[gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Michał Górny]

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Hi, everyone.

As some of you have read, I have proposed a new privacy-oriented voting
frontend for Gentoo [1].  However, the whole idea was rendered pretty
much pointless by Trustees demanding information on who cast a vote. 
This is currently used to determine 'interest in Foundation',
and therefore kick inactive Foundation members.  To be honest, I think
it's misguided, for three reasons:

1. It intrudes on privacy of voters.  I suppose it's not *that major*
but still I don't think it's appropriate to publish a 'shame list' of
people who haven't voted for whatever reason.

2. It introduces a big weakness in the system.  My whole idea was to
make it practically impossible to sniff votes after the election is
prepared.  With this solution, anyone with sufficient privileges
(election officials, infra) can trivially passively sniff votes.

3. It is really meaningless.  Casting a vote does not really indicate
any interest in GF.  It only indicates that someone has done the minimal
effort to avoid being kicked.  There is no reason to conflate the two.


I believe we should consider other options of determining activity. 
Depending on whether we actually want to keep people actually interested
in GF, or just those caring enough to stay, I can think of a few
options.

The most obvious solution would be to take AGM attendance as indication
of interest.  It would also create an interest in actually attending,
and make it possible to finally reach a quorum.  However, it's rather
a poor idea given that AGMs tend to happen in middle of the night for
European devs.  We would probably have to accept excuses for not
attending, and then measuring attendance will probably be meaningless
anyway.

Another option (which some people aren't going to like) is to require
all Foundation members to be Gentoo devs (but not the other way around),
and then terminate GF membership along with developer status.  Given
that there's only a few non-dev members, and most of them are retired
devs whose membership simply didn't terminate by existing rules yet, I
think there shouldn't really be a problem in making the few interested
members non-commit devs by existing rules.

Finally, if we really don't care we could just send pings and terminate
membership of people that don't answer in time.  This is pretty much
similar to the current idea with voting, except it doesn't pretend to be
meaningful.


WDYT?

[1] https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/6977bf6f9b72a17847fdc93afd4d9a9f

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny


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Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Alec Warner]

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On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 1:14 PM Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Hi, everyone.
>
> As some of you have read, I have proposed a new privacy-oriented voting
> frontend for Gentoo [1].  However, the whole idea was rendered pretty
> much pointless by Trustees demanding information on who cast a vote.
> This is currently used to determine 'interest in Foundation',
> and therefore kick inactive Foundation members.  To be honest, I think
> it's misguided, for three reasons:
>

> 1. It intrudes on privacy of voters.  I suppose it's not *that major*
> but still I don't think it's appropriate to publish a 'shame list' of
> people who haven't voted for whatever reason.
>

I believe in your right to vote and have the content of the vote be
private. I don't believe in your right to vote anonymously in Foundation
elections. The fact that you voted should be public. The foundation has
minimal requirements for membership; if you don't vote in foundation
affairs (1 vote a year!) then I don't see the point in being a member. It's
basically the only difference afforded to members[0]! I don't believe we do
publish a list of who voted in every election, but we do publish a
membership list and there is definitely a correlation and its intentional.


>
> 2. It introduces a big weakness in the system.  My whole idea was to
> make it practically impossible to sniff votes after the election is
> prepared.  With this solution, anyone with sufficient privileges
> (election officials, infra) can trivially passively sniff votes.
>

We need to know who cast votes, we don't need to know the content of the
votes. I assume building such a system is possible (maybe it isn't?)


>
> 3. It is really meaningless.  Casting a vote does not really indicate
> any interest in GF.  It only indicates that someone has done the minimal
> effort to avoid being kicked.  There is no reason to conflate the two.
>

I'm certainly interested in other avenues of interest, but I don't see very
many in this thread other than "AGM attendance" and "asking people if they
are interested[0]"


>
>
> I believe we should consider other options of determining activity.
> Depending on whether we actually want to keep people actually interested
> in GF, or just those caring enough to stay, I can think of a few
> options.
>
> The most obvious solution would be to take AGM attendance as indication
> of interest.  It would also create an interest in actually attending,
> and make it possible to finally reach a quorum.  However, it's rather
> a poor idea given that AGMs tend to happen in middle of the night for
> European devs.  We would probably have to accept excuses for not
> attending, and then measuring attendance will probably be meaningless
> anyway.
>

Attendance of a single meeting per year is a bad idea without some kind of
proxy system in place, same as any corporation.


>
> Another option (which some people aren't going to like) is to require
> all Foundation members to be Gentoo devs (but not the other way around),
> and then terminate GF membership along with developer status.  Given
> that there's only a few non-dev members, and most of them are retired
> devs whose membership simply didn't terminate by existing rules yet, I
> think there shouldn't really be a problem in making the few interested
> members non-commit devs by existing rules.
>

This doesn't really imply interested in the Foundation either though;
because the developership and Foundation are separate.


>
> Finally, if we really don't care we could just send pings and terminate
> membership of people that don't answer in time.  This is pretty much
> similar to the current idea with voting, except it doesn't pretend to be
> meaningful.
>

The point of tracking who votes is that votes are nominally the only real
difference between members and non-members; so in the end it's one of the
few ways members can express their interest. If we had shares, then owning
those would be an interest; or donations, or funding requests, or some
other idea.

-A

[0] A plausible reality is that most members don't even have 'an interest'
in Foundation affairs and if we increase the minimum requirement for
membership we might see a precipitous drop in member count; we would need
to debate whether or not this is a desired outcome or not.


>
>
> WDYT?
>
> [1]
> https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/6977bf6f9b72a17847fdc93afd4d9a9f
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Michał Górny
>
>

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Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Robin H. Johnson]

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On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 01:45:25PM -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
> > 1. It intrudes on privacy of voters.  I suppose it's not *that major*
> > but still I don't think it's appropriate to publish a 'shame list' of
> > people who haven't voted for whatever reason.
> I believe in your right to vote and have the content of the vote be
> private. I don't believe in your right to vote anonymously in Foundation
> elections. The fact that you voted should be public. The foundation has
> minimal requirements for membership; if you don't vote in foundation
> affairs (1 vote a year!) then I don't see the point in being a member. It's
> basically the only difference afforded to members[0]! I don't believe we do
> publish a list of who voted in every election, but we do publish a
> membership list and there is definitely a correlation and its intentional.
Point of order:
The lists of which voters cast a ballot is public in the elections repo,
and has been available for a long time. This applies not just for
Trustee elections, but for all other elections in the votify system.

