[gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Matthias Maier]

Hi all,

The next council meeting is in about two weeks. This is the time to
raise and prepare items that the council should put on the agenda to
discuss or vote on.

Please respond to this message with agenda items.

Please repeat your agenda item here with a pointer if you previously
suggested one (since the last meeting)!

The agenda for the meeting will be sent out on Sunday 2018-04-01.

Please reply to the gentoo-project list.

Best,
Matthias

Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[R0b0t1]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 5:11 PM, Matthias Maier <tamiko@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Please respond to this message with agenda items.
>

W- well, sir, I would like everyone to know that I have two cats, and
they are very good cats.

Cheers,
     R0b0t1

Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Andreas K. Huettel]

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Am Mittwoch, 28. März 2018, 16:33:29 CEST schrieb R0b0t1:
> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 5:11 PM, Matthias Maier <tamiko@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > Please respond to this message with agenda items.
> 
> W- well, sir, I would like everyone to know that I have two cats, and
> they are very good cats.
> 

Excellent. Cat content is *never* offtopic.

-- 
Andreas K. Hüttel
dilfridge@gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux developer
(council, toolchain, perl, libreoffice, comrel)

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Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Michał Górny]

W dniu wto, 27.03.2018 o godzinie 17∶11 -0500, użytkownik Matthias Maier
napisał:
> The next council meeting is in about two weeks. This is the time to
> raise and prepare items that the council should put on the agenda to
> discuss or vote on.
> 
> Please respond to this message with agenda items.
> 
> Please repeat your agenda item here with a pointer if you previously
> suggested one (since the last meeting)!
> 
> The agenda for the meeting will be sent out on Sunday 2018-04-01.
> 

If we manage to find the time after solving the important cat problem,
I'd like the Council to vote on final EAPI 7 version. This would be all
items originally pre-approved, excluding the following:

a. Sandbox path removal functions rm* [1] as requested by ulm. We've
established that those aren't strictly needed at the moment and we'd
like to come up with a better design (possibly a single function instead
of 4 we have now, or 8+ we'd have with the proposal).

b. Runtime-switchable USE flags [2] due to not being implemented.

c. ||= binding any-of deps [3] due to not being implemented (and not
even being clear on how it could be implemented).

The EAPI 7 draft is available at [4]. Note that it needs to be updated
for the removed items.

All other items were implemented and tested in Portage. The only item
not merged yet is SYSROOT/BROOT whose implementation is still being
nitpicked a bit but there's no risk that it wouldn't be finished soon.

While at it, I would also like to establish a timeline for permitting
tree-wide use of EAPI 7.

[1]:https://bugs.gentoo.org/630422
[2]:https://bugs.gentoo.org/424283
[3]:https://bugs.gentoo.org/489458
[4]:https://dev.gentoo.org/~ulm/pms/7-draft/pms.html

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, Michał Górny wrote:

> If we manage to find the time after solving the important cat
> problem, I'd like the Council to vote on final EAPI 7 version.

Heh, don't spoil this list with on-topic postings. :)

> [...]

> The EAPI 7 draft is available at [4]. Note that it needs to be
> updated for the removed items.

I'll do that before the meeting.

Ulrich

> [4]:https://dev.gentoo.org/~ulm/pms/7-draft/pms.html

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Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, Michał Górny wrote:
>> The EAPI 7 draft is available at [4]. Note that it needs to be
>> updated for the removed items.

Updated draft pushed to the eapi-7 branch of the PMS repo. The draft
is available for review at: https://dev.gentoo.org/~ulm/pms/7-draft/

Ulrich

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Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Michał Górny]

W dniu wto, 27.03.2018 o godzinie 17∶11 -0500, użytkownik Matthias Maier
napisał:
> The next council meeting is in about two weeks. This is the time to
> raise and prepare items that the council should put on the agenda to
> discuss or vote on.
> 
> Please respond to this message with agenda items.
> 

Next item: provided that EAPI 7 is approved, we'd have 4 'live' EAPIs
in motion [1]. I'd like therefore request the Council to vote on:

a. banning EAPI 4 for new ebuilds (and EAPI bumps of existing ebuilds).
It has been deprecated on 2015-10-11. In the past, deprecated EAPIs were
banned within 11/23 months from deprecation, so we're overdue.

2. deprecating EAPI 5. In case of EAPIs 3-4 they were deprecated 4-5
years after being added. EAPI 6 has been added on 2015-11-13, and even
toolchain team already uses it, so there's really no reason to use
EAPI 5 anymore.

[1]:https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Package_Manager_Specification#Council_approval_and_use_in_Gentoo_repository

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, Michał Górny wrote:

> Next item: provided that EAPI 7 is approved, we'd have 4 'live' EAPIs
> in motion [1]. I'd like therefore request the Council to vote on:

> a. banning EAPI 4 for new ebuilds (and EAPI bumps of existing ebuilds).
> It has been deprecated on 2015-10-11. In the past, deprecated EAPIs were
> banned within 11/23 months from deprecation, so we're overdue.

