Re: [gentoo-project] Social Contract clean-up

[Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 2:38 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
>
> No, you are misrepresenting the actual authority of Trustees. They have
> actual, real authority over the project as opposed to imagined authority
> that you seem to appeal to.
>

They have the ability to destroy the Foundation, certainly, and cause
a lot of fuss.  However, the Trustees are generally reasonable so I
don't expect this to happen.

>> In the worst case Gentoo would end up changing its name and hosting.
>> I suspect this would only happen after considerable expense by the
>> Foundation to boot everybody out, assuming this even succeeded.
>
> So, in other words, if the Trustees actually tried to do their job, you
> would participate in a fork of the project and host it under another name.

I never said that I would do anything.

And I suggested that if there was a fork it would only be after quite
a bit of fighting.  I imagine that people would rather dissuade the
Trustees and maximize the effort they're required to take before just
leaving willingly.

> But if you are continuing to participate in Gentoo,
> then you need to respect the authority of the Trustees, whether you like it
> or not.

I think the one thing this whole thread had made clear is that people
on the lists don't feel any particular need to respect any authorities
around here, whether they be Council/Trustees/whatever.  People are
throwing around personal attacks and accusing people they disagree
with of having bad intentions.  Nothing seems to happen when they do
so, and so they continue.

And those who seem to be most keen on seeing the Trustees end up in
charge of everything are also those who seem most keen to let people
say whatever they want to on the lists.

In any case, it seems like a silly thing to argue about.  If the
Trustees actually did try to seize some kind of power you'd probably
just see the Council members run for Trustee slots instead.
Presumably they'd neglect the finances just as the previous Trustees
have, and I don't think it would be an improvement as it would mean
putting the finances in the hands of those least interested in them.
But it certainly would be preferable to having the distro run by
people whose jobs are so undesirable they're rarely even contested in
elections.

And the irony here is that as far as I'm aware I haven't personally
attacked any Trustees, and have been trying to bend over backwards to
indicate that I think the issues here are systemic.  They're
volunteers and aren't exactly being set up for success.  I get along
fairly well with most of them.

-- 
Rich