If you consider various real world voting systems, they generally
require some form of electoral roll, on which voters are checked off, to
prevent voting multiple times (this can be enforced with other
mechanisms). As a tidbit in research, apparently Italy used to have
mandatory voting, and publicly posted lists of those who did not vote as
a form of sanction.

> > 2. It introduces a big weakness in the system.  My whole idea was to
> > make it practically impossible to sniff votes after the election is
> > prepared.  With this solution, anyone with sufficient privileges
> > (election officials, infra) can trivially passively sniff votes.
> We need to know who cast votes, we don't need to know the content of the
> votes. I assume building such a system is possible (maybe it isn't?)
mgorny's system design is explicitly around building protections to
enable LESS trust being placed in infra & voting officials.

Timing correlation in when a vote or stub appears in the system is a
concern in that environment.

I agree that it should be possible to build this requirement into the
system, but at what cost in development.

> > 3. It is really meaningless.  Casting a vote does not really indicate
> > any interest in GF.  It only indicates that someone has done the minimal
> > effort to avoid being kicked.  There is no reason to conflate the two.
> I'm certainly interested in other avenues of interest, but I don't see very
> many in this thread other than "AGM attendance" and "asking people if they
> are interested[0]"
- Does involvement on mailing lists count? 
- What other ways outside development might somebody be involved in
  Gentoo? Not everybody is a developer, let alone an ebuild developer.
  What if we wound up with PR people who weren't devs at all, but loved
  to talk about Gentoo?

> > I believe we should consider other options of determining activity.
> > Depending on whether we actually want to keep people actually interested
> > in GF, or just those caring enough to stay, I can think of a few
> > options.
I'd say those options should be in addition to, rather than instead of
voting.

> > The most obvious solution would be to take AGM attendance as indication
> > of interest.  It would also create an interest in actually attending,
> > and make it possible to finally reach a quorum.  However, it's rather
> > a poor idea given that AGMs tend to happen in middle of the night for
> > European devs.  We would probably have to accept excuses for not
> > attending, and then measuring attendance will probably be meaningless
> > anyway.
> Attendance of a single meeting per year is a bad idea without some kind of
> proxy system in place, same as any corporation.
It also doesn't capture the intent of more ongoing/"regular" interest in
Gentoo, just a once-per-year snapshot.

> > Another option (which some people aren't going to like) is to require
> > all Foundation members to be Gentoo devs (but not the other way around),
> > and then terminate GF membership along with developer status.  Given
> > that there's only a few non-dev members, and most of them are retired
> > devs whose membership simply didn't terminate by existing rules yet, I
> > think there shouldn't really be a problem in making the few interested
> > members non-commit devs by existing rules.
> This doesn't really imply interested in the Foundation either though;
> because the developership and Foundation are separate.
If this includes making non-commit developership easier to
get AND maintain (the undertaker discussions about how to gauge
ongoing involvement of non-commit devs is very relevant to this), then I
have no conceptual problem with requiring all Foundation members to be
developers (It should still be possible to be a developer WITHOUT being
a Foundation member).

-- 
Robin Hugh Johnson
Gentoo Linux: Dev, Infra Lead, Foundation Treasurer
E-Mail   : robbat2@gentoo.org
GnuPG FP : 11ACBA4F 4778E3F6 E4EDF38E B27B944E 34884E85
GnuPG FP : 7D0B3CEB E9B85B1F 825BCECF EE05E6F6 A48F6136

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Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Rich Freeman]

On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 6:42 PM Robin H. Johnson <robbat2@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 01:45:25PM -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
> > > 3. It is really meaningless.  Casting a vote does not really indicate
> > > any interest in GF.  It only indicates that someone has done the minimal
> > > effort to avoid being kicked.  There is no reason to conflate the two.
> > I'm certainly interested in other avenues of interest, but I don't see very
> > many in this thread other than "AGM attendance" and "asking people if they
> > are interested[0]"
> - Does involvement on mailing lists count?
> - What other ways outside development might somebody be involved in
>   Gentoo? Not everybody is a developer, let alone an ebuild developer.
>   What if we wound up with PR people who weren't devs at all, but loved
>   to talk about Gentoo?

Gentoo developers do not have to have commit access.  If somebody is
doing significant PR work for Gentoo then they should be made a
developer.  Developers do not need to pass the ebuild quiz.

Anybody with an @g.o email address is a developer.

We used to use the term "staff" but anybody who used to be considered
"staff" is now considered a "developer."

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Robin H. Johnson]

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On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 06:51:00PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 6:42 PM Robin H. Johnson <robbat2@gentoo.org> wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 01:45:25PM -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
> > > > 3. It is really meaningless.  Casting a vote does not really indicate
> > > > any interest in GF.  It only indicates that someone has done the minimal
> > > > effort to avoid being kicked.  There is no reason to conflate the two.
> > > I'm certainly interested in other avenues of interest, but I don't see very
> > > many in this thread other than "AGM attendance" and "asking people if they
> > > are interested[0]"
> > - Does involvement on mailing lists count?
> > - What other ways outside development might somebody be involved in
> >   Gentoo? Not everybody is a developer, let alone an ebuild developer.
> >   What if we wound up with PR people who weren't devs at all, but loved
> >   to talk about Gentoo?
> 
> Gentoo developers do not have to have commit access.  If somebody is
> doing significant PR work for Gentoo then they should be made a
> developer.  Developers do not need to pass the ebuild quiz.
I meant "developer" as the generic "one who develops software".
Ebuilds are not the only code-like activity, there's multiple other
software packages that Gentoo relies on: openrc, netifrc, genkernel,
catalyst, eselect are some of them.
They may have commit access to those packages, and not to ebuilds.

