[gentoo-council] Foundation by laws: new Article V

[gentoo-council] Foundation by laws: new Article V

[Chrissy Fullam]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 814 bytes --]

Refer to bylaws that were approved in today's Trustee meeting:

http://dev.gentoo.org/~neddyseagoon/docs/FoundationBylawsProposed_7.xml

 

I cannot understand why a person cannot be on the Council and on the
Trustees? We had someone do so in the past and no conflicts or issues arose.
What is the reasoning that a person cannot serve on the technical team and
the legal team? 

Please note: that I do not see validity in the statement 'what if Council
asks for money and dual role person on the Trustee approves it' as I think
that person would hold the same opinion regardless of being on both teams
unless we are saying that we cannot trust our Council people to not make
decisions in the best interest of Gentoo.

 

Kind regards, 
Christina Fullam 
Gentoo Developer Relations Lead | Gentoo Public Relations 


[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3068 bytes --]

RE: [gentoo-council] Foundation by laws: new Article V

[Chrissy Fullam]

I wanted to add two things to my previous email

> Refer to bylaws that were approved in today's Trustee meeting:
> http://dev.gentoo.org/~neddyseagoon/docs/FoundationBylawsProposed_7.xml

> I cannot understand why a person cannot be on the Council and on the
> Trustees? We had someone do so in the past and no conflicts or issues
> arose. What is the reasoning that a person cannot serve on the 
> technical team and the legal team? 
>
> Please note: that I do not see validity in the statement 'what if
> Council asks for money and dual role person on the Trustee approves
> it' as I think that person would hold the same opinion regardless of
> being on both teams unless we are saying that we cannot trust our
> Council people to not make decisions in the best interest of Gentoo.

========================================
<addition>
From the Gentoo Foundation Charter page:
"... the Gentoo project needs a framework for intellectual property
protection and financial contributions while limiting the contributors'
legal exposure. The Gentoo Foundation will embody this framework without
intervening in the Gentoo development."

If the Trustees are not supposed to intervene in Gentoo development, that
being the technical direction of Gentoo, aren't they are in direct violation
of this by determining who cannot be a Council member by their own
membership?

========================================
<second addition>
Fmccor voted today that there should be a separation of Trustees and
Council. I see a direct conflict in how he was a Trustee and ran for
Council, but after not being elected he has now decided that no one else can
do it either? He accepted his own Council nomination on 2008-06-05 and
responded to a series of 'questions to our nominees' on the same date.
From his own email response:
> > 4. How do you think the council and trustees can work together to 
> > make Gentoo better?
> I'm already a trustee, so having a council member who is a trustee is 
> a start.

Re: [gentoo-council] Foundation by laws: new Article V

[Alec Warner]

On Sun, Aug 31, 2008 at 2:42 PM, Chrissy Fullam <musikc@gentoo.org> wrote:
> I wanted to add two things to my previous email
>
>> Refer to bylaws that were approved in today's Trustee meeting:
>> http://dev.gentoo.org/~neddyseagoon/docs/FoundationBylawsProposed_7.xml
>
>> I cannot understand why a person cannot be on the Council and on the
>> Trustees? We had someone do so in the past and no conflicts or issues
>> arose. What is the reasoning that a person cannot serve on the
>> technical team and the legal team?
>>
>> Please note: that I do not see validity in the statement 'what if
>> Council asks for money and dual role person on the Trustee approves
>> it' as I think that person would hold the same opinion regardless of
>> being on both teams unless we are saying that we cannot trust our
>> Council people to not make decisions in the best interest of Gentoo.
>
> ========================================
> <addition>
> From the Gentoo Foundation Charter page:
> "... the Gentoo project needs a framework for intellectual property
> protection and financial contributions while limiting the contributors'
> legal exposure. The Gentoo Foundation will embody this framework without
> intervening in the Gentoo development."
>
> If the Trustees are not supposed to intervene in Gentoo development, that
> being the technical direction of Gentoo, aren't they are in direct violation
> of this by determining who cannot be a Council member by their own
> membership?

