[gentoo-project] Social Contract clean-up

[gentoo-project] Social Contract clean-up

[Daniel Robbins]

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Hey All,

It appears that the Social Contract needs a bit of a clean-up. The first
paragraph of the social contract is actually an introductory paragraph and
was not meant to be part of the social contract itself. I recommend
revising it to read:

"This social contract is intended to clearly describe the overall
development policies and standards of the Gentoo project development team.
Potential improvements to the social contract should be submitted to the
Gentoo Linux bug tracker at https://bugs.gentoo.org, and assigned to
gentoo-trustees. Specific questions about social contract, and discussion
about potential future improvements can be posted to the gentoo-project
mailing list."

I think this effectively modernizes the paragraph from the old days. In
particular, a lot of people expect the social contract to not change
radically so the idea of "comments are welcome" has been gone for many
years. We are not actively soliciting feedback and tweaks but of course we
have official channels for Social Contract discussion as well as a process
for considering improvements to the Social Contract moving forward.

Best,

Daniel

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 8:09 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
>
> "This social contract is intended to clearly describe the overall
> development policies and standards of the Gentoo project development team.
> Potential improvements to the social contract should be submitted to the
> Gentoo Linux bug tracker at https://bugs.gentoo.org, and assigned to
> gentoo-trustees. Specific questions about social contract, and discussion
> about potential future improvements can be posted to the gentoo-project
> mailing list."
>

Wouldn't it make sense to have these assigned to the council?

GLEP 39 states that "Global issues will be decided by an elected
Gentoo Council."  Surely the social contract is a global issue, and I
don't see any exception in GLEP 39 pertaining to the social contract
specifically.

(Apologies for the repost, but it looks like the thread was split
shortly after I sent the former one.)

-- 
Rich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 6:15 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>
> Wouldn't it make sense to have these assigned to the council?
>
> GLEP 39 states that "Global issues will be decided by an elected
> Gentoo Council."  Surely the social contract is a global issue, and I
> don't see any exception in GLEP 39 pertaining to the social contract
> specifically


No -- it's a trustee issue. GLEP 39 is not written very well and is not
explicit in what it means by "global issues", but in context it is pretty
clear the Council is meant to address project-related problems that
bothered ciaranm and g2boojum at the time, thus technical problems, and
"global issues" are technical issues that span multiple projects.

And if you look at the definition of trustee responsibilities, "Oversee
Adherence to the Social Contract" is one of them. This includes overseeing
the Social Contract itself.

-Daniel

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 8:39 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 6:15 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Wouldn't it make sense to have these assigned to the council?
>>
>> GLEP 39 states that "Global issues will be decided by an elected
>> Gentoo Council."  Surely the social contract is a global issue, and I
>> don't see any exception in GLEP 39 pertaining to the social contract
>> specifically
>
>
> No -- it's a trustee issue. GLEP 39 is not written very well and is not
> explicit in what it means by "global issues", but in context it is pretty
> clear the Council is meant to address project-related problems that bothered
> ciaranm and g2boojum at the time, thus technical problems, and "global
> issues" are technical issues that span multiple projects.

GLEP 39 explicitly states that disciplinary matters are to be appealed
to the council, so clearly it isn't talking merely of technical
issues.

> And if you look at the definition of trustee responsibilities, "Oversee
> Adherence to the Social Contract" is one of them. This includes overseeing
> the Social Contract itself.

This is not part of the bylaws or articles of incorporation, and it
isn't clear who wrote that page, or from where their power was
delegated.  And the wording does not actually say that this includes
overseeing the social contract, but merely its enforcement (though
with any disciplinary actions being appealed to the Council it would
seem subject to that limitation).

In any case, I'll admit that the original definitions of the structure
are a bit murky, but given that the Foundation is struggling just to
straighten out its books wouldn't it make sense to make revisions so
as to minimize the scope of their responsibilities so that they can
try to sustain the functions that we're still stuck with them handling
until a better solution is found?

-- 
Rich

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

[Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera (klondike)]

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Hi Rich,
El 27/03/18 a las 02:47, Rich Freeman escribió:
> This is not part of the bylaws or articles of incorporation, and it
> isn't clear who wrote that page, or from where their power was
> delegated. 

If you cvs annotate the index.xml file for the Gentoo Foundation on the
old documentation CVS you'll find that such line was added by Corey
Shields (cshields) on the first edition of the project page itself,
revision 1.1 made on 26-March-2005 before GLEP-39 existed. According to
that same page Corey was one of the members of the Board of the Foundation.

klondike



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

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 9:14 PM, Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera
(klondike) <klondike@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Hi Rich,
> El 27/03/18 a las 02:47, Rich Freeman escribió:
>> This is not part of the bylaws or articles of incorporation, and it
>> isn't clear who wrote that page, or from where their power was
>> delegated.
>
> If you cvs annotate the index.xml file for the Gentoo Foundation on the
> old documentation CVS you'll find that such line was added by Corey
> Shields (cshields) on the first edition of the project page itself,
> revision 1.1 made on 26-March-2005 before GLEP-39 existed. According to
> that same page Corey was one of the members of the Board of the Foundation.
>

Well, that answers the first half of the question then.