I need to distinguish between:
- ebuild coding contribution
- non-ebuild-coding contribution
- non-coding contribution

> Anybody with an @g.o email address is a developer.
> 
> We used to use the term "staff" but anybody who used to be considered
> "staff" is now considered a "developer."
I stated when the switch away from "staff" was done, that I felt we were
doing ourselves a dis-service by not picking a better word than
"developer" - something that includes all of the contributions above,
without implying specific technical skills. "Contributor" was down-voted
at the time.

-- 
Robin Hugh Johnson
Gentoo Linux: Dev, Infra Lead, Foundation Treasurer
E-Mail   : robbat2@gentoo.org
GnuPG FP : 11ACBA4F 4778E3F6 E4EDF38E B27B944E 34884E85
GnuPG FP : 7D0B3CEB E9B85B1F 825BCECF EE05E6F6 A48F6136

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[gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Michael Everitt]

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On 06/09/19 15:36, Robin H. Johnson wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 06:51:00PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
>> On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 6:42 PM Robin H. Johnson <robbat2@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>> On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 01:45:25PM -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
>>>>> 3. It is really meaningless.  Casting a vote does not really indicate
>>>>> any interest in GF.  It only indicates that someone has done the minimal
>>>>> effort to avoid being kicked.  There is no reason to conflate the two.
>>>> I'm certainly interested in other avenues of interest, but I don't see very
>>>> many in this thread other than "AGM attendance" and "asking people if they
>>>> are interested[0]"
>>> - Does involvement on mailing lists count?
>>> - What other ways outside development might somebody be involved in
>>>   Gentoo? Not everybody is a developer, let alone an ebuild developer.
>>>   What if we wound up with PR people who weren't devs at all, but loved
>>>   to talk about Gentoo?
>> Gentoo developers do not have to have commit access.  If somebody is
>> doing significant PR work for Gentoo then they should be made a
>> developer.  Developers do not need to pass the ebuild quiz.
> I meant "developer" as the generic "one who develops software".
> Ebuilds are not the only code-like activity, there's multiple other
> software packages that Gentoo relies on: openrc, netifrc, genkernel,
> catalyst, eselect are some of them.
> They may have commit access to those packages, and not to ebuilds.
>
> I need to distinguish between:
> - ebuild coding contribution
> - non-ebuild-coding contribution
> - non-coding contribution
>
>> Anybody with an @g.o email address is a developer.
>>
>> We used to use the term "staff" but anybody who used to be considered
>> "staff" is now considered a "developer."
> I stated when the switch away from "staff" was done, that I felt we were
> doing ourselves a dis-service by not picking a better word than
> "developer" - something that includes all of the contributions above,
> without implying specific technical skills. "Contributor" was down-voted
> at the time.
>
Reading (somewhat extensively) between the lines, there is a subtle move
for those developing code and ebuilds to "take over" control and management
of the distribution (cf. electorate of 'council'). Whether this is
something that is (1) really happening or (2) desirable, I shall leave as
an exercise for the reader; but I thought was probably worth highlighting.




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Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Alec Warner]

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On Fri, Sep 6, 2019 at 9:48 AM Michael Everitt <gentoo@veremit.xyz> wrote:

> On 06/09/19 15:36, Robin H. Johnson wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 06:51:00PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> >> On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 6:42 PM Robin H. Johnson <robbat2@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
> >>> On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 01:45:25PM -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
> >>>>> 3. It is really meaningless.  Casting a vote does not really indicate
> >>>>> any interest in GF.  It only indicates that someone has done the
> minimal
> >>>>> effort to avoid being kicked.  There is no reason to conflate the
> two.
> >>>> I'm certainly interested in other avenues of interest, but I don't
> see very
> >>>> many in this thread other than "AGM attendance" and "asking people if
> they
> >>>> are interested[0]"
> >>> - Does involvement on mailing lists count?
> >>> - What other ways outside development might somebody be involved in
> >>>   Gentoo? Not everybody is a developer, let alone an ebuild developer.
> >>>   What if we wound up with PR people who weren't devs at all, but loved
> >>>   to talk about Gentoo?
> >> Gentoo developers do not have to have commit access.  If somebody is
> >> doing significant PR work for Gentoo then they should be made a
> >> developer.  Developers do not need to pass the ebuild quiz.
> > I meant "developer" as the generic "one who develops software".
> > Ebuilds are not the only code-like activity, there's multiple other
> > software packages that Gentoo relies on: openrc, netifrc, genkernel,
> > catalyst, eselect are some of them.
> > They may have commit access to those packages, and not to ebuilds.
> >
> > I need to distinguish between:
> > - ebuild coding contribution
> > - non-ebuild-coding contribution
> > - non-coding contribution
> >
> >> Anybody with an @g.o email address is a developer.
> >>
> >> We used to use the term "staff" but anybody who used to be considered
> >> "staff" is now considered a "developer."
> > I stated when the switch away from "staff" was done, that I felt we were
> > doing ourselves a dis-service by not picking a better word than
> > "developer" - something that includes all of the contributions above,
> > without implying specific technical skills. "Contributor" was down-voted
> > at the time.
> >
> Reading (somewhat extensively) between the lines, there is a subtle move
> for those developing code and ebuilds to "take over" control and management
> of the distribution (cf. electorate of 'council'). Whether this is
> something that is (1) really happening or (2) desirable, I shall leave as
> an exercise for the reader; but I thought was probably worth highlighting.
>
>
Most of the existing board resigned in the last election, so if anyone
wanted to 'take over' the Foundation there was ample opportunity; but
everyone who resigned was re-elected. It seems like this theory has some
holes in practice ;)

-A

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[gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Michael Everitt]