If the Council are not supposed to intervene in the legal and
financial direction of Gentoo, aren't they in direct violation of this
by being having councilmembers who are also trustees?

I think this particular argument is two sided ;p

>
> ========================================
> <second addition>
> Fmccor voted today that there should be a separation of Trustees and
> Council. I see a direct conflict in how he was a Trustee and ran for
> Council, but after not being elected he has now decided that no one else can
> do it either? He accepted his own Council nomination on 2008-06-05 and
> responded to a series of 'questions to our nominees' on the same date.
> From his own email response:
>> > 4. How do you think the council and trustees can work together to
>> > make Gentoo better?
>> I'm already a trustee, so having a council member who is a trustee is
>> a start.

I'm confused by your statement; are you trying to argue that the
council and trustees could work together better if they shared
members?

I would support that argument if it was clear that they are not
working well together right now and sharing members would offer
improvmeent at the cost of the other inherit risks; but I have no data
on that so I am unsure if sharing members is strictly necessary at
this point.

RE: [gentoo-nfp] RE: [gentoo-council] Foundation by laws: new Article V

[Chrissy Fullam]

> William L. Thomson Jr. wrote:
> > On Sun, 2008-08-31 at 21:08 -0700, Blackace wrote:
> > > On Sun, 2008-08-31 at 19:08 -0400, William L. Thomson Jr. wrote:
> > > It's totally moot, so get over it. There are more important things
> > > to harp on and waste others time on.
> >
> > You aren't the be all and end all of Gentoo who gets to
> > dismiss other people and their thoughts.  Are we *trying* to kill all
> > sense of community or something?  

Thank you blackace.

> Fail safes, so get over it. Your making it a much bigger deal than
> it is.

> No I am just fed up with the nit picking and stuff that is really not
> productive. 

If you feel this isn't worth your time then please find another topic to
respond to and let this one carry on as others see fit; as I'm not the only
one discussing this it must be viewed as worth other people's time. Please
stop telling others what is or isn't a big deal to them or what you say they
should find to be productive. The discussion is worthwhile to me, I want to
understand the reasoning behind the new rule. I may not agree to it and I
can accept that, but it is entirely within my right to ask for
clarification.

> I will say flat out Chrissy is some what responsible for me
> resigning. 

Kindly leave the personal stuff out of this.
 
> None of it leads to increasing productivity, just additional wheel
> spinning. From someone that back in 06 wasn't interested in becoming a
> dev. Since then at least to me, and IMHO has been a total pain.

Kindly leave the personal stuff out of this and not assume what I did or did
not contribute to. Anyone could easily look up and confirm that I started
contributing quite regularly since mid 2006 and after officially joining in
2007 my focus shifted.

> Now that I am not a trustee. I can speak my mind clearly without someone
> telling me. 

And like every other person (developer, user, etc) you too are bound to CoC
so speak your mind clearly while adhering to the same principles that others
do. If fuzzy, please review:
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/council/coc.xml#doc_chap3


Kind regards,
Christina Fullam
Gentoo Developer Relations Lead | Gentoo Public Relations 

Re: [gentoo-nfp] RE: [gentoo-council] Foundation by laws: new Article V

[Roy Bamford]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 2008.09.02 05:44, Chrissy Fullam wrote:
[snip]
> ... I may not agree to it
> and I
> can accept that, but it is entirely within my right to ask for
> clarification.
[snip]
> 
> Kind regards,
> Christina Fullam
> Gentoo Developer Relations Lead | Gentoo Public Relations 

Chrissy,

You bring up an interesting point about 'rights' which since its likely
to set a precedent I would like to respond to.

The council is answerable to the entire developer community. The
Foundation is answerable to its members. The two groups are not the
same. You are a member of the former but not the latter, therefore
have no rights with respect to the foundation.

Having fixed the precedent about rights of non members, let the
discussion continue.  Its a valid point to discuss no matter who brings
it up. The foundation wants to be open an listen to anyone who
wants to make contributions.

