Re: [gentoo-project] Formally have Council oversee the Foundation 2.0

[Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On Sat, Jan 14, 2017 at 6:03 PM, Matthew Thode
<prometheanfire@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 01/14/2017 03:43 PM, Andreas K. Huettel wrote:
>>
>> Motivation: In recent vivid debates the Gentoo metastructure and the
>> responsibilities of its organs have been called into question by a vocal
>> minority. Compared with how the distribution has been running over the last
>> years, most of the proposals aim to adapt reality to organizational
>> structures. This proposal instead aims - in a very similar way as Michael's
>> SPI proposal - to adapt organizational structures to reality.
>
> I don't think I agree with this, characterizing my proposal as adapting
> reality to organizational structures is the exact opposite of what I'm
> trying to achieve.  I'd go as far as to say we both want to adapt
> organizational structures to reality, and each of us may see that as
> different.  For me it's the legal reality.

Honestly, saying that the Trustees legally have authority over the
Council is a bit like saying that the MPAA legally has authority over
anybody downloading torrents.  Sure, they can go to a court, spend
$20k, fight a battle for a few years, and end up with a judgment on
one narrow issue.  But, in the end everybody else just keeps doing
what they're going to do.

Ultimately the decision of who is to be entrusted to what is going to
come down to the developers, because if they don't respect the
authority of somebody trying to wield it then they're not going to
invest in Gentoo.

I think owning some IP and being able to pay bills is useful, but
these are not the things that cause us to donate our efforts to
Gentoo, or choose to run it.

>
> Administration following technical requirements is mostly fine, however,
> when a technical person tells the foundation to do something that's not
> allowed then at that point it makes sense for things to be dictated in
> the other direction.
>

Honestly, I don't see why the Council would be any more likely to
direct people to do things that are illegal than the Trustees would
be.  If we want legal advice it would make far more sense to retain
legal counsel, or maybe work with an organization that does so.

To date, on what matter has the Council ever directed anybody to do
anything illegal, or failed to take advice from the Trustees.

The whole purpose of the Council is to take advice from other bodies
which sometimes have more expertise on narrow topics, and find
solutions that work for all of us.

> I'm not sure I agree with [C].  I don't think the Foundation is looking
> to tell the council what to do in purely technical matters, only in
> matters that have some bearing in a legal or financial way.

There seems to be a misconception that the Council is solely a technical body.

All our meeting summaries are logged, including all votes/decisions
made.  Go through the last two years, and cite some examples of
decisions that the Council has made that were purely technical in
nature?  About the closest thing to that are approving EAPIs, and a
LOT of the discussion/feedback on that comes from the PMS team and
from the lists/etc, as it should.

> Much has been said about [D] for why the Foundation should not oversee
> Gentoo as a whole (even though legally that's what we already do...).
> In the past the Foundation has been lax in renewal of some things, but I
> do believe that this is something that is firmly in the past.  It has
> not been the case for years.

While it is true that we haven't let some of our major items lapse, in
general the Foundation struggles just to keep its books straight (and
would probably be in fairly dire straits if it weren't for Robin's
fairly heroic efforts).  Also, in several recent years there hasn't
even been a Trustee election due to a lack of candidates, and when
there have been elections it is usually 3 people running for 2 seats.
The work the Trustees do is important, but it is hard to say that they
have a huge mandate when almost nobody wants the job.  In contrast in
a typical Council election all the seats are up for grabs, most of the
winning candidates bother to write manifestos, and in most years there
are about half a dozen candidates who do not win.  Most of the big
debates over how the distro ought to be managed tend to take place in
the context of the Council election as well.

Another way of looking at it is this:  We struggle to find enough
people who want to take care of the bills/filings/etc.  We will
struggle even more to find people who both want to do that, and are
trusted to manage overall decisions around how Gentoo operates.

> Antagonism from either side isn't going to help things move along but
> probably distract from actual goals (like this email probably is).

I don't see how a proposal for the Council to oversee the Trustees is
any more antagonistic than a proposal for the Trustees to oversee the
Council.

And the situation would be about the same as it would be under an
umbrella org, since most likely the team coordinating with such
organizations would fall under the Council.

I personally tend to prefer the SPI-like approach because it puts the
focus on running a distro, and not on running a corporation.

-- 
Rich