This sounds very reasonable.
I particularly like the transparency; that is, the fact that
core's decisions and discussions are 'public'. There are a few
things that must be handled privately; for this, I would not be opposed
to a separate private area/list/etc that core can use for those sorts
of things (like the PostgreSQL core (that is, the 'Steering Committee'
-- which still uses the name 'core' after all these years) has the
pgsql-core closed list for disciplinary discussions (developer out of
line, etc)). There are discussions that really need to be
private. But there are discussions that sometimes happen in
private that should have been public.
The PostgreSQL core does this; virtually all discussion, even amongst
core members, happens on the pgsql-hackers mailing list. It is
archived and searchable.
And if Joel wants to be secretary, let him at it...every team needs a good nag 😊.
However, formal weekly meetings may or may not be the best idea.
I personally like the PostgreSQL style best; yet I understand
that it's not the best fit for all people. That style is very
much a spontaneous style, with decisions happening at all hours.
But then again, the PostgreSQL community is global in scope, with
people in many varied timezones (but that also describes the OpenACS
community, no?). Asynchronous meetings are a good fit for such a
widespread community, and mailing lists or web forums are two ways of
making such a meeting happen. IRC and other chat systems are far
too synchronous for this sort of thing. But that's just my
opinion, YMMV.