- -- 
Regards,

Roy Bamford
(NeddySeagoon) a member of
gentoo-ops
forum-mods
treecleaners
trustees
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAki9RdwACgkQTE4/y7nJvatebwCg/FZLcsPrJtLX64OpU21Sy3AS
D4kAoO+26pT4Gdhl78LpXMfxHt+up5MI
=GKNd
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

RE: [gentoo-nfp] RE: [gentoo-council] Foundation by laws: new Article V

[Chrissy Fullam]

> > ... I may not agree to it and I
> > can accept that, but it is entirely within my right to ask for
> > clarification.
> [snip]
> 
> Chrissy,
> 
> You bring up an interesting point about 'rights' which since its likely
> to set a precedent I would like to respond to.
> 
> The council is answerable to the entire developer community. The
> Foundation is answerable to its members. The two groups are not the
> same. You are a member of the former but not the latter, therefore
> have no rights with respect to the foundation.

It is true that the memberships are not identical but the overlapping is
intense to say the least. I became an official developer in April 2007, some
17 months ago. The only reason I am not a member of the foundation is
because foundation elections were postponed 6 months, otherwise I'd be a
member currently. I'd like to apply to become a member of the foundation but
cannot find how this is done.

From talking to others that predate the foundation and were around for the
implementation, the original intent was that any developer of greater than
one year could apply to become a foundation member, but to simplify the
process for all it was automatically granted at election time if they had
not previously applied. Evidently the process was not documented and I'd
like to pursue it.


Kind regards,
Christina Fullam
Gentoo Developer Relations Lead | Gentoo Public Relations 

Re: [gentoo-nfp] RE: [gentoo-council] Foundation by laws: new Article V

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

William L. Thomson Jr. wrote:
| On Mon, 2008-09-01 at 21:44 -0700, Chrissy Fullam wrote:
|>> as I'm not the only
|> one discussing this it must be viewed as worth other people's time.
|
| Who else is participating? Alec was responding to your questioning with
| reasoning. Rich came from left field. Blackace is commenting on my
| response. So who else is discussing this?
|
| Not a single person has made a single post on the recently voted in
| bylaws other than Chrissy. There are other much more questionable
| subjects and sections in the bylaws. But those are being ignored.
|

William, while I failed to join the discussion in the last 2 meetings
and haven't been able to check what was approved, I'm also interested in
this point. So Chrissy is not alone in this.
I also note that for the few months I followed the discussion on the nfp
list about the bylaws, I only remember a mention to this around the
council election time and I wasn't aware that it had in fact been enacted.
My personal opinion is that making this a rule is wrong and can prove to
be counter-productive. I understand the reasons you and others have
raised, but in my view this should be left to the voters - it is (or
should be) their choice in the end.

- --
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / SPARC / KDE
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iEYEARECAAYFAki9VnwACgkQcAWygvVEyAL35QCghupWld9s51bR1QeYgvO5oKOU
NP0AoIhVT84oSORrcwvFqEep20bA2hFx
=rNR9
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: [gentoo-nfp] RE: [gentoo-council] Foundation by laws: new Article V

[Roy Bamford]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 2008.09.02 16:06, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:

> My personal opinion is that making this a rule is wrong and can prove
> to be counter-productive. I understand the reasons you and others 
> have raised, but in my view this should be left to the voters - it is 
> (or
> should be) their choice in the end.
> 
> --
> Regards,
> 
> Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
> Gentoo- forums / Userrel / SPARC / KDE
> 

Jorge,

The three remaining trustees were also nominated to stand for election 
for the council. Had they all accepted and been elected to the council, 
today we would be in the position of having trustees being a subset of 
council. That would have totally destroyed the council/foundation split 
that was one of the reasons the two bodies were created.

We need rules to stop that situation from occuring.

If we are to remove the council/foundation split and adopt a more 
normal corporate structure, lets do it deliberately with the changes to 
both council and foundation to make a single workable body capable of 
dealing with all aspects of Gentoo and without holding back development 
rather than find we have done it accidently by electing the same people 
to both bodies.

