggestion and failed)

Doesn't have to be on the same meeting, vote would be cast per member.

It takes immediate effect at the beginning of December.

The motivation is to not tie things around the new year when there's already lots of personal errands to be completed :)

nit: s/either/any/