Fine with me.

> 2. deprecating EAPI 5. In case of EAPIs 3-4 they were deprecated 4-5
> years after being added.

I think a better indicator is the time between support for EAPI n+1 in
stable Portage, and deprecation of EAPI n (see [1]). Using this, I get
37 months for EAPI 2, 35 months for EAPI 3, and 34 months for EAPI 4
deprecation.

> EAPI 6 has been added on 2015-11-13, and even toolchain team already
> uses it, so there's really no reason to use EAPI 5 anymore.

Stable Portage supports EAPI 6 since 2016-01-17, i.e. since 26 months.
So we would be somewhat on the early side.

What worries me more is that deprecation of EAPI 5 would apply to
profiles too. However, all profiles are still at EAPI 5 at this point,
and I don't see any value in upgrading them to EAPI 6.

Ulrich

> [1]:https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Package_Manager_Specification#Council_approval_and_use_in_Gentoo_repository

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Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Michał Górny]

W dniu czw, 29.03.2018 o godzinie 13∶24 +0200, użytkownik Ulrich Mueller
napisał:
> > > > > > On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, Michał Górny wrote:
> > Next item: provided that EAPI 7 is approved, we'd have 4 'live' EAPIs
> > in motion [1]. I'd like therefore request the Council to vote on:
> > a. banning EAPI 4 for new ebuilds (and EAPI bumps of existing ebuilds).
> > It has been deprecated on 2015-10-11. In the past, deprecated EAPIs were
> > banned within 11/23 months from deprecation, so we're overdue.
> 
> Fine with me.
> 
> > 2. deprecating EAPI 5. In case of EAPIs 3-4 they were deprecated 4-5
> > years after being added.
> 
> I think a better indicator is the time between support for EAPI n+1 in
> stable Portage, and deprecation of EAPI n (see [1]). Using this, I get
> 37 months for EAPI 2, 35 months for EAPI 3, and 34 months for EAPI 4
> deprecation.
> 
> > EAPI 6 has been added on 2015-11-13, and even toolchain team already
> > uses it, so there's really no reason to use EAPI 5 anymore.
> 
> Stable Portage supports EAPI 6 since 2016-01-17, i.e. since 26 months.
> So we would be somewhat on the early side.

Not that it's less than the supported upgrade path.

> What worries me more is that deprecation of EAPI 5 would apply to
> profiles too. However, all profiles are still at EAPI 5 at this point,
> and I don't see any value in upgrading them to EAPI 6.

That's a fair argument. However:

1. Does deprecation really mean anything in terms of profiles? Even
in the context of EAPI bans we explicitly stated that it affects new
packages and EAPI bumps. I think deprecating it for ebuilds is still
meaningful even if profiles would stay EAPI 5.

2. Do we want to keep profiles EAPI 5 indefinitely? If we consider it
a goal to reduce the number of EAPIs in use, I think it would be
reasonable to bump profiles to EAPI 6 proactively, even if it doesn't
change anything.

> 
> Ulrich
> 
> > [1]:https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Package_Manager_Specification#Council_approval_and_use_in_Gentoo_repository

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, Michał Górny wrote:

>> Stable Portage supports EAPI 6 since 2016-01-17, i.e. since 26
>> months. So we would be somewhat on the early side.

> Not that it's less than the supported upgrade path.

Yes, I don't think that we have a problem there. Just noting that's
it would be sooner than for all previous EAPIs.

>> What worries me more is that deprecation of EAPI 5 would apply to
>> profiles too. However, all profiles are still at EAPI 5 at this
>> point, and I don't see any value in upgrading them to EAPI 6.

> That's a fair argument. However:

> 1. Does deprecation really mean anything in terms of profiles? Even
> in the context of EAPI bans we explicitly stated that it affects new
> packages and EAPI bumps. I think deprecating it for ebuilds is still
> meaningful even if profiles would stay EAPI 5.

OK, but then we should clearly state this.

> 2. Do we want to keep profiles EAPI 5 indefinitely? If we consider
> it a goal to reduce the number of EAPIs in use, I think it would be
> reasonable to bump profiles to EAPI 6 proactively, even if it
> doesn't change anything.

The only effect this has is that it can impede some users' upgrade
path. Or is there any feature in EAPI 6 that is needed in profiles?

Another way to keep the number of EAPIs limited would be to skip
EAPI 6 for profiles. We have done that for EAPIs 3 and 4 previously
(i.e., all previous and current profiles were EAPI 0, 1, 2, or 5).