The opinions expressed here are my own, not the opinions of the Gentoo 
Foundation Inc.

- -- 
Regards,

Roy Bamford
(NeddySeagoon) a member of
gentoo-ops
forum-mods
treecleaners
trustees
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAki9YD8ACgkQTE4/y7nJvas8iwCeK9GYkJeQIxMYlRMlrHs885U/
IcIAoLSOMUlcY1qFLWI8GxyQNFv0iR3s
=WwG9
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: [gentoo-nfp] RE: [gentoo-council] Foundation by laws: new Article V

[Ferris McCormick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2944 bytes --]

Partial reply
============
On Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:16:21 -0400
Richard Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Roy Bamford wrote:
> > The three remaining trustees were also nominated to stand for election 
> > for the council. Had they all accepted and been elected to the council, 
> > today we would be in the position of having trustees being a subset of 
> > council. That would have totally destroyed the council/foundation split 
> > that was one of the reasons the two bodies were created.
> > 
> > We need rules to stop that situation from occuring.
> > 
> 
> Is this the case?  That we need to stop the council/trustees from
> overlapping?  Is it true that the council/foundation split was one of
> the reasons the two bodies were created?
> 
> My understanding is that the reason we have two bodies is so that people
> can contribute to either the council and/or the trustees based on their
> enthusiasm or ability to contribute, without being required to
> contribute to both.  Also - due to the foundation being a US corporation
> it is likely the case that we can't have non-US-residents holding board
> positions.  So, the split is a practical matter - not a matter of
> principle per se.
> 
Richard,
  I guess you don't know that Roy (NeddySeagoon) is a trustee living in
Scotland? :)  Not a US citizen.

There are two bodies because (1) the council is elected by the Gentoo
developers to guide the technical aspects of the Gentoo project.  It's
members must be developers, I believe.

And (2), The trustees are the board of the Gentoo Foundation, a New
Mexico not-for-profit corporation which is separate from the project.
The trustees are elected by the members of the Foundation and must be
members of the Foundation.

Not all developers are members of the Foundation, and not all
Foundation members are developers, so it would be impossible to have
just one governing body even if we wanted to.  Which we don't, because
the skills required for the one are not the same as those required for
the other.

So the split is a bit more than a practical matter.  It is required
because the developers and Foundation members are not the same people
(although there is a lot of overlap, of course).
> I wasn't seriously involved back when the trustees were created so I 
> won't presume to argue that I really know all the reasons for it being a 
> separate body.  However, I don't think that really matters - the only 
> thing that matters is if we think it should be forced to be such today.
> 
> In my opinion the benefits of joint council/trustee membership outweigh 
> the downside.  However, I'm sure things will go on fine either way - 
> I'll trust the trustees/council to make the right decision.
> 

I'll leave the hard parts to someone else.
Regards,
Ferris
--
Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) <fmccor@gentoo.org>
Developer, Gentoo Linux (Sparc, Userrel, Trustees)

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 197 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-nfp] RE: [gentoo-council] Foundation by laws: new Article V

[Roy Bamford]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Richard, 

I've seen fmccors reply, let me have a got too. 

On 2008.09.02 23:16, Richard Freeman wrote:
> Roy Bamford wrote:
> > The three remaining trustees were also nominated to stand for
> election 
> > for the council. Had they all accepted and been elected to the
> council, 
> > today we would be in the position of having trustees being a subset
> of 
> > council. That would have totally destroyed the council/foundation
> split 
> > that was one of the reasons the two bodies were created.
> > 
> > We need rules to stop that situation from occuring.
> > 
> 
> Is this the case?  That we need to stop the council/trustees from
> overlapping?  Is it true that the council/foundation split was one of
> the reasons the two bodies were created?
It wasn't that simple - I'll add some history further down.
> 
> My understanding is that the reason we have two bodies is so that
> people
> can contribute to either the council and/or the trustees based on
> their
> enthusiasm or ability to contribute, without being required to
> contribute to both.  Also - due to the foundation being a US
> corporation
> it is likely the case that we can't have non-US-residents holding
> board
> positions.  So, the split is a practical matter - not a matter of
> principle per se.

