From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id ACF0B138334 for ; Sat, 7 Sep 2019 03:40:24 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id CDC54E0AA7; Sat, 7 Sep 2019 03:40:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 6F4A9E0AA7 for ; Sat, 7 Sep 2019 03:40:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (pool-108-44-175-72.clppva.fios.verizon.net [108.44.175.72]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) (Authenticated sender: bman) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 1BE9C34A9BA for ; Sat, 7 Sep 2019 03:40:22 +0000 (UTC) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2019 23:40:06 -0400 From: Aaron Bauman To: gentoo-nfp@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs' Message-ID: <20190907034006.GD6036@bubba.lan> References: <52090ee2-28ee-8a98-b2ca-53433156b7fb@veremit.xyz> <0f27513d3f0e3f9fbdfc8818f0def9b60a56f516.camel@gmail.com> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-nfp@lists.gentoo.org Reply-To: gentoo-nfp@lists.gentoo.org X-Auto-Response-Suppress: DR, RN, NRN, OOF, AutoReply MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha256; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="10jrOL3x2xqLmOsH" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.12.1 (2019-06-15) X-Archives-Salt: 69162b5c-0017-4ca9-bb6c-e7ea43096f5a X-Archives-Hash: e0da38d27680f45e9b300124f0185a69 --10jrOL3x2xqLmOsH Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Fri, Sep 06, 2019 at 08:58:59PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote: > On Fri, Sep 6, 2019 at 4:35 PM Brad Teaford Cowan > wrote: > > > > First of all, the foundation was formed in > > defense of the exact situation that Gentoo is facing now, as a control > > buffer keeping certain developers from literally taking over every > > aspect of the distro for their own gain. >=20 > This seems really odd to me. I don't think there are any signs that a > very small number of devs have an unusual amount of control at the > moment. Over the last few years we've had a reasonable amount of > turnover in both the Council and the Trustees. Sure, we have devs who > are more active than others in making proposals, and so on, but these > generally require approval by others. To the extent that a few key > team leads have more significant influence, their decisions almost > always can be appealed. > Agree > Ironically the Foundation Trustees are the weaker link historically > when it comes to having a small number of people able to "take over." Agree, but I believe this is mostly due to the financial aspect of running = the foundation. A proposal has been set forth to have a third party CPA handle = the financials. Removing this burden would allow for the non-profit to pass by-= laws and "protect" the distribution. > At one point we only had 3 Trustees I think, and I believe two of > those disappeared. At that point our one remaining Trustee could have > probably just set himself up as benevolent dictator if desired, and > there was actually talk at the time about moving to that model > (drobbins offered to take the role as I recall - IMO without any ill > intent). Now, at no point did anybody do anything "bad" as far as I'm No need for such a thing to happen. We can let the council run the distro a= nd the foundation to support it. It will work in my opinion. > aware, but I'm just saying that it could have happened. This is > simply because we don't have a lot of people interested in Foundation > work. After this crisis more people stepped up to try to prevent his > from happening, and since then we've always been able to keep the > seats fairly full, though we've still struggled with the housekeeping. As stated above, I think this is mostly the financial aspect. > In any case, I don't really see how the Foundation can really operate > as some kind of check because to the degree that the Foundation has > some kind of ultimate control, anybody who wanted to do something > "bad" could just take over the Foundation, and it would basically The only way someone could "take over" the distro is to wage a legal battle against the copyrights and code of the distro. This is highly unlikely, but= it does not negate the purpose of the foundation. > involve the exact same work they would have to do to take over the > Council, except for which group they'd need to get representatives > onto. The voting pools for the two substantially overlap. In the The council has no legal representation and it should be codified in the by= -laws of the foundation. This will preserve what the council decides and allow the distro to operate as-is. The council is, in my opinion, the "daily driver" = of the distro. I hope that all see it as such.=20 The foundation has no place in overriding the council at all. There are some "gray areas", but for the most part there is no reason to do so. I think we= have very competent leadership in our elected council. > unlikely event of some kind of total breakdown between the developers > and foundation members you'd basically have one group that does all > the work and the other which owns the name and servers, and you'd > probably just end up with a fork under a new name using minimal/free > infra until that all got sorted out. Again, that is hypothetical and > pretty unlikely, especially right now, in my opinion. > I really hope we never see a fork of the distro. --=20 Cheers, Aaron --10jrOL3x2xqLmOsH Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQEzBAABCAAdFiEEDA48qNrrn8VVVcst4yp5f7HQy3AFAl1zJpYACgkQ4yp5f7HQ y3BoMAf9HQv/fZWFmc/o3NB8lFiQosUx7CxfmCmobiNoG4Kgbq8T6jJ1qoRtk4hv Ls2aJONTGa365BSCvuBXtLrKOguMrEpYyNP3SScWOP1lf92flmAHAz+zLfDUUV99 2+xjPboDTe/fvwAT54JECmawnxKKomTZS2e3gpaBZFoEeqaEAZDI4p3OTm/uQAyE ubRCS33U1NA8SRlHl8NOSj6GiTCNOaFovHOAAIJTLMDxlnIuApZmjbD2SwmHK9UV dOEsxQMEVxg+DiVGVnrIWmhUnoj7/9SiPrFevSR9t/uNpaOuGOMCTTYd0c2Btv5A A1uNHKD1M//uIL7c9trnL6N/IhSwlw== =kuPe -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --10jrOL3x2xqLmOsH--