Ulrich

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Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Andreas K. Huettel]

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Am Donnerstag, 29. März 2018, 15:34:05 CEST schrieb Michał Górny:
> 
> 1. Does deprecation really mean anything in terms of profiles? Even
> in the context of EAPI bans we explicitly stated that it affects new
> packages and EAPI bumps. I think deprecating it for ebuilds is still
> meaningful even if profiles would stay EAPI 5.

If we state that we deprecate *ebuilds* then it doesnt affect profiles.
So it just depends on the wording.

Having an EAPI deprecated for part of its impact is kinda messy though.

> 
> 2. Do we want to keep profiles EAPI 5 indefinitely? If we consider it
> a goal to reduce the number of EAPIs in use, I think it would be
> reasonable to bump profiles to EAPI 6 proactively, even if it doesn't
> change anything.

We can bump them, but very slowly... and best at release-like steps like 13.0 
-> 17.0. 

If your portage doesn't understand some ebuilds, that's kinda half-safe for a 
transition time (it just won't see the updates). 
If your portage doesn't understand your profile, that makes things explode 
much more efficiently.

-- 
Andreas K. Hüttel
dilfridge@gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux developer
(council, toolchain, perl, libreoffice, comrel)

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Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera (klondike)]

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Hi Matthias!

El 28/03/18 a las 00:11, Matthias Maier escribió:
> Hi all,
>
> The next council meeting is in about two weeks. This is the time to
> raise and prepare items that the council should put on the agenda to
> discuss or vote on.
>
> Please respond to this message with agenda items.
>
> Please repeat your agenda item here with a pointer if you previously
> suggested one (since the last meeting)!
>
> The agenda for the meeting will be sent out on Sunday 2018-04-01.
>
> Please reply to the gentoo-project list.
>
> Best,
> Matthias
>
I'd appreciate if the Council could produce their input regarding
Daniel's propossal to modify the Gentoo Social Contract
https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/8c8534195597ca34ebb3e3bb0a042b3e
after the meeting. Mostly because I plan on bringing it up for approval
on the next board meeting (and hopefully ratification on the next
Foundation member vote) since nobody has come up with a better propossal
yet.

Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera (klondike)
Gentoo Foundation Trustee



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Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Rich Freeman]

On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 7:46 AM, Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera
(klondike) <klondike@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> El 28/03/18 a las 00:11, Matthias Maier escribió:
> I'd appreciate if the Council could produce their input regarding
> Daniel's propossal to modify the Gentoo Social Contract
> https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/8c8534195597ca34ebb3e3bb0a042b3e
> after the meeting. Mostly because I plan on bringing it up for approval
> on the next board meeting (and hopefully ratification on the next
> Foundation member vote) since nobody has come up with a better propossal
> yet.
>

IMO it would make more sense to just change the list to gentoo-project
and fix the metastructure before having a debate over which body
oversees the social contract.

That seems like the least controversial solution.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, Rich Freeman wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 7:46 AM, Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera
> (klondike) <klondike@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> 
>> I'd appreciate if the Council could produce their input regarding
>> Daniel's propossal to modify the Gentoo Social Contract
>> https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/8c8534195597ca34ebb3e3bb0a042b3e
>> after the meeting. Mostly because I plan on bringing it up for
>> approval on the next board meeting (and hopefully ratification on
>> the next Foundation member vote) since nobody has come up with a
>> better propossal yet.

> IMO it would make more sense to just change the list to
> gentoo-project and fix the metastructure before having a debate over
> which body oversees the social contract.

Either that, or if we change it we should be very cautious not to do
any radical changes. Here is my suggestion for the first paragraph:

| This social contract is intended to clearly describe the overall
| development policies and standards of the Gentoo project development
| team. Parts of this document have been derived from the Debian
| Social Contract. Suggestions for improvements are welcome. Please
| send them to our gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org mailing list.

Or as a pseudo-diff with line breaks inserted (since in the markdown
source it is all in one long line):

--- a/get-started/philosophy/social-contract.md
+++ b/get-started/philosophy/social-contract.md
@@ -12 +12 @@
This social contract is intended to clearly describe the overall
development policies and standards of the Gentoo project development
team. Parts of this document have been derived from the [Debian
Social Contract](https://www.debian.org/social_contract).
-It is generally very similar to it except that certain parts have been
-clarified and augmented while other parts deemed redundant have been
-removed.
-Comments are welcome.
+Suggestions for improvements are welcome.
Please send them to our
-[gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org](mailto:gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org)
+[gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org](mailto:gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org)
mailing list.

Rationale:

1. Our version is clearly derived from the Debian social contract,
   so removing the attribution would be bad style. Also [1] explictly
   says: "Other organizations may derive from and build on this
   document. Please give credit to the Debian project if you do."