There have been a number of non US citizen trustees over the years.
I'm the only one at the moment. Three of the original 13 trustees were 
non-US citizens. There are some roles that are more difficult for a non 
US citizen to perform, like treasurer, which requires dealing with 
cheques.
> 
> I wasn't seriously involved back when the trustees were created so I 
> won't presume to argue that I really know all the reasons for it  
> being a separate body.  However, I don't think that really matters - 
> the only thing that matters is if we think it should be forced to be 
> such today.

The two bodies were created at different times - I was not a developer 
at the time so some of this is hearsay ...
The Gentoo Foundation Inc was created on 14th May 2004 (ref Articles of 
Incorporation) as a part of the process of Daniel Robbins (our founder) 
extracting himself from Gentoo.
Daniel held the post of Chief Archietect and pretty much ran gentoo as 
a benevolent dictator. He also had a business orgainsation known as 
Gentoo Technologies Inc which owned Gentoos trademarks and IPR.

As part of Daniels leaving, the Foundation was set up and the Gentoo 
Technologies Inc trademarks and IPR transferred to it. (Thats legally 
documented too.) The intent of the foundation is stated in the 
introduction to the Foundation Charter. 
http://www.gentoo.org/foundation/en/
Its clear it was intended to be separate from the technical part of 
Gentoo. 

At this time, technical leadership of Gentoo was left to the Top Level 
Project leads. It was not yet the council - that came later.

The council was created by GLEP 39 
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0039.html from that it appears 
that the GLEP was created on 01-Sep-2005 and adoped on 09-Feb-2006, 
nearly two years after the creation of the Foundation.

It follows that the Foundation was created to replace Gentoo 
Technologies Inc, leaving the old (beneth Daniel) technical leadership 
untouched and the council came into being as a solution to the 
increasing number of top level projects some time later.

In a nutshell, we have two bodies today because its always been that 
way. Gentoo Technologies became the Forundation and the top level 
project leads became the council.

> 
> In my opinion the benefits of joint council/trustee membership
> outweigh 
> the downside.  However, I'm sure things will go on fine either way - 
> I'll trust the trustees/council to make the right decision.

I think thats a somewhat simplistic view of the world. In the legal/
business environment that the Foundation operates in we cannot trust to 
luck and we should not trust individuals to do 'the right thing'. Often 
different groups have different views of what the 'right thing' is.

As I have explained the two bodies were created at different times to 
solve different problems. I would venture to guess that there was no 
thought given to creating a more normal corporate structure for Gentoo 
when Daniel departed.

Now back to your point. I am convinced that the two bodies should 
staffed by separate individuals as they serve two different purposes 
and represnet two different (but overlapping) groups. I agree that the 
groups could be merged into a more usual corporate structure but 
only by a deliberate act by both groups (or their leaders). It would be 
wrong to permit one group to *accidently* be lead by a subset of the 
other.

- -- 
Regards,

Roy Bamford
(NeddySeagoon) a member of
gentoo-ops
forum-mods
treecleaners
trustees
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAki+wFEACgkQTE4/y7nJvatUSQCg1vfZ6aHTa8asMTz6xXQZ8cTo
UJAAmwQkbU/HHVkfppJVdhAUltqxUWOg
=QUK1
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[gentoo-council] Re: [gentoo-nfp] Foundation by laws: new Article V

[Alec Warner]

On Sun, Aug 31, 2008 at 1:24 PM, Chrissy Fullam <musikc@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Refer to bylaws that were approved in today's Trustee meeting:
>
> http://dev.gentoo.org/~neddyseagoon/docs/FoundationBylawsProposed_7.xml
>
>
>
> I cannot understand why a person cannot be on the Council and on the
> Trustees? We had someone do so in the past and no conflicts or issues arose.
> What is the reasoning that a person cannot serve on the technical team and
> the legal team?