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On 06/09/19 18:32, Alec Warner wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 6, 2019 at 9:48 AM Michael Everitt <gentoo@veremit.xyz
> <mailto:gentoo@veremit.xyz>> wrote:
>
>     On 06/09/19 15:36, Robin H. Johnson wrote:
>     > On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 06:51:00PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
>     >> On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 6:42 PM Robin H. Johnson
>     <robbat2@gentoo.org <mailto:robbat2@gentoo.org>> wrote:
>     >>> On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 01:45:25PM -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
>     >>>>> 3. It is really meaningless.  Casting a vote does not really
>     indicate
>     >>>>> any interest in GF.  It only indicates that someone has done
>     the minimal
>     >>>>> effort to avoid being kicked.  There is no reason to conflate
>     the two.
>     >>>> I'm certainly interested in other avenues of interest, but I
>     don't see very
>     >>>> many in this thread other than "AGM attendance" and "asking
>     people if they
>     >>>> are interested[0]"
>     >>> - Does involvement on mailing lists count?
>     >>> - What other ways outside development might somebody be involved in
>     >>>   Gentoo? Not everybody is a developer, let alone an ebuild
>     developer.
>     >>>   What if we wound up with PR people who weren't devs at all, but
>     loved
>     >>>   to talk about Gentoo?
>     >> Gentoo developers do not have to have commit access.  If somebody is
>     >> doing significant PR work for Gentoo then they should be made a
>     >> developer.  Developers do not need to pass the ebuild quiz.
>     > I meant "developer" as the generic "one who develops software".
>     > Ebuilds are not the only code-like activity, there's multiple other
>     > software packages that Gentoo relies on: openrc, netifrc, genkernel,
>     > catalyst, eselect are some of them.
>     > They may have commit access to those packages, and not to ebuilds.
>     >
>     > I need to distinguish between:
>     > - ebuild coding contribution
>     > - non-ebuild-coding contribution
>     > - non-coding contribution
>     >
>     >> Anybody with an @g.o email address is a developer.
>     >>
>     >> We used to use the term "staff" but anybody who used to be considered
>     >> "staff" is now considered a "developer."
>     > I stated when the switch away from "staff" was done, that I felt we
>     were
>     > doing ourselves a dis-service by not picking a better word than
>     > "developer" - something that includes all of the contributions above,
>     > without implying specific technical skills. "Contributor" was
>     down-voted
>     > at the time.
>     >
>     Reading (somewhat extensively) between the lines, there is a subtle move
>     for those developing code and ebuilds to "take over" control and
>     management
>     of the distribution (cf. electorate of 'council'). Whether this is
>     something that is (1) really happening or (2) desirable, I shall leave as
>     an exercise for the reader; but I thought was probably worth
>     highlighting.
>
>
> Most of the existing board resigned in the last election, so if anyone
> wanted to 'take over' the Foundation there was ample opportunity; but
> everyone who resigned was re-elected. It seems like this theory has some
> holes in practice ;)
>
> -A 
Yeah, I believe there are some "hysterical raisins" in play here also ..
something about all the power without so much of the responsibility ..
*duck, cover*

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Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Brad Teaford Cowan]

On Fri, 2019-09-06 at 17:48 +0100, Michael Everitt wrote:
> On 06/09/19 15:36, Robin H. Johnson wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 06:51:00PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> > > On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 6:42 PM Robin H. Johnson <
> > > robbat2@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 01:45:25PM -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
> > > > > > 3. It is really meaningless.  Casting a vote does not
> > > > > > really indicate
> > > > > > any interest in GF.  It only indicates that someone has
> > > > > > done the minimal
> > > > > > effort to avoid being kicked.  There is no reason to
> > > > > > conflate the two.
> > > > > I'm certainly interested in other avenues of interest, but I
> > > > > don't see very
> > > > > many in this thread other than "AGM attendance" and "asking
> > > > > people if they
> > > > > are interested[0]"
> > > > - Does involvement on mailing lists count?
> > > > - What other ways outside development might somebody be
> > > > involved in
> > > >   Gentoo? Not everybody is a developer, let alone an ebuild
> > > > developer.
> > > >   What if we wound up with PR people who weren't devs at all,
> > > > but loved
> > > >   to talk about Gentoo?
> > > Gentoo developers do not have to have commit access.  If somebody
> > > is
> > > doing significant PR work for Gentoo then they should be made a
> > > developer.  Developers do not need to pass the ebuild quiz.
> > I meant "developer" as the generic "one who develops software".
> > Ebuilds are not the only code-like activity, there's multiple other
> > software packages that Gentoo relies on: openrc, netifrc,
> > genkernel,
> > catalyst, eselect are some of them.
> > They may have commit access to those packages, and not to ebuilds.
> > 
> > I need to distinguish between:
> > - ebuild coding contribution
> > - non-ebuild-coding contribution
> > - non-coding contribution
> > 
> > > Anybody with an @g.o email address is a developer.
> > > 
> > > We used to use the term "staff" but anybody who used to be
> > > considered
> > > "staff" is now considered a "developer."
> > I stated when the switch away from "staff" was done, that I felt we
> > were
> > doing ourselves a dis-service by not picking a better word than
> > "developer" - something that includes all of the contributions
> > above,
> > without implying specific technical skills. "Contributor" was down-
> > voted
> > at the time.
> > 
> Reading (somewhat extensively) between the lines, there is a subtle
> move
> for those developing code and ebuilds to "take over" control and
> management
> of the distribution (cf. electorate of 'council'). Whether this is
> something that is (1) really happening or (2) desirable, I shall
> leave as
> an exercise for the reader; but I thought was probably worth
> highlighting.
> 
> 
> 
  As a long time former dev, who went through the rough times that
necessitated the formation of the foundation, I felt I needed to
respond to these posts.  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. Whether that gain be money,
power, or posturing for a job at Red Hat et al.  The foundation has
systemically been weakened, preening membership by any means possible.
Eventually we will be left with just those developers seeking these
gains ie. umbrella. This directly puts Gentoo right back in harms way,
the original position it was pre-foundation.

