Re: [gentoo-project] Merging Trustees and Council / Developers and Foundation

[Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at 11:41 AM, William L. Thomson Jr.
<wlt-ml@o-sinc.com> wrote:
> On Friday, January 6, 2017 11:24:15 AM EST Rich Freeman wrote:
>> On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at 10:57 AM, William L. Thomson Jr.
>>
>> <wlt-ml@o-sinc.com> wrote:
>> > On Friday, January 6, 2017 1:10:48 PM EST Andreas K. Huettel wrote:
>> >> * The electorate lists for the "council" or "board" are handled by
>> >> ourselves, and do not require membership of any legal body.
>> >
>> > Again you have to have something legal to protect the name and other IP.
>> > There is no getting around that period.
>>
>> I think the thing you missed in this and most of your other replies to
>> his email is that this would be the results of dissolving the
>> Foundation and transferring its assets to SPI or a similar
>> organization.
>
> I think you all are missing my experience and research into this matter.
> Again go look into -nfp archives. You will find a pretty in depth discussion
> with lots of details you all are seeking to revisit. Learn from the past or
> repeat your choice.

I'm well-aware.  When I was a Trustee it was one of the topics being
tossed around.

>
>> To avoid a second email, the issue of the single liaison may have been
>> resolved by Debian, and we would need to follow-up to confirm.
>
> I spoke with the SPI as a trustee before... Has anyone else discussing this?
>

Obviously it would need to be discussed with them.

>
> One thing you also are all not realizing.

Not saying everything you know in an email is not the same as not
realizing.  It is called brevity.

> You apply for the SPI and must be
> accepted. It is not a guarantee. Gentoo would need a backup plan if it was not
> accepted. Given the issues with the IRS I am not sure if Gentoo would be
> approved. They would have tremendous work potentially. It is not like the
> house is in order and asking them to simply take over.

I'm sure this stuff would need to be cleaned up if we turned it over.
Presumably we'd do that once a path forward is agreed upon, perhaps
with professional help assuming it could be afforded.

Doing a one-time cleanup is a different project than establishing an
organization that can run itself indefinitely.  Each has its pros and
cons.

-- 
Rich