a) Should the member go missing we would be down 1 position in both
bodies, a subcase of Single Point of Failure.
b) I worry about time constraints with one person being on two
important bodies in a volunteer organization eg; fulfilling both roles
properly.
c) Limitations of Power.  This bylaw limits the damage done by one
person.  It is SOXish; it takes two to tango; two people to be
malicious in some use cases.
d) Past performance does not indicate future returns.  Just because we
have not had troubles in the past with this does not mean we will not
have trouble with it in the future.

>
> Please note: that I do not see validity in the statement 'what if Council
> asks for money and dual role person on the Trustee approves it' as I think
> that person would hold the same opinion regardless of being on both teams
> unless we are saying that we cannot trust our Council people to not make
> decisions in the best interest of Gentoo.

I trust the council to make the best *technical* decisions for Gentoo;
that is why I voted for the people I did.
That has nothing to do with making legal/funding decisions as the
council has no say in those matters.

Your use case is invalid in the general case as funding requests of
any kind require majority approval by the board of trustees per:
http://www.gentoo.org/foundation/en/requesting-funds.xml

More specific use cases that may or may not be illegal.

I am Treasurer and on Council; I get a motion in council approved by a
slim margin.  I skip the approval process from the rest of the board
and just cut a check because I'm Treasurer.  Legal?  Maybe...it is
hard to say how binding the xml on that document is.

I am a Trustee and on the Council; I get a motion in council approved
by a slim margin and because I am trustee I only need N -1 / 2 votes
(a majority of all trustees that are not me) to pass my motion.  In
the case of an odd number of trustees this means I can pass motions
with 1 less vote than other motions which is an advantage.  Legal? Yes
if the bylaw is repealed ;)

Most of these specific use cases can be removed by adding a bylaw
stating that a trustee that is also a council member must recuse
himself in decisions in both bodies that affect each other.  So if I
vote in council on a motion that requires funding; I cannot vote in
the trustee vote to approve it; this negates my 1 vote advantage.

Recusal enables said person to participate in both bodies in what I'll
term 'a majority' of decisions.

-Alec

>
>
>
> Kind regards,
> Christina Fullam
> Gentoo Developer Relations Lead | Gentoo Public Relations

[gentoo-council] RE: [gentoo-nfp] Foundation by laws: new Article V

[Chrissy Fullam]

Combining emails from antarus and wltjr as in some ways they seem to share the same view, focus on the team that needs it and don’t split focus, but I'll hit antarus' other points first.

> c) Limitations of Power.  This bylaw limits the damage done by one
> person.  It is SOXish; it takes two to tango; two people to be
> malicious in some use cases.

Iirc, no one person can take action without some kind of peer vote?

> d) Past performance does not indicate future returns.  Just because we
> have not had troubles in the past with this does not mean we will not
> have trouble with it in the future.

So instead of looking at Gentoo's past performance we'll look at the 'what ifs' that have never happened and we've no reason to think they'll ever happen? I feel like I am putting more trust in our developers/community than others are.

> Your use case is invalid in the general case as funding requests of
> any kind require majority approval by the board of trustees per:
> http://www.gentoo.org/foundation/en/requesting-funds.xml

This actually furthers my case. "Any Foundation money spent needs to be approved by a majority vote from the Board of Trustees." So one person cannot do it alone so where is the conflict? The Foundation/Trustees have been around for I believe four years, in that time only once has a person held over lapping roles. Why do we think suddenly every person on Trustee may overlap? It seems so very unlikely. And even if they did, that means that we voted for them to fill the role, so do we now not even trust ourselves to cast the right vote?