  I lost my membership after missing a couple votes I assume, even
though I had thought I was assured a lifetime seat being an original
member. I know there are lots of other ex-developers out there who
still love Gentoo at heart and deserve their right to protect its
direction and IP from these threats from within. I personally think the
foundation should be stengthened and more a separation from developer
to foundation member. It's almost a conflict of interest or just asking
for corruption to be in control of the foundation and the council.
Anyway, now I'm rambling, so in closing, No changes unless they are to
add and or strengthen foundation and not weaken it further. THANKS

Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Alec Warner]

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On Fri, Sep 6, 2019 at 1:35 PM Brad Teaford Cowan <bradly.cowan@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Fri, 2019-09-06 at 17:48 +0100, Michael Everitt wrote:
> > On 06/09/19 15:36, Robin H. Johnson wrote:
> > > On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 06:51:00PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 6:42 PM Robin H. Johnson <
> > > > robbat2@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > > > > On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 01:45:25PM -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
> > > > > > > 3. It is really meaningless.  Casting a vote does not
> > > > > > > really indicate
> > > > > > > any interest in GF.  It only indicates that someone has
> > > > > > > done the minimal
> > > > > > > effort to avoid being kicked.  There is no reason to
> > > > > > > conflate the two.
> > > > > > I'm certainly interested in other avenues of interest, but I
> > > > > > don't see very
> > > > > > many in this thread other than "AGM attendance" and "asking
> > > > > > people if they
> > > > > > are interested[0]"
> > > > > - Does involvement on mailing lists count?
> > > > > - What other ways outside development might somebody be
> > > > > involved in
> > > > >   Gentoo? Not everybody is a developer, let alone an ebuild
> > > > > developer.
> > > > >   What if we wound up with PR people who weren't devs at all,
> > > > > but loved
> > > > >   to talk about Gentoo?
> > > > Gentoo developers do not have to have commit access.  If somebody
> > > > is
> > > > doing significant PR work for Gentoo then they should be made a
> > > > developer.  Developers do not need to pass the ebuild quiz.
> > > I meant "developer" as the generic "one who develops software".
> > > Ebuilds are not the only code-like activity, there's multiple other
> > > software packages that Gentoo relies on: openrc, netifrc,
> > > genkernel,
> > > catalyst, eselect are some of them.
> > > They may have commit access to those packages, and not to ebuilds.
> > >
> > > I need to distinguish between:
> > > - ebuild coding contribution
> > > - non-ebuild-coding contribution
> > > - non-coding contribution
> > >
> > > > Anybody with an @g.o email address is a developer.
> > > >
> > > > We used to use the term "staff" but anybody who used to be
> > > > considered
> > > > "staff" is now considered a "developer."
> > > I stated when the switch away from "staff" was done, that I felt we
> > > were
> > > doing ourselves a dis-service by not picking a better word than
> > > "developer" - something that includes all of the contributions
> > > above,
> > > without implying specific technical skills. "Contributor" was down-
> > > voted
> > > at the time.
> > >
> > Reading (somewhat extensively) between the lines, there is a subtle
> > move
> > for those developing code and ebuilds to "take over" control and
> > management
> > of the distribution (cf. electorate of 'council'). Whether this is
> > something that is (1) really happening or (2) desirable, I shall
> > leave as
> > an exercise for the reader; but I thought was probably worth
> > highlighting.
> >
> >
> >
>   As a long time former dev, who went through the rough times that
> necessitated the formation of the foundation, I felt I needed to
> respond to these posts.  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. Whether that gain be money,
> power, or posturing for a job at Red Hat et al.  The foundation has
> systemically been weakened, preening membership by any means possible.
> Eventually we will be left with just those developers seeking these
> gains ie. umbrella. This directly puts Gentoo right back in harms way,
> the original position it was pre-foundation.
>
>   I lost my membership after missing a couple votes I assume, even
> though I had thought I was assured a lifetime seat being an original
> member. I know there are lots of other ex-developers out there who
> still love Gentoo at heart and deserve their right to protect its
> direction and IP from these threats from within. I personally think the
> foundation should be stengthened and more a separation from developer
> to foundation member. It's almost a conflict of interest or just asking
> for corruption to be in control of the foundation and the council.
> Anyway, now I'm rambling, so in closing, No changes unless they are to
> add and or strengthen foundation and not weaken it further. THANKS
>
>
>
So my response to this post is basically that we don't have enough people
interested in running the Foundation. The Foundation originally had 9 board
seats, then 7, then 5. The 5 are mostly filled with veterans (robin: joined
2003, me: joined 2006, prometheanfire: joined 2011) who don't want these
positions but feel they need to be filled by people who will actually
fulfill these duties. If the Foundation "needs to be strengthened" then we
need candidates actually willing to do these jobs well. In the past
election robin and I both resigned in an attempt to make space on the board
for new members. We had 1 additional person run and all of the incumbents
were re-elected to the board. This is a bad thing! The current board
doesn't want to run the Foundation, we tried to recruit new board members
and basically got 1 recruit, and the Foundation didn't elect them to the
board!

The minimum board size in New Mexico is 3; so technically its possible to
drop two seats and run a board that is [b-man, alicef, mgorny] and robin
and I and prometheanfire can all resign. But in the end I think we will
face similar problems; there just are not enough humans left who care to do
this job. Strengthening the Foundation means finding humans who are willing
to do this long term and most people are not. The people who want the
umbrella are not "seeking power" (I want the umbrella and I'm the board
president!) we want it because we think the umbrella will do at worst, the
same job we have done and at best, do a better job.

-A

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Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Michał Górny]

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On Fri, 2019-09-06 at 16:16 -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
> The minimum board size in New Mexico is 3; so technically its possible to
> drop two seats and run a board that is [b-man, alicef, mgorny] and robin
> and I and prometheanfire can all resign. But in the end I think we will
> face similar problems; there just are not enough humans left who care to do
> this job. Strengthening the Foundation means finding humans who are willing
> to do this long term and most people are not. The people who want the
> umbrella are not "seeking power" (I want the umbrella and I'm the board
> president!) we want it because we think the umbrella will do at worst, the
> same job we have done and at best, do a better job.
> 

For the record, I offered to join to aim in dissolving the Foundation,
not to run keep it running long term.  AFAIK Alice is the only person
on the Board who wants to keep the existing Foundation running.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny


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Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Rich Freeman]

On Fri, Sep 6, 2019 at 4:35 PM Brad Teaford Cowan
<bradly.cowan@gmail.com> 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.

