[gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-nfp] Gentoo Linux application to Open Collective Foundation rejected

[gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-nfp] Gentoo Linux application to Open Collective Foundation rejected

[Matt Turner]

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On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 2:03 AM Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> Yesterday I've received a mail from Open Collective Foundation stating
> that our application was rejected because of "no further response
> on application".  Could someone explain to me what's going on?
>
> Are Council members receiving only part of the communication?

Cc'ing gentoo-project@, because I think this needs a wider audience.

I asked on the #gentoo-trustees IRC channel about this yesterday. The
IRC log is attached to this email (also at [1]). Here's the summary of
what I learned from the Trustees:

- OpenCollective requested some information from the Trustees
- In January, antarus wrote a draft reply to Open Collective, and
shared it with the other Trustees for review
- No one replied to antarus' draft
- antarus never sent a reply to Open Collective
- None of the other Trustees were aware that no one replied until I
started asking questions
- As a result, Open Collective has rejected our application (after
waiting at least 5 months for a response)


I am incredibly disappointed in the Trustees. This is an
embarrassment, and demonstrates exactly why we need to join an
umbrella organization and dissolve the Foundation.

In my opinion, the response from antarus on #-trustees was pretty
shameless. It's clear that despite promises from the Trustees for many
years that they are simply not engaged enough to make this happen. I
think it's past time that Council takes over the effort to dissolve
the Foundation.

