From a30ef3ecabf1248a0c1bf84c0b759e9bf8fc292a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Warner Losh <imp@FreeBSD.org>
Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2003 23:01:56 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] Although 'Unanimous Consent' appears to be a well defined and
 used in the US Senate, Canadian Parliament and Australian Senate, it was
 causing some confusion.  After some consultation with Mark Murray, change
 this to 'without objection' since often times a plain-speaking term is
 preferable to a regionally used term.

Also, clarify that this procedure is to be used when for more mundane
matters that need a sanity check, but don't need the whole, ponderous
voting proceedure that more difficult issues require.  Core members
that read email in any given 48 hour period are trusted enough to know
the difference and to provide the sanity check as necessary.

Reviewed by: markm
---
 en/internal/core-vote.sgml | 34 ++++++++++++++++++----------------
 1 file changed, 18 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-)
diff --git a/en/internal/core-vote.sgml b/en/internal/core-vote.sgml
index 199cb66c84..2b874c6262 100644
--- a/en/internal/core-vote.sgml
+++ b/en/internal/core-vote.sgml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" [
 <!ENTITY base CDATA "..">
-<!ENTITY date "$FreeBSD: www/en/internal/core-vote.sgml,v 1.2 2003/04/20 21:10:05 murray Exp $">
+<!ENTITY date "$FreeBSD: www/en/internal/core-vote.sgml,v 1.3 2003/12/13 04:52:45 imp Exp $">
 <!ENTITY title "Core's Voting Procedures">
 <!ENTITY % includes SYSTEM "../includes.sgml"> %includes;
 ]>
@@ -54,27 +54,29 @@
 	etc.</li>
     </ul>
 
-    <h3>Unanimous Consent</h3>
+    <h3>Without Objection</h3>
 
     <ul>
-      <li>Any core member may get Unanimous Consent of core to do
-	something.</li>
-      <li>This person shall send mail to core asking for unanimous
-	consent.</li>
-      <li>If no one objects within 48 hours, then core has approved it
-	(or sooner if (2/3 * core-size) members say yes).</li>
+      <li>Any core member may ask core, via email, if they can take
+        some mundane action, subject to a quick sanity check of the
+        rest of core.</li>
+      <li>If no one objects within 48 hours, then that person may proceed
+	(or sooner if (2/3 * core-size) members agree).</li>
       <li>If there are any objections, then it will be resolved via the
 	issue voting procedure.</li>
+      <li>Core secretary may send the OK to proceed message, as the
+        secretary deems appropriate.</li>
     </ul>
 
-    <p>Any committer may get unanimous consent of core to do something so
-      long as at least one core member says 'yes' and the previous paragraph
-      is otherwise followed.
-      <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/common/briefing/Senate_legislative_process.htm">
-      Unanimous Consent</a> is a specific term used by the US Senate
-      to mean 'without objection' and is used instead of a formal vote
-      for routine matters.
-    </p>
+    <p>Any committer also use this mechanism so long as at least one
+      core member says 'yes' and the previous paragraph is otherwise
+      followed.  It is intended to be used for mundane matters that
+      need a quick sanity check, but don't need a more heavy weight
+      and deliberative process.  It is believed that the subset of
+      core present for any given 48 period are sufficient for both
+      sanity checking mundane matters and recognizing non-mundane
+      matters that need to be handled via the issues voting
+      procedure.</p>
 
   &footer;
 