2. That there are augmentations and removals follows from the fact
   that it is a derived document, so I agree that the third sentence
   is completely redundant and can be removed.

3. The "are welcome" wording is reminiscent of "patches are welcome".
   Keeping it because I like this.

4. Avoid the debate if this is primarily a council or trustees matter.
   Members of both bodies should listen to gentoo-project, so using
   this list seems right. Also I expect changes to be rare, so this
   shouldn't add any significant traffic to the ML.

Another question, should we add a version number to the document (as
Debian does for theirs)? Or alternatively, the date of last update?

Ulrich

[1] https://www.debian.org/social_contract.en.html

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Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera (klondike)]

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El 29/03/18 a las 15:09, Ulrich Mueller escribió:
> Either that, or if we change it we should be very cautious not to do
> any radical changes. Here is my suggestion for the first paragraph:
>
> | This social contract is intended to clearly describe the overall
> | development policies and standards of the Gentoo project development
> | team. Parts of this document have been derived from the Debian
> | Social Contract. Suggestions for improvements are welcome. Please
> | send them to our gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org mailing list.
>
> Or as a pseudo-diff with line breaks inserted (since in the markdown
> source it is all in one long line):
>
> --- a/get-started/philosophy/social-contract.md
> +++ b/get-started/philosophy/social-contract.md
> @@ -12 +12 @@
> This social contract is intended to clearly describe the overall
> development policies and standards of the Gentoo project development
> team. Parts of this document have been derived from the [Debian
> Social Contract](https://www.debian.org/social_contract).
> -It is generally very similar to it except that certain parts have been
> -clarified and augmented while other parts deemed redundant have been
> -removed.
> -Comments are welcome.
> +Suggestions for improvements are welcome.
> Please send them to our
> -[gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org](mailto:gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org)
> +[gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org](mailto:gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org)
> mailing list.
>
> Rationale:
>
> 1. Our version is clearly derived from the Debian social contract,
>    so removing the attribution would be bad style. Also [1] explictly
>    says: "Other organizations may derive from and build on this
>    document. Please give credit to the Debian project if you do."
>
> 2. That there are augmentations and removals follows from the fact
>    that it is a derived document, so I agree that the third sentence
>    is completely redundant and can be removed.
>
> 3. The "are welcome" wording is reminiscent of "patches are welcome".
>    Keeping it because I like this.
>
> 4. Avoid the debate if this is primarily a council or trustees matter.
>    Members of both bodies should listen to gentoo-project, so using
>    this list seems right. Also I expect changes to be rare, so this
>    shouldn't add any significant traffic to the ML.
>
> Another question, should we add a version number to the document (as
> Debian does for theirs)? Or alternatively, the date of last update?
>
> Ulrich
>
> [1] https://www.debian.org/social_contract.en.html

Hi Ulrich!

That propossal also works for me.

Regarding the date or versioning, in the days of old the GuideXML
document carried out the version and date of last change. (See for
example
https://sources.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/gentoo/xml/htdocs/main/en/contract.xml?r1=1.10&r2=1.11)
and the date of the last update could be see on the tab on the right
(https://web.archive.org/web/20080321045304/http://www.gentoo.org:80/main/en/contract.xml)
with the migration to the wiki I don't think this is noted unless you go
to the revision history so maybe we could start the document by adding
"This Social Contract was last updated on *date*". *date* is obviously a
placeholder.

If you want I can collect the whole thing together into a single propossal.

Klondike



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Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Andreas K. Huettel]

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Am Donnerstag, 29. März 2018, 13:53:15 CEST schrieb Rich Freeman:
> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 7:46 AM, Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera
> 
> (klondike) <klondike@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > El 28/03/18 a las 00:11, Matthias Maier escribió:
> > I'd appreciate if the Council could produce their input regarding
> > Daniel's propossal to modify the Gentoo Social Contract
> > https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/8c8534195597ca34ebb3e3b
> > b0a042b3e after the meeting. Mostly because I plan on bringing it up for
> > approval on the next board meeting (and hopefully ratification on the
> > next
> > Foundation member vote) since nobody has come up with a better propossal
> > yet.
> 
> IMO it would make more sense to just change the list to gentoo-project
> and fix the metastructure before having a debate over which body
> oversees the social contract.
> 
> That seems like the least controversial solution.

Sounds good.

-- 
Andreas K. Hüttel
dilfridge@gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux developer
(council, toolchain, perl, libreoffice, comrel)

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Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Michał Górny]

W dniu wto, 27.03.2018 o godzinie 17∶11 -0500, użytkownik Matthias Maier
napisał:
> The next council meeting is in about two weeks. This is the time to
> raise and prepare items that the council should put on the agenda to
> discuss or vote on.
> 
> Please respond to this message with agenda items.
> 

I would also like for the Council to establish a timeline for the switch
to 17.1 (SYMLINK_LIB=no) profiles.