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.

Ironically the Foundation Trustees are the weaker link historically
when it comes to having a small number of people able to "take over."
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
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.

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
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
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.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Aaron Bauman]

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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
> <bradly.cowan@gmail.com> 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.
> 
> 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 and
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. 

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.

-- 
Cheers,
Aaron

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Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Roy Bamford]

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On 2019.09.06 17:48, Michael Everitt wrote:
> On 06/09/19 15:36, Robin H. Johnson wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 06:51:00PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> >> On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 6:42 PM Robin H. Johnson
> <robbat2@gentoo.org> wrote:
> >>> On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 01:45:25PM -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
> >>>>> 3. It is really meaningless.  Casting a vote does not really
> indicate
> >>>>> any interest in GF.  It only indicates that someone has done the
> minimal
> >>>>> effort to avoid being kicked.  There is no reason to conflate
> the two.
> >>>> I'm certainly interested in other avenues of interest, but I
> don't see very
> >>>> many in this thread other than "AGM attendance" and "asking
> people if they
> >>>> are interested[0]"
> >>> - Does involvement on mailing lists count?
> >>> - What other ways outside development might somebody be involved
> in
> >>>   Gentoo? Not everybody is a developer, let alone an ebuild
> developer.
> >>>   What if we wound up with PR people who weren't devs at all, but
> loved
> >>>   to talk about Gentoo?
> >> Gentoo developers do not have to have commit access.  If somebody
> is
> >> doing significant PR work for Gentoo then they should be made a
> >> developer.  Developers do not need to pass the ebuild quiz.
> > I meant "developer" as the generic "one who develops software".
> > Ebuilds are not the only code-like activity, there's multiple other
> > software packages that Gentoo relies on: openrc, netifrc, genkernel,
> > catalyst, eselect are some of them.
> > They may have commit access to those packages, and not to ebuilds.
> >
> > I need to distinguish between:
> > - ebuild coding contribution
> > - non-ebuild-coding contribution
> > - non-coding contribution
> >
> >> Anybody with an @g.o email address is a developer.
> >>
> >> We used to use the term "staff" but anybody who used to be
> considered
> >> "staff" is now considered a "developer."
> > I stated when the switch away from "staff" was done, that I felt we
> were
> > doing ourselves a dis-service by not picking a better word than
> > "developer" - something that includes all of the contributions
> above,
> > without implying specific technical skills. "Contributor" was
> down-voted
> > at the time.
> >
> Reading (somewhat extensively) between the lines, there is a subtle
> move
> for those developing code and ebuilds to "take over" control and
> management
> of the distribution (cf. electorate of 'council'). Whether this is
> something that is (1) really happening or (2) desirable, I shall leave
> as
> an exercise for the reader; but I thought was probably worth
> highlighting.
> 

Compare the numbers of staffers to developers.
Its not really surprising that developers fill most of the "control 
and management" roles in the distro.

There have been staffers on both the council and trustees.

In my view, your observation is both correct and not 
statistically significant.

-- 
Regards,

Roy Bamford
(Neddyseagoon) a member of
elections
gentoo-ops
forum-mods
arm64

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Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Michał Górny]

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On Thu, 2019-09-05 at 22:42 +0000, Robin H. Johnson wrote:
> If you consider various real world voting systems, they generally
> require some form of electoral roll, on which voters are checked off, to
> prevent voting multiple times (this can be enforced with other
> mechanisms).

Sure but I should point out that generally:

1. The people who are checking you off generally try to cover other
voters on the list.

2. They don't have a real way of associating your vote with your check
off.

So I don't think examples of 'real life' voting systems are really
relevant, unless they are 100% electronic and are subject to the same
inherent weaknesses as we are.  However, even then the scale might make
sniffing votes impractical.

> 
> > > 2. It introduces a big weakness in the system.  My whole idea was to
> > > make it practically impossible to sniff votes after the election is
> > > prepared.  With this solution, anyone with sufficient privileges
> > > (election officials, infra) can trivially passively sniff votes.
> > We need to know who cast votes, we don't need to know the content of the
> > votes. I assume building such a system is possible (maybe it isn't?)
> mgorny's system design is explicitly around building protections to
> enable LESS trust being placed in infra & voting officials.
> 
> Timing correlation in when a vote or stub appears in the system is a
> concern in that environment.
> 
> I agree that it should be possible to build this requirement into the
> system, but at what cost in development.

To be honest, I can't really think of a reasonable way to do that.  We
have simply too few votes spread over too much time.

> > > I believe we should consider other options of determining activity.
> > > Depending on whether we actually want to keep people actually interested
> > > in GF, or just those caring enough to stay, I can think of a few
> > > options.
> I'd say those options should be in addition to, rather than instead of
> voting.

Why?  What is the difference, say, between casting a vote and pushing
a 'I am active' button once a year?  If the latter's an option, there's
really no point in leaking voting information just to have two
alternatives.

> 
> > > Another option (which some people aren't going to like) is to require
> > > all Foundation members to be Gentoo devs (but not the other way around),
> > > and then terminate GF membership along with developer status.  Given
> > > that there's only a few non-dev members, and most of them are retired
> > > devs whose membership simply didn't terminate by existing rules yet, I
> > > think there shouldn't really be a problem in making the few interested
> > > members non-commit devs by existing rules.
> > This doesn't really imply interested in the Foundation either though;
> > because the developership and Foundation are separate.
> If this includes making non-commit developership easier to
> get AND maintain (the undertaker discussions about how to gauge
> ongoing involvement of non-commit devs is very relevant to this), then I
> have no conceptual problem with requiring all Foundation members to be
> developers (It should still be possible to be a developer WITHOUT being
> a Foundation member).

