JDK Updates Maintainer process

[Volker Simonis]

Hi,

I've just read the "[11u-communication] Call for new lead maintainer"
[1] mail which has been sent out recently. It links to the "Repository
Maintainers" page [2] which describes the process of electing a new
Lead Maintainer as follows:

"Prior to appointing a Lead Maintainer, a request for nominations MUST
be sent to the jdk-updates-dev at openjdk.java.net mailing list by the
Project Lead. After a one-week nomination period, the Project Lead
will select a candidate from amongst the nominees and then ratify this
selection via a one-week Lazy Consensus vote of this Project's
Committers and Reviewers."

I just wonder why the Project Lead alone selects the new Lead
Maintainer from the list of candidates who have nominated themselves
and the Project's Committers and Reviewers can only ratify the Project
Lead's selection? From my point of view, this process is not very
"democratic" and give the Project Lead too much power compared to the
Project's Committers and Reviewers. Wouldn't it be more transparent if
the Committers and Reviewers could directly elect the new Lead
Maintainer from the list of candidates (in the same way how At-Large
Members are voted into the Governing Board [3]).

And by the way, who came up with these rules from the "Repository
Maintainers" page [2] ? I'm aware of the "[PROPOSED]: New JDK Updates
Maintainer process" [4] thread, but these rules haven't been discussed
there. It's very well possible that I've simply missed that discussion
in which case I'd kindly ask for a reference to it.

Thank you and best regards,
Volker

[1] http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jdk-updates-dev/2019-January/000367.html
[2] http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk-updates/maintainers.html
[3] http://openjdk.java.net/bylaws#at-large-members
[4] http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jdk-updates-dev/2018-February/000064.html