The migration tool (unsymlink-lib) can be considered ready for
the purpose of production system migration. It hasn't seen any new bugs
reported for a long time and has been stabilized.

The only thing really holding us back are bugs of packages
not respecting libdir [1]. Many of them are still ignored by package
maintainers, so I feel like they really need some kind of a push.

[1]:https://bugs.gentoo.org/506276

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Andreas K. Huettel]

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Am Mittwoch, 28. März 2018, 00:11:30 CEST schrieb Matthias Maier:
> Hi all,
> 
> The next council meeting is in about two weeks. This is the time to
> raise and prepare items that the council should put on the agenda to
> discuss or vote on.

I would like to put the following proposal on the agenda:

The Gentoo council shall directly contact "Software in the Public Interest 
Inc." (SPI), with the intention of Gentoo becoming a SPI Associated Project, 
independent of the Gentoo Foundation.

SPI does not require exclusivity. No transfer of funds or assets of any kind 
between it and the Gentoo Foundation is stipulated (it would be the trustees' 
responsibility anyway), so any (dys)function of the Gentoo Foundation has no 
impact on this new business relationship.

The intention is for SPI to become secondary service provider for Accepting 
Donations, Holding Funds, and Holding Assets.

-- 
Andreas K. Hüttel
dilfridge@gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux developer
(council, toolchain, perl, libreoffice, comrel)

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Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Robin H. Johnson]

On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 12:39:41AM +0200, Andreas K. Huettel wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, 28. März 2018, 00:11:30 CEST schrieb Matthias Maier:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > The next council meeting is in about two weeks. This is the time to
> > raise and prepare items that the council should put on the agenda to
> > discuss or vote on.
> 
> I would like to put the following proposal on the agenda:
> 
> The Gentoo council shall directly contact "Software in the Public Interest 
> Inc." (SPI), with the intention of Gentoo becoming a SPI Associated Project, 
> independent of the Gentoo Foundation.
FYI, the Foundation did ask the SPI about joining, but got an answer
that could best be summarized as, "Fix your problems first and then ask
us again".

In slightly more detail, they felt they did not have the manpower to
take on an existing entity of Gentoo's scale, with it's present issues.

-- 
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

Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Rich Freeman]

On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 1:18 AM, Robin H. Johnson <robbat2@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 12:39:41AM +0200, Andreas K. Huettel wrote:
>> Am Mittwoch, 28. März 2018, 00:11:30 CEST schrieb Matthias Maier:
>> > Hi all,
>> >
>> > The next council meeting is in about two weeks. This is the time to
>> > raise and prepare items that the council should put on the agenda to
>> > discuss or vote on.
>>
>> I would like to put the following proposal on the agenda:
>>
>> The Gentoo council shall directly contact "Software in the Public Interest
>> Inc." (SPI), with the intention of Gentoo becoming a SPI Associated Project,
>> independent of the Gentoo Foundation.
>
> FYI, the Foundation did ask the SPI about joining, but got an answer
> that could best be summarized as, "Fix your problems first and then ask
> us again".
>
> In slightly more detail, they felt they did not have the manpower to
> take on an existing entity of Gentoo's scale, with it's present issues.
>

Yeah, it is questionable whether they would even be interested.

However, this proposal is actually a bit different from the last.  In
this case the Gentoo Foundation wouldn't be joining SPI, and the SPI
wouldn't be Gentoo's successor in interest.  Essentially this would be
the creation of a new entity independent of the Foundation, much as
the Gentoo e.V. is independent of the Foundation.

So, legally the new organization would start out with no assets, no
money, no IP, no anything, and most importantly no history.  That
would actually make it small and uncomplicated.

I think it is an interesting concept that the Council/Trustees should
consider.  It could be a short-term experiment that everybody decides
is horrible and gets shut down.  Or it could be a long-term model that
operates in parallel with the Foundation forever.  Or it could
eventually replace the Foundation.  While I'm not suggesting this
there is also nothing stopping us from having more than one
arrangement like this.

If everybody likes the way this model works, then presumably all new
donations would be directed towards it, and all new hardware would be
purchased by it.  Over time the Foundation would look to spend down
most of its money (just hanging on to enough to cover any tax
bills/etc) and retire its assets except for the intellectual property.
At that point in time the Foundation will be smaller and will not have
as many transactions coming in, which reduces the problem to cleaning
up the past mess, and all new operations are happening in a separate
legal entity which is free from the burden of the past errors.

I suspect we would want to clean up all the compliance issues with the
Foundation before we consider transferring any assets from the
Foundation to any other entity, because I suspect that not doing so
would either be illegal or would expose the new entity to those
liabilities.  Ideally we'd want to try to have a firewall in-between.

