On 26/01/17 23:12, Kent Fredric wrote: > On Thu, 26 Jan 2017 16:03:17 +0100 > Michał Górny wrote: > >> The main idea is to protect volunteers spending their time on Gentoo. >> I don't want to learn one day that my opinion doesn't matter anymore >> because a new lead (Council, Trustees, Board, BDFL or any other >> possible future form) decides that they/he/she will use the donation >> money to hire paid workers doing the Gentoo work that they desire. >> >> I believe that any possible lead Gentoo might elect in the future >> should still represent the whole Gentoo community, and the community >> should have the right to refuse to follow the directions set by >> the lead if he/she stops listening to the community. As volunteers, >> we have the right to refuse to do something that in our opinion harms >> Gentoo. >> >> Sadly, this could become pointless if the leading bodies keep the power >> to hire people to work on Gentoo for money. This means that effectively >> they have the power to spend Gentoo money on pursuing their own goals >> as long as they can legally claim that the work is done for >> the benefit of Gentoo. In volunteer-based project, they effectively >> have to *convince* others to work on their ideas and/or spend >> a significant effort working on them themselves. >> >> The other part is pretty much a formality, that means to make it clear >> that Gentoo is not supposed to be bribed by third-party companies to >> alter its course. I don't think it really changes anything but it looks >> like a nice thing to state. >> >> I should note that this doesn't mean to prevent anyone from being paid >> by third parties to work on Gentoo, or receive any money on account of >> what he did or is doing for Gentoo. I think that's fine as long as >> the wider Gentoo community has the right to reject any work that it >> sees unfit. > I fear this suggestion will have the exact opposite effect to that intended. > > If its not possible to invest money in developers to improve Gentoo, then > you're guaranteeing that every developer who contributes to Gentoo must do > so under the assumption that they get their income elsewhere. > > Which might demand that in order to survive, somebody will have to work for some > company in order to survive, and the company will absorb much of their time, > time which they could be contributing to Gentoo, which they must instead focus into > private enterprise. > > And that may also force the developer to focus their development efforts for Gentoo > in ways that profit only their employer, while not caring about the user base of Gentoo. > > And this is a huge problem in OSS these days. > > The inability to survive on it in a Captialist World basically makes opensource an > adversary of survial. > > I myself know of people who have small mounds of personal debt in the interest of looking > after their opensource objectives, and its just not sustainable. > > To the point that, as long as we live in this world, we *need* infrastructure in place > to guarantee that we have the resources to ensure we have developers for the projects > that need to be done. > > Until then, you're basically hedging bets on people being able to scalp company time for gentoo, > betting on people being able to live two lives so they can help gentoo, betting on the developers > ability to obtain welfare to support themselves while they contribute to gentoo, or betting on > a relatively distant future where the world is progressive enough to create UBI. > > Its burning the candle at both ends in the mean time, while median income declines vs inflation > in many countries, making your developer base atrophy as it becomes progressively harder to > support yourself and have energy to contribute. > +1 Well articulated and summarised, thanks Kent.