Re: [gentoo-project] Questions for Council candidates: Future of the Foundation

[Aaron Bauman <bman@gentoo.org>]

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On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 03:49:52PM -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 2:11 PM Aaron Bauman <bman@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 12:30:04PM -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
> > > On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 8:20 PM Aaron Bauman <bman@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > Seems folks had ideas, but you (really we/Trustees) did not respond. Of
> > course, it also seems many tried to divert the idea of spending any
> > money without consulting Robin as the lead for finanances.
> >
> 
> Yeah I think continuing the finances will help.
>

I believe at this point that the finances are in a state that other
foundation members and Gentoo developers should not be concerned with
submitting various requests.

> 
> >
> > For the record, Robin calcualted (IMHO, very well) what we could spend
> > and what we couldn't. So, for those following this mail, please know
> > that due diligence is completed before any funds are appropriated. Then
> > and now.
> >
> 
> I am also sad that we basically received no net new funding requests to the
> Foundation. Everyone has ideas on how to spend money but no one is
> executing anything. I think dillfridge was correct on that thread when he
> said that the problem isn't necessarily money, but instead we lack the
> people to execute on these ideas. We did the Nitrokey thing because people
> did care and pushed that idea forward; getting financial approval for it
> was straightforward
>

This, IMO, is due to the perception of the foundation not being in a
stable position to entertain such requests. Additionally, I believe we,
as a foundation, owe it to the electorate to delineate what type of
requests are acceptable. For example, I don't believe we can currently
fund someone as an employee (Robin, please correct me if needed).
However, we can due other items such as fund conference attendance, pay
for a particular contract, or donate funds to other organizations.

If we can definitively state what is acceptable then I expect members to
request such items.

> I see two main problems:
> 1) The main problem with efforts appears not to be a lack of money and
> instead is a lack of leadership (e.g. someone pushing a project through.)
> 2) The foundation has been reticent to hire people to do this work for two
> reasons.
>     a) The Foundation has often not wanted employees, or contractors; this
> is mostly due to a lack of D&O insurance.

As stated above, we have other options vice hiring someone directly as
an at-will or salaried employee. For instance, we could hire someone to
produce a particular product or endstate for some software. The exact
same as we have contracted tax support to a particular organization.
This bypasses any D&O concerns, but IMO such concerns where D&O would
become relevant are nil.

>     b) The Community has not been particularly receptive to paid vs unpaid
> developers; we would need some method to manage this.
> 

Do you mean like a lottery or something to ensure there is no bias? If
so, what about a method such as GSOC where proposals are voted on based
on merit, ingenuinity, impact, etc?

-- 
Cheers,
Aaron

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