Long-term it might even be desirable to maintain the Foundation as a
holding company for our copyright/trademarks.  If it didn't have
financial transactions (other than the once per decade renewals/etc)
then managing it and filing taxes/etc would be MUCH simpler.  The
day-to-day churn would stay under an umbrella which could manage the
compliance burden this churn would create.  The only gotcha would be
if there was a need to enforce those copyright/trademarks, and that
would need to be something we very carefully considered, because that
would probably create a ton of churn.  If we just held them
defensively then all it would take is the periodic paperwork with the
USPTO.

I'm sure there are many other ways something like this could work.
What was written above was just meant to be illustrative, and to
suggest that we have more options than we might be considering.  Since
we're not a profit-making corp that needs to ensure that every dollar
ends up getting channeled upwards to our shareholders we probably have
some freedom in having less traditional arrangements.  To some extent
with the e.V. we already have this - legally there is no relationship
between the two organizations, and yet they have coexisted without
conflict for a decade.  To be fair though if somebody did want to
abuse our trademarks and we actually wanted to enforce them the split
approach might make this more difficult, because we then have the
burden of showing that the entity that is enforcing the IP actually
owns it in that jurisdiction. If the e.V. sued over abuse of the
trademark in Europe, the defendant might argue that the Foundation
owns it.  If the Foundation sued the same entity they might argue that
the e.V. owns it (they don't really care - it is just a defense
argument we open ourselves up to).  Again, this is probably less of an
issue if our intent is only to use them defensively.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Michał Górny]

W dniu pią, 30.03.2018 o godzinie 00∶39 +0200, użytkownik Andreas K.
Huettel napisał:
> Am Mittwoch, 28. März 2018, 00:11:30 CEST schrieb Matthias Maier:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > The next council meeting is in about two weeks. This is the time to
> > raise and prepare items that the council should put on the agenda to
> > discuss or vote on.
> 
> I would like to put the following proposal on the agenda:
> 
> The Gentoo council shall directly contact "Software in the Public Interest 
> Inc." (SPI), with the intention of Gentoo becoming a SPI Associated Project, 
> independent of the Gentoo Foundation.
> 
> SPI does not require exclusivity. No transfer of funds or assets of any kind 
> between it and the Gentoo Foundation is stipulated (it would be the trustees' 
> responsibility anyway), so any (dys)function of the Gentoo Foundation has no 
> impact on this new business relationship.
> 
> The intention is for SPI to become secondary service provider for Accepting 
> Donations, Holding Funds, and Holding Assets.
> 

I would take a step further and start abandoning 'Gentoo' assets
to the people who have such a great lust of them. Considering the recent
actions of drobbins, I do not wish to be part of the distribution whose
name is associated with him.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 4:00 AM, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> I would take a step further and start abandoning 'Gentoo' assets
> to the people who have such a great lust of them. Considering the recent
> actions of drobbins, I do not wish to be part of the distribution whose
> name is associated with him.


Mgorny, my intention is not to grab Gentoo assets, but if you are planning
to change the name of the project to "Asshole Linux" and get rid of the
current assets, I will take them back.

-Daniel

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Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Matthias Maier]

Hey all,

what about we (a) bring back the discussion to a civilized tone, and (b)
not have the discussion on this very thread? (This is mainly because I
have to read all response e-mails to this one to compile the council
meeting agenda this afternoon).

Best,
Matthias

Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Daniel Robbins]

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My apologies, yes, agreed.

On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 9:46 AM, Matthias Maier <tamiko@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> what about we (a) bring back the discussion to a civilized tone, and (b)
> not have the discussion on this very thread? (This is mainly because I
> have to read all response e-mails to this one to compile the council
> meeting agenda this afternoon).
>
> Best,
> Matthias
>
>
>

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Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Mon, 2 Apr 2018, Daniel Robbins wrote:

> Mgorny, my intention is not to grab Gentoo assets, but if you are
> planning to change the name of the project to "Asshole Linux" and
> get rid of the current assets, I will take them back.

So, after bashing the council and then bashing the whole developer
community, the next phase is defamation of the project? :-( On top of
that, with carbon copies to the gentoo-dev-announce list and to the
next council chair?

Please do us all a favour and go away.

Ulrich

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Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 10:05 AM, Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org> wrote:

> >>>>> On Mon, 2 Apr 2018, Daniel Robbins wrote:
>
> > Mgorny, my intention is not to grab Gentoo assets, but if you are
> > planning to change the name of the project to "Asshole Linux" and
> > get rid of the current assets, I will take them back.
>
> So, after bashing the council and then bashing the whole developer
> community, the next phase is defamation of the project? :-( On top of
> that, with carbon copies to the gentoo-dev-announce list and to the
> next council chair?
>

It looks like mgorny will be resigning, since I do not expect the Gentoo
assets to be going anywhere. I will happy go away when my proposal is
accepted.