> >  What is the reasoning that a person cannot serve on the technical
> > team and the legal team?
> 
> If something happens to said person. The loss is greater. If the drop the
> ball, the loss is greater.
> 
> There is no reason anyone should have such broad focus. They pick an area
> focus on it and work on it. That people take on/eat to much, then fail to
> chew it is not ok. Thus this is designed to prevent that from occurring.
> 
> Just like Jacob should have had backup. There should be more recruiters,
> more people on QA, etc. Until ever little detail of every job is being
> done to perfection. There is no need to stack titles, or widen focus. We
> need more narrow focus and doing a better job all around.

So do we also restrict people from being on more than one team? What if one team is deemed to be 'not doing well', should they resign from other teams to focus on that one team, or resign from that team so it doesn’t drag down their efforts on other teams?


Kind regards,
Christina Fullam
Gentoo Developer Relations Lead | Gentoo Public Relations 

Re: [gentoo-council] RE: [gentoo-nfp] Foundation by laws: new Article V

[Alec Warner]

On Sun, Aug 31, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Chrissy Fullam <musikc@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Combining emails from antarus and wltjr as in some ways they seem to share the same view, focus on the team that needs it and don't split focus, but I'll hit antarus' other points first.
>
>> c) Limitations of Power.  This bylaw limits the damage done by one
>> person.  It is SOXish; it takes two to tango; two people to be
>> malicious in some use cases.
>
> Iirc, no one person can take action without some kind of peer vote?
>

I tried to address this with my 'Treasurer' point; as in it is not
clear to me if as the Treasurer I can take action legally here.

>> d) Past performance does not indicate future returns.  Just because we
>> have not had troubles in the past with this does not mean we will not
>> have trouble with it in the future.
>
> So instead of looking at Gentoo's past performance we'll look at the 'what ifs' that have never happened and we've no reason to think they'll ever happen? I feel like I am putting more trust in our developers/community than others are.
>

Using past performance is very similar to using 'what ifs', in my
mind.  We have no hard data on past performance because it is quite
subjective and not all data is available (eg problems that may have
occured but were not made public).  Just like with the stock market
you take a risk in using past incidents to forcast future risk and
make decisions.  I think our data here is poor and the risk is too
great.

>> Your use case is invalid in the general case as funding requests of
>> any kind require majority approval by the board of trustees per:
>> http://www.gentoo.org/foundation/en/requesting-funds.xml
>
> This actually furthers my case. "Any Foundation money spent needs to be approved by a majority vote from the Board of Trustees." So one person cannot do it alone so where is the conflict? The Foundation/Trustees have been around for I believe four years, in that time only once has a person held over lapping roles. Why do we think suddenly every person on Trustee may overlap? It seems so very unlikely. And even if they did, that means that we voted for them to fill the role, so do we now not even trust ourselves to cast the right vote?
>

None of the use cases I presented required that every trustee overlap
(which I concede is very unlikely); they just require one person to
overlap.  I also presented a case where that document could be ignored
because it is not legally binding in my opinion.

>> >  What is the reasoning that a person cannot serve on the technical
>> > team and the legal team?
>>
>> If something happens to said person. The loss is greater. If the drop the
>> ball, the loss is greater.
>>
>> There is no reason anyone should have such broad focus. They pick an area
>> focus on it and work on it. That people take on/eat to much, then fail to
>> chew it is not ok. Thus this is designed to prevent that from occurring.
>>
>> Just like Jacob should have had backup. There should be more recruiters,
>> more people on QA, etc. Until ever little detail of every job is being
>> done to perfection. There is no need to stack titles, or widen focus. We
>> need more narrow focus and doing a better job all around.
>
> So do we also restrict people from being on more than one team? What if one team is deemed to be 'not doing well', should they resign from other teams to focus on that one team, or resign from that team so it doesn't drag down their efforts on other teams?

I am primarily concerned about the trustees affect in meatspace; the
fact that they may be signatories on legal documents and I would
prefer they make being a trustee a very high priority over their other
duties.  I concede that this is not a very strong point and we do not
enforce it in other groups.

>
>
> Kind regards,
> Christina Fullam
> Gentoo Developer Relations Lead | Gentoo Public Relations
>
>
>
>
>
>