That is the point.  However, we need solid proposals for this.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny


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Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Michał Górny]

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On Thu, 2019-09-05 at 13:45 -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 1:14 PM Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> > Hi, everyone.
> > 
> > As some of you have read, I have proposed a new privacy-oriented voting
> > frontend for Gentoo [1].  However, the whole idea was rendered pretty
> > much pointless by Trustees demanding information on who cast a vote.
> > This is currently used to determine 'interest in Foundation',
> > and therefore kick inactive Foundation members.  To be honest, I think
> > it's misguided, for three reasons:
> > 
> > 1. It intrudes on privacy of voters.  I suppose it's not *that major*
> > but still I don't think it's appropriate to publish a 'shame list' of
> > people who haven't voted for whatever reason.
> > 
> 
> I believe in your right to vote and have the content of the vote be
> private. I don't believe in your right to vote anonymously in Foundation
> elections. The fact that you voted should be public. The foundation has
> minimal requirements for membership; if you don't vote in foundation
> affairs (1 vote a year!) then I don't see the point in being a member. It's
> basically the only difference afforded to members[0]! I don't believe we do
> publish a list of who voted in every election, but we do publish a
> membership list and there is definitely a correlation and its intentional.

So, say, if I am actively helping Foundation 8 months a year but I
happen to be on long vacation (finally!) during the election (which
we're considering shortening, AFAIR), should I be removed?

I think you are overestimating the value of a vote.  A vote doesn't
guarantee that someone is actually interested in anything, or done
anything besides SSH-ing to woodpecker or sending a mail.  In fact,
you're effectively asking people to ask random votes if they don't care
but want to stay.

I really think it would be better if people voted only if they really
wanted to vote, not because otherwise they could be kicked out.


> > 2. It introduces a big weakness in the system.  My whole idea was to
> > make it practically impossible to sniff votes after the election is
> > prepared.  With this solution, anyone with sufficient privileges
> > (election officials, infra) can trivially passively sniff votes.
> > 
> 
> We need to know who cast votes, we don't need to know the content of the
> votes. I assume building such a system is possible (maybe it isn't?)

If we need to record both the vote and the attendance simultaneously, it
is trivial to match the two.  With our voting rate, you don't even have
to use inotify() for this, just a periodic look at the server suffices.

> > Another option (which some people aren't going to like) is to require
> > all Foundation members to be Gentoo devs (but not the other way around),
> > and then terminate GF membership along with developer status.  Given
> > that there's only a few non-dev members, and most of them are retired
> > devs whose membership simply didn't terminate by existing rules yet, I
> > think there shouldn't really be a problem in making the few interested
> > members non-commit devs by existing rules.
> > 
> 
> This doesn't really imply interested in the Foundation either though;
> because the developership and Foundation are separate.

Chicken and egg.  I'm talking about making one subset of the other.

> > Finally, if we really don't care we could just send pings and terminate
> > membership of people that don't answer in time.  This is pretty much
> > similar to the current idea with voting, except it doesn't pretend to be
> > meaningful.
> > 
> 
> The point of tracking who votes is that votes are nominally the only real
> difference between members and non-members; so in the end it's one of the
> few ways members can express their interest. If we had shares, then owning
> those would be an interest; or donations, or funding requests, or some
> other idea.

It's funny how money keeps coming up in this topic (it also came up last
time when I talked about it) when Bylaws explicitly say that membership
cannot be bought.

> [0] A plausible reality is that most members don't even have 'an interest'
> in Foundation affairs and if we increase the minimum requirement for
> membership we might see a precipitous drop in member count; we would need
> to debate whether or not this is a desired outcome or not.
> 

I think having a quorum is one of the things desired.  If Trustees are
opposed to lowering the requirement for a quorum, then kicking people
who are not really interested is another way of achieving that.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny


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Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Roy Bamford]

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On 2019.09.06 06:29, Michał Górny wrote:

Michał,
 
[snip]

Some history.
In 2008, when I was elected as a trustee, there was no way to retire
Foundation members. All developers and staffers became members 
automatically. It was an opt out system, which a few people did not
agree with.
With the Foundation being only four years old, there was no way that
a meeting of members, or action by members could ever be achieved.

The original problem that this standard operating procedure (SoP), 
it was deliberately not a bylaw, was introduced to retire 'inactive' 
members.

> 
> I really think it would be better if people voted only if they really
> wanted to vote, not because otherwise they could be kicked out.

That works if you have some other way to determine the active 
membership.

The reason that missing two elections was initially used was that it
allows for a long Holiday now and again. At that time, votes were 
not always required, as candidates could be returned unopposed.
Just like in any other incorporated entity.

The rule was a SoP so it could be tested and changed by a vote
of the board as changing the bylaws involves paying fees to NM.
Besides, the process needed to be tested to ensure it had the 
desired effect. 
> 
>
[snip]
> 
> I think having a quorum is one of the things desired.  If Trustees are
> opposed to lowering the requirement for a quorum, then kicking people
> who are not really interested is another way of achieving that.

Thats were we came in. How?

> 
> -- 
> Best regards,
> Michał Górny
> 
> 

I'll point out that it may never matter in practice. The Foundations
assets may be transferred to an umbrella before the end of the current
Foundation financial year, so whatever is decided will never be used.

-- 
Regards,

Roy Bamford
(Neddyseagoon) a member of
elections
gentoo-ops
forum-mods
arm64

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Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Raymond Jennings]

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On Fri, Sep 6, 2019 at 2:51 AM Roy Bamford <neddyseagoon@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On 2019.09.06 06:29, Michał Górny wrote:
>
> Michał,
>
> [snip]
>
> Some history.
> In 2008, when I was elected as a trustee, there was no way to retire
> Foundation members. All developers and staffers became members
> automatically. It was an opt out system, which a few people did not
> agree with.
> With the Foundation being only four years old, there was no way that
> a meeting of members, or action by members could ever be achieved.
>
> The original problem that this standard operating procedure (SoP),
> it was deliberately not a bylaw, was introduced to retire 'inactive'
> members.
>
> >
> > I really think it would be better if people voted only if they really
> > wanted to vote, not because otherwise they could be kicked out.
>

For what it's worth, I voted because it was my duty as a foundation member,
AND I care about the distro the foundation supports.