Best,

Daniel

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Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[R0b0t1]

On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 5:00 AM, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> I would take a step further and start abandoning 'Gentoo' assets
> to the people who have such a great lust of them. Considering the recent
> actions of drobbins, I do not wish to be part of the distribution whose
> name is associated with him.
>

If they truly are a burden to maintain, perhaps, but the assets, I
think, are one of the things holding the community together. As much
as I believe in the power of friendship (a great deal) being able to
cooperate and do things easily is crucial for working together towards
a common goal.

The only complaint I might have is that in some cases the assets do
not better the community. E.g. donated PowerPC instances. They're
free; I contacted OSU, not knowing what else to do, and they offered
the project a blank check. Maybe they can't be given out to everyone,
and maybe it is true (it is) that I am not to be trusted with
anything. But using GCC's POWER machines is rather difficult. There
are lots of friends, which makes things cozy.

Cheers,
     R0b0t1.

Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Gregory Woodbury]

> If they truly are a burden to maintain, perhaps, but the assets, I
> think, are one of the things holding the community together. As much
> as I believe in the power of friendship (a great deal) being able to
> cooperate and do things easily is crucial for working together towards
> a common goal.

Has anybody got a scorecard showing the progress of this ball(s)game?

I has gotton so deep in BS and personally vindictive allegations that
it is nearly impossible to keep up with who has made any possiblely
valid points, and who is erecting strawmen and/or bikeshedding every
little thing.

The only thing clear here is that there is some sort of power struggle
happening in a system that has inadequate controls to deal with toxic
or abusive leader and members. I fear that we have gotten a "Church of
Gentoo" fundamentalist / progressive / whatever . . . schism, and
there is a 'take no prisoners' attitude on all sides. At this point
all I see is talking past each other and insistance that 'only
we/I/they' have s 'right' to have their demands accepted [or else?]

FFS. EVERYONE should just SHUT UP for 24 hours and take a break.
Go out and smell some flowers (if you are able) or watch a
sunset/sunrise/moon...  Look at some stars, Watch a silly movies...
ANYTHING but this.

-- 
G.Wolfe Woodbury
redwolfe@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Matthias Maier]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018, at 17:11 CDT, Matthias Maier <tamiko@gentoo.org> wrote:

> [...]


I have the feeling that quite a bit of the current heated discussion
(about whatever) stems from a perceived lack of "democracy" in our
processes.


Therefore, I suggest as meeting agenda that the council discusses the
introduction of a "general resolution" similarly to the one that Debian
has [1]. Debian's version would have to be adapted to Gentoo specifics
but in short a possible version could include

 - overruling council (and comrel?) decisions with a 2:1 majority
 - a vote of no confidence forcing council reelections
 - accepting/withdrawing/... GLEPs with a 2:1 majority 

A vote could be initiated by

 - the council itself
 - a sufficient number of developers seconding the motion

Eligible voters would be Gentoo developers.


I am happy to author a first draft proposal GLEP. If this idea finds
enough supporters on the developer side and on the council, I suggest to
proceed as follows:

 - let council accept the GLEP
 - initiate a "general resolution" (or however we end up naming the
   child) asking to support the GLEP formally.


I am tired of hearing that my decisions and that of my colleagues on the
council would be due to some agenda, sinister behavior or
whatever. A "general resolution" would introduce a nice mechanism that
would deter loud single voices ("the majority of developers is against
this and that") and let just speak the body of developers itself. I
suggest we make the bar of initiating such a vote relatively high (but
by no means impossible) so that we don't get swamped with too much
stuff, though.

Best,
Matthias


[1] https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution#item-4

Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 8:40 PM, Matthias Maier <tamiko@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>  - overruling council (and comrel?) decisions with a 2:1 majority
>

While I could see this making sense for most Council/QA decisions, I'm
skeptical of how this could work for Comrel, given that nobody would
have anything to go off of, unless we made these matters public.

I could see it possibly working if we made it clear that there is no
expectation of privacy for anybody bringing a complaint, and that the
entire matter would be made public if the accused wished to appeal it
to a general resolution.  Then it would be up to the person who was
subject to discipline to allow a general vote.  If they did not allow
this, then the Council (or Comrel, if no appeal) would have the final
say and it could not be appealed.  If they did allow this, then the
entire record would be made public and available for a general vote.
The accused would have full access to the record before deciding
whether to make it public, so there would be no surprises.

I'm not a super-big fan of this, but I see it as the only reasonable
way to let Comrel decisions turn into a general resolution.  Otherwise
people basically have to vote blind.