[1] https://dev.gentoo.org/~mattst88/%23gentoo-trustees-log-20230619.txt

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11:59 <+   mattst88> | antarus: did you get an email from opencollective about 10 minutes ago?
11:59 <+   mattst88> | did Gentoo not reply to something from opencollective?
12:06 <@    antarus> | yes, and yes
12:11 <+   mattst88> | are you fucking kidding
12:12 <@    antarus> | nope
12:13 <+   mattst88> | are you going to make some kind of announcement?
12:14 <+   mattst88> | that seems appropriate, especially given the upcoming trustee election
12:14 <@    antarus> | I think you may be misreading the email
12:14 <@    antarus> | this was like "we applied, they asked a bunch of questions, we failed to respond in a timely manner, they rejected our application"
12:15 <+   mattst88> | that is my understanding
12:16 <+   mattst88> | my understanding is also that it has been your promise for the last few years to join a foundation and dissolve the foundation
12:16 <+   mattst88> | and after last year you basically said "this time for sure!"
12:17 <+   mattst88> | join an umbrella, I should say
12:18 <@    antarus> | yup
12:20 <+   mattst88> | so are you going to make an announcement about the status?
12:25 <+   mattst88> | antarus: ^
12:34 <+  dilfridge> | antarus: given that you repeatedly ran on the ticket of joining an umbrella and badly failed, I expect you not to run this time.
12:34 <+  dilfridge> | everything else would just be a bad joke
12:37            --> | ulm [~ulm@gentoo/developer/ulm] has joined #gentoo-trustees
12:37            --- | ChanServ sets modes [#gentoo-trustees +v ulm]
12:41 <+   mattst88> | robbat2: any comment from you?
12:41 <+   mattst88> | prometheanfire, soap?
12:41 <+   mattst88> | Anarchy?
12:42 <@       soap> | I wasnt involved with any of this, since my expectation was I'd just vote for it once we had everything lined up
12:43 <@prometheanf> | I wish it was handled better as well, wasn't involved for a few reasons but also would have voted on it once lined up
12:53 <    antarus> | mattst88: the status of..our application? The Foundation?
12:53 <@    antarus> | dilfridge: you are of course entitled to your opinion.
12:55 <+   mattst88> | antarus: the application and the fact that y'all apparently didn't respond
13:19 <    robbat2> | mattst88: last I heard we had sent them questions and didn't get answers back
13:20 <@    robbat2> | yep, my inbox shows that Alec responded on Jan 4th, with answers to their questions, and asked questions in return
13:20 <@    robbat2> | and then I see no further responses from OpenCollective; just automated stuff us getting access to the system
13:21 <+       ajak> | so what are they saying we didn't respond to them about?
13:21 <+   mattst88> | (and why doesn't that match antarus' understanding of the situation?)
13:21 <@    robbat2> | it doesn't say; just an automated response with "> No further response on application."
13:22 <@    robbat2> | antarus: can you confirm that the mail of Jan 4th did in fact go to them?
13:22 <+       ajak> | right, so my question is directed at whoever should know
13:22 <@    robbat2> | there was a draft version, and I recall discussing it, and thought it had been sent
13:22 <+       ajak> | if alec doesn't know then maybe it's an error, but he seems to know
13:23 <+   mattst88> | are the rest of the trustees not on the CC list?
13:23 <@    robbat2> | which CC?
13:23 <@    robbat2> | the rejection mail went to:
13:23 <@    robbat2> | To: trustees@gentoo.org                                                                                                                                      
13:23 <@    robbat2> | Message-ID: <de7f22e9-faed-6af0-147f-ca70e561b6da@opencollective.com>  
13:23 <@    robbat2> | alec's mail was to trustees@, Message-ID: <CAAr7Pr9TQS5hxcoL+Rco6Nxoy94N2oBmAsc0wqyhPmCz5mCv9A@mail.gmail.com>
13:24 <+       ajak> | it went to other members of the group individually (so, council)
13:24 <+   mattst88> | robbat2: I meant antarus' mail responding to opencollective's questions
13:25 <@    robbat2> | that was trustees@
13:25 <+   mattst88> | it doesn't seem that any of the other trustees are aware of the status of any of this :(
13:26 <@    robbat2> | prometheanfire: can you confirm in your mail, Jan 4th, that you have CAAr7Pr9TQS5hxcoL+Rco6Nxoy94N2oBmAsc0wqyhPmCz5mCv9A@mail.gmail.com ?
13:26 <@    robbat2> | and I'd like to hear alec's confirmation that the final version was sent to opencollective
13:26 <@    robbat2> | but it sounds like a communications problem more than a real problem
13:30 <@    robbat2> | i want to get the finances completed ahead of the AGM this year again; but I expect they will continue to show we are fiscally responsible, and are managing despite sponsors having financial/organization changes/troubles
13:31 <@    robbat2> | electrical power is bumpy here today, so i'm going to vanish for now
13:46 <@    antarus> | no oone responded to the draft
13:46 <@    antarus> | and I never sent it
13:51 <+   mattst88> | so for the third time, are you going to make an announcement?
14:00 <+       ajak> | i do think a status update would be prudent
14:45 <@    antarus> | I hear you on the request for an announcement
14:46 <@    antarus> | I'm not ready to commit to one at this specific moment
14:46 <@    antarus> | doesn't mean one won't happen
14:47 <+   mattst88> | okay. just letting you know, it's either you send something, or I will
14:47 <@    antarus> | I do appreciate someone caring.
15:00 <@prometheanf> | robbat2: I do have that message ID
15:01 <@prometheanf> | 'Subject: Re: Gentoo Linux wants to be hosted by Open Collective Foundation'
15:19 <+   mattst88> | prometheanfire: was the email sent to opencollective?
15:21 <@prometheanf> | I only see to trustees@
15:34 <@    antarus> | Right, I never sent the draft reply to opencollective
16:25 <+   mattst88> | antarus: you never sent a 2021 or 2022 presidents letter, did you?
16:40 <@    robbat2> | sent how? AGM does show a 2021 letter: https://dev.gentoo.org/~antarus/President's%20Letter%202021.pdf
16:41 <@    robbat2> | 2022 letter: https://dev.gentoo.org/~antarus/President's%20Letter%202022.pdf
16:43 <+   mattst88> | robbat2: 2019 and 2020 were sent to gentoo-nfp
16:44 <+   mattst88> | jun 12 last year, in this channel
16:44 <+   mattst88> | 13:30 <+   mattst88> | you should mail the president's letter to the mailing list