Me potentially being kicked out if I don't vote is of course on my mind,
but avoiding removal isn't my primary concern that motivates me to vote.  I
actually did read the manifestos etc of the candidates, for the record, and
I only made a vote for a single candidate, and expressly selected "reopen
nominations" for every other spot on my ballot because other than the
candidate that I *did* vote for, I didn't agree with their philosophies.

That works if you have some other way to determine the active
> membership.
>
> The reason that missing two elections was initially used was that it
> allows for a long Holiday now and again. At that time, votes were
> not always required, as candidates could be returned unopposed.
> Just like in any other incorporated entity.
>
> The rule was a SoP so it could be tested and changed by a vote
> of the board as changing the bylaws involves paying fees to NM.
> Besides, the process needed to be tested to ensure it had the
> desired effect.
> >
> >
> [snip]
> >
> > I think having a quorum is one of the things desired.  If Trustees are
> > opposed to lowering the requirement for a quorum, then kicking people
> > who are not really interested is another way of achieving that.
>
> Thats were we came in. How?
>

I'm aware of bylaw clause 4.9 at the very least.

I'm not a trustee, but as a member I oppose any motion that would make it
easier for foundation members to be removed that doesn't also give the
prospective removee a fair chance to oppose their removal.  I'm hesitant to
allow a foundation member to be removed involuntarily simply on grounds of
an alleged lack of interest, and I say alleged for a reason.

If someone doesn't respond to pings or goes incommunicado, that's one thing.
Someone actively resisting their removal and getting removed in spite of
that is another.

Considering that the undertakers attempted recently to involuntarily retire
a developer in spite of said developer's objection, and that said motion
was only stopped by direct intervention from the council, I believe I have
a good reason to advocate caution in regards to social procedures.

In my opinion, any case where a foundation member should be removed in the
face of them objecting to the removal is also a case that should be
reserved for invocation of bylaw clause 4.9.

> >
> > --
> > Best regards,
> > Michał Górny
> >
> >
>
> I'll point out that it may never matter in practice. The Foundations
> assets may be transferred to an umbrella before the end of the current
> Foundation financial year, so whatever is decided will never be used.
>

For what it's worth, I intend to oppose this motion to the fullest extent
possible.  I am currently a foundation member, and in spite of my extensive
(and not worth elaborating on) record of failing to properly fit into the
gentoo community, I still care about the distro, and I do not think that
dissolving the foundation would be in the best interests of the mission it
was formed to support.

>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Roy Bamford
> (Neddyseagoon) a member of
> elections
> gentoo-ops
> forum-mods
> arm64

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Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Michał Górny]

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On Fri, 2019-09-06 at 05:11 -0700, Raymond Jennings wrote:
> Considering that the undertakers attempted recently to involuntarily retire
> a developer in spite of said developer's objection, and that said motion
> was only stopped by direct intervention from the council, I believe I have
> a good reason to advocate caution in regards to social procedures.

This is not only an off-topic but also a blatant lie.


-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny


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Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[Rich Freeman]

On Fri, Sep 6, 2019 at 9:13 AM Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 2019-09-06 at 05:11 -0700, Raymond Jennings wrote:
> > Considering that the undertakers attempted recently to involuntarily retire
> > a developer in spite of said developer's objection, and that said motion
> > was only stopped by direct intervention from the council, I believe I have
> > a good reason to advocate caution in regards to social procedures.
>
> This is not only an off-topic but also a blatant lie.

Either way I think it is irrelevant.  Consider the possibilities:

* If they objected to being booted out and undertakers relented, that
is fair due process.

* If they objected to being booted out, appealed to council, and
council reversed the decision, that is fair due process.

* If they objected to being booted out, appealed to council, and
council allowed them to be booted, that is STILL fair due process.

Being a Foundation Member isn't some kind of human right.  It makes
sense to limit membership to people who have an ACTIVE interest in the
affairs of the distro.

Sure, at some point there will be cases where somebody argues a dev is
active enough and others argue they aren't.  Boundary conditions will
always exist.  They won't be adjudicated perfectly.  However, I trust
that people will generally make the right decision and if something is
borderline enough that there was reason to have doubt, then it
shouldn't be so controversial.  When we start seeing undertakers boot
people who have 10 commits per week, or who have 20 bug comments per
week, or who send out 2 GLSAs per week, or publish a bunch of PR
stuff, or moderate 30 forum posts, and so on...  Well, then we'll have
reasons to be concerned.  We're splitting hairs about whether somebody
who has 3 commits a decade is or isn't active enough and using this as
a reason to maintain bylaws that might not make sense with voting
improvements.

Personally I like the status quo, but I can't really object to some of
the proposed improvements in the security/anonymity of voting, and
those will probably necessitate changing how we count Foundation
activity.  Unless, that is, we just keep voting using the present
method or consider secret ballot less important.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-nfp] [RFC] Alternative methods for determining 'interest in Foundation affairs'

[desultory]

On 09/06/19 09:13, Michał Górny wrote:
> On Fri, 2019-09-06 at 05:11 -0700, Raymond Jennings wrote:
>> Considering that the undertakers attempted recently to involuntarily retire
>> a developer in spite of said developer's objection, and that said motion
>> was only stopped by direct intervention from the council, I believe I have
>> a good reason to advocate caution in regards to social procedures.
> 
> This is not only an off-topic but also a blatant lie.
> 
> 
Might I remind you that the description which you are calling a "blatant
lie" is more diplomatically phrased than previous comments on the matter
[1] by someone who was on the council at the time of the incident in
question and who remains so presently? As such, it seems less a "blatant
lie" and more a "politely phrased description of an apparently common
impression".

As for it being "off-topic", this entire discussion is in regards to
maintaining an accurate and up to date voter rolls for the Foundation,
which you specifically advocate maintaining by requiring that all
Foundation members be active Gentoo developers. The logical connection
to the topic at hand seems, to borrow a term, blatantly obvious.

In short, do kindly tone down the hyperbole, it has long since
dissociated from factual reality and that is a decidedly unproductive state.

[1]
https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/e659564c6377eef8f44d75ef666dd56a