On the flip side, it would let the accused leave quietly with no
public defamation/etc if they so wished, but in doing so they wouldn't
really have much room to complain about the process being closed,
since they were the one who decided to keep it that way.  On the other
hand, if they insisted on a public proceeding then everybody can
decide for themselves what is appropriate.

The main downside is that we'd need to make it clear to anybody
issuing a complaint that they would not get a say in whether what they
submit was shared with the accused or the public.  Otherwise we would
be taking that decision out of the accused's hands, and it basically
defeats the point in having this sort of appeal available.  This might
potentially have a chilling effect on anybody who might want to bring
a complaint, since it could become public if the accused so desired.
Either way I think things like this are best made clear up-front so
there are no surprises.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[M. J. Everitt]

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On 03/04/18 02:01, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 8:40 PM, Matthias Maier <tamiko@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>  - overruling council (and comrel?) decisions with a 2:1 majority
>>
> While I could see this making sense for most Council/QA decisions, I'm
> skeptical of how this could work for Comrel, given that nobody would
> have anything to go off of, unless we made these matters public.
>
> I could see it possibly working if we made it clear that there is no
> expectation of privacy for anybody bringing a complaint, and that the
> entire matter would be made public if the accused wished to appeal it
> to a general resolution.  Then it would be up to the person who was
> subject to discipline to allow a general vote.  If they did not allow
> this, then the Council (or Comrel, if no appeal) would have the final
> say and it could not be appealed.  If they did allow this, then the
> entire record would be made public and available for a general vote.
> The accused would have full access to the record before deciding
> whether to make it public, so there would be no surprises.
>
> I'm not a super-big fan of this, but I see it as the only reasonable
> way to let Comrel decisions turn into a general resolution.  Otherwise
> people basically have to vote blind.
>
> On the flip side, it would let the accused leave quietly with no
> public defamation/etc if they so wished, but in doing so they wouldn't
> really have much room to complain about the process being closed,
> since they were the one who decided to keep it that way.  On the other
> hand, if they insisted on a public proceeding then everybody can
> decide for themselves what is appropriate.
>
> The main downside is that we'd need to make it clear to anybody
> issuing a complaint that they would not get a say in whether what they
> submit was shared with the accused or the public.  Otherwise we would
> be taking that decision out of the accused's hands, and it basically
> defeats the point in having this sort of appeal available.  This might
> potentially have a chilling effect on anybody who might want to bring
> a complaint, since it could become public if the accused so desired.
> Either way I think things like this are best made clear up-front so
> there are no surprises.
>
Pardon my unwanted opinion, but that sounds like a seriously verbose
'yes' .. or at least firm 'maybe' ...


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Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Matthias Maier]

On Mon, Apr  2, 2018, at 20:01 CDT, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 8:40 PM, Matthias Maier <tamiko@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>
>>  - overruling council (and comrel?) decisions with a 2:1 majority
>>
>
> While I could see this making sense for most Council/QA decisions, I'm
> skeptical of how this could work for Comrel, given that nobody would
> have anything to go off of, unless we made these matters public.

> [...]

Good point. Let me remove the (and comrel?) from my suggestion.

Best,
Matthias

Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 9:38 PM, Matthias Maier <tamiko@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Apr  2, 2018, at 20:01 CDT, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 8:40 PM, Matthias Maier <tamiko@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>  - overruling council (and comrel?) decisions with a 2:1 majority
>>>
>>
>> While I could see this making sense for most Council/QA decisions, I'm
>> skeptical of how this could work for Comrel, given that nobody would
>> have anything to go off of, unless we made these matters public.
>
> Good point. Let me remove the (and comrel?) from my suggestion.
>

My intent wasn't to squelch it or anything - just to point out that it
really is a different sort of issue.

Maybe the right way to look at is that people-oriented decisions are
different than other sorts of decisions.  So, either make them two
separate GLEPs (assuming we want both parts), or two parts of one
GLEP, or whatever.  But, if you separate the Comrel bits then the more
straightforward (and still fairly extensive) idea you have can go
through the process without being held up.  Then put Comrel on its own
track if desired, and when it is discussed/debated you can focus on it
and not beat around the busy with everything else.

Also, we might or might not want to pattern this off of the Foundation
bylaws for direct actions by members.  That said, as with most such
documents, the bylaws are basically written to satisfy legal
requirements but they make such actions VERY difficult to achieve.

One other practical note.  Unless something has changed I believe our
elections system allows only one election at a time.  If we
anticipating having a lot of these general resolutions that could
become limiting unless voting periods are shortened.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-04-08

[Robin H. Johnson]

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On Mon, Apr 02, 2018 at 09:46:20PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> One other practical note.  Unless something has changed I believe our
> elections system allows only one election at a time. 
Technical note:
This restriction was resolved long ago, concurrent elections are
available and have already taken place, most recently being
council-201606 & trustees-201606 elections.

-- 
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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