16:44 <+   mattst88> | 13:32 <@    antarus> | the 2021 letter you mean?
16:44 <+   mattst88> | 13:32 <@    antarus> | will do
16:45 <    robbat2> | mattst88: based on your discussions here, are you planning to run for the foundation? (so I can ensure you're nominated)
16:45 <+   mattst88> | I asked Google last year (or maybe the year before) for permission, and never got a response back
16:45 <+   mattst88> | I should email them again
16:46 <+   mattst88> | but I was kind of hoping to retire from Council and focus on stuff that's more fun
16:47 <+   mattst88> | but tbh, asking like once a year for people to send a goddamned email really shouldn't be the bar you have to clear to be a trustee
16:48 <@    robbat2> | why do you need to ask Google? Alec's time as a trustee and working for Google certainly overlapped
16:50 <+   mattst88> | ffs, looks like that mail was sent long enough ago that it's been auto-deleted
16:50 <+   mattst88> | let me see if I can find the document that lead me to believe I needed approval
16:51 <+   mattst88> | in any case, I'm not super interested. I just want people to do things they've repeatedly promised to do
16:53 <+   mattst88> | for my future self, the go link is go/opensource/education/board-service
16:53 <@    robbat2> | you can chase them to do it, vote against them (if there are enough candidates), or run against them (if there aren't enough candidates)
16:53 <+   mattst88> | I understand, and I've certainly done more than my fair share of chasing
16:53 <@    robbat2> | i'd say i'm disappointed we dropped the ball; but certainly not surprised by it
16:55 <+   mattst88> | but this is kind of where these conversations repeatedly end up -- no one does anything, people are rightly upset, and then there's the response of "well, you could run for Trustee" or "you don't have to be a trustee to do X, Y, and Z"
16:55 <+   mattst88> | but it really misses the core point that we already have people that have agreed to do precisely these things
16:56 <+   mattst88> | IMO this is akin to people not committing a fix for a package while they wait for some AWOL package maintainer who hasn't committed in months to respond to the bug
16:56 <+   mattst88> | where they would have just pushed their fix and moved on with life if the package had been maintainer-needed@
16:56 <+   mattst88> | we assume y'all are doing something. anything.
16:56 <@    robbat2> | and that's why I need to find time to write the GLEP for maintainer-timeout on packages
16:56 <+   mattst88> | and it takes active effort on our part to figure out if any of that is taking place
16:57 <+   mattst88> | because y'all don't have meetings
16:57 <+   mattst88> | and when there were no meetings or meeting minutes posted to the foundation wiki page, I had to repeatedly ping people to even figure out what was going on
16:57 <+   mattst88> | not that I could have edited the page anyway since it's in the foundation namespace
16:59 <+   mattst88> | (this was bug 801124 FWIW)
16:59 <   willikins> | https://bugs.gentoo.org/801124 "Document that monthly meetings no longer happen"; Documentation, Project-specific documentation; RESO, FIXE; mattst88:trustees
16:59 <+   mattst88> | robbat2: no, please don't spend any time on that
16:59 <+   mattst88> | the most important things that you can do for Gentoo is infrastructure and dissolving the foundation
17:02 <+   mattst88> | the google document I mentioned earlier says
17:02 <+   mattst88> | > All foundation board appointments must be cleared by opensource-foundations@google.com before acceptance.
17:03 <@    robbat2> | does it distinguish between being appointed to a board and elected to one? 
17:04 <@    antarus> | I presume I mostly ignored those requirements when I was employed (not saying you should!)
17:05 <+   mattst88> | I feel pretty confident that the distinction between appointed and elected isn't the critical thing
17:05 <+   mattst88> | the document goes on about reminding you that you have legal obligations, potential conflicts of interest, etc
17:06 <@    antarus> | practically speaking there is little to no accountabillty for this position
17:06 <@    antarus> | members run unapposed, no one else runs, etc..
17:07 <@    antarus> | is that not great? Sure.
17:07 <@    antarus> | Could things be worse? Sure. Previously the board did even less and we almost lost all our assets.
17:07 <+   mattst88> | so then please don't run if you have no intention of fulfilling your obligations and requirements
17:08 <+   mattst88> | this attitude of "meh, it could be worse" is just absolutely farsical
17:08 <+   mattst88> | if you don't want to do the work, just don't run
17:08 <@    antarus> | I don't think 'having no intention' is the same as what happened
17:08 <@    antarus> | but I take your point
17:09 <+   mattst88> | and on the no accountability aspect -- y'all stopped having meetings!
17:09 <+   mattst88> | apparently none of you even remembered what the status of the application was
17:10 <+   mattst88> | maybe a meeting once in a while might jog your memory?
17:13 <@    antarus> | Shall I just mark thep foundation as maintainer-needed then?
17:14 <@    antarus> | (to use your earlier analogy.)
17:14 <@    antarus> | *the*
17:15 <+   mattst88> | yes
17:16 <+   mattst88> | abso-fucking-lutely yes
17:17 <+   mattst88> | in practice, I think that means that every one of the trustees should step down
17:19 <+       sam_> | it's far better to not run than to run and not do anything, especially with this nonchalant attitude whenever anybody asks about it
17:19 <+       sam_> | the detached thing gets old
17:24 <@    antarus> | I mean I do not really agree with that characterization
17:24 <@    antarus> | we filed taxes, bought stuff, there is a nitrokey agreement for v3 keys, etc.
17:25 <+       sam_> | i wasn't aware of an agreement for nitrokey
17:25 <+       sam_> | I don't see it in bug 801499
17:25 <   willikins> | sam_: https://bugs.gentoo.org/801499 "Approach Nitrokey for Nitrokey 3 upgrade"; Gentoo Foundation, Proposals; CONF; sam:trustees
17:26 <@    antarus> | ah sorry, 'in the works'
17:26 <@    antarus> | its not signed or anything
17:27 <@    antarus> | anyway, my point being we didn't do 'nothing'
17:27 <@    antarus> | that being said I already rotate out
17:28 <@    antarus> | so I hope we find more motivated candidates