However Corey ended up in his post he wrote that bit on that page.

Then sometime afterwards a majority of developers stated that they
wanted global issues to be handled by the Council (most of which were
probably also Foundation members).  Seems like that was the last word
on the matter.

But, if the Council + Trustees want to sort it out more power to them.
I'm sure they'll quickly come to an agreement.

-- 
Rich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 7:30 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 9:14 PM, Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera
> (klondike) <klondike@gentoo.org> wrote:
> >
> > If you cvs annotate the index.xml file for the Gentoo Foundation on the
> > old documentation CVS you'll find that such line was added by Corey
> > Shields (cshields) on the first edition of the project page itself,
> > revision 1.1 made on 26-March-2005 before GLEP-39 existed. According to
> > that same page Corey was one of the members of the Board of the
> Foundation.
> >
>
> Well, that answers the first half of the question then.
>

Council is related to technical leadership, inter-project technical issues
and issues impacting development, which can include disciplinary issues.

Trustees look out for the long-term health of the project. This includes
legal matters, social contract, and quite a few other things.

I resigned after the initial trustees were appointed. It appears that the
initial trustees had challenges making decisions and leading the project.
However, while they might have been relatively "weak" and had very limited
scope in practice (most likely due to being overwhelmed with their new
responsibilities, learning to run a NFP, etc.which has a very high learning
curve,) that does not mean that the trustees were intended to be passive in
regards to the direction of the project. Non-technical issues that are
large in scope should by default go to the trustees for direction.

Best,

Daniel

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

[Matthew Thode]

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On 18-03-26 19:54:51, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 7:30 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 9:14 PM, Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera
> > (klondike) <klondike@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > If you cvs annotate the index.xml file for the Gentoo Foundation on the
> > > old documentation CVS you'll find that such line was added by Corey
> > > Shields (cshields) on the first edition of the project page itself,
> > > revision 1.1 made on 26-March-2005 before GLEP-39 existed. According to
> > > that same page Corey was one of the members of the Board of the
> > Foundation.
> > >
> >
> > Well, that answers the first half of the question then.
> >
> 
> Council is related to technical leadership, inter-project technical issues
> and issues impacting development, which can include disciplinary issues.
> 
> Trustees look out for the long-term health of the project. This includes
> legal matters, social contract, and quite a few other things.
> 
> I resigned after the initial trustees were appointed. It appears that the
> initial trustees had challenges making decisions and leading the project.
> However, while they might have been relatively "weak" and had very limited
> scope in practice (most likely due to being overwhelmed with their new
> responsibilities, learning to run a NFP, etc.which has a very high learning
> curve,) that does not mean that the trustees were intended to be passive in
> regards to the direction of the project. Non-technical issues that are
> large in scope should by default go to the trustees for direction.
> 

Perhaps an alternative is to lead people (via documentation update) to
email either -project or -nfp lists based on need (technical or what I
guess I'll phrase as 'regulatory')?

-- 
Matthew Thode (prometheanfire)

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 9:54 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
>
> Council is related to technical leadership, inter-project technical issues
> and issues impacting development, which can include disciplinary issues.

Their scope has been significantly larger than that for quite a while.
Certainly for longer than I've been a dev.

>
> Trustees look out for the long-term health of the project. This includes
> legal matters, social contract, and quite a few other things.
>

Does that include renewing corporate registrations, filing taxes, and
actually having all of its board slots filled?  Historically the
Trustees have been one of the largest threats to the long-term health
of the project.

I realize that they're volunteers, and for the most part they've meant
well.  This isn't intended as a slight on them.  However, it seems to
me that there is a systemic issue here.  Increasing the scope of the
Trustees (or failing to decrease it, if you prefer) seems unwise at
this point, when historically they have not been able to manage the
scope they already have.

-- 
Rich

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

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Mon, 26 Mar 2018, Daniel Robbins wrote:

> Council is related to technical leadership, inter-project technical
> issues and issues impacting development, which can include
> disciplinary issues.

> Trustees look out for the long-term health of the project. This
> includes legal matters, social contract, and quite a few other
> things.

I agree with rich0. The very first sentence of the Social Contract
reads:

# This social contract is intended to clearly describe the overall
# development policies and standards of the Gentoo project development
# team.

"Overall development policies and standards" are a global issue that
(by GLEP 39) fall under the responsibility of the Council.

Whereas the Bylaws don't mention development at all, and the Articles
of Incorporation mention development only once, in Article III:

# The Corporation is organized and at all times shall be operated, on
# a non-profit basis exclusive far the advancement and education and
# promotion of software development in an open environment.

(Not being a native speaker of English, I have difficulties
understanding this sentence. "Far" appears to be a typo for "for"?
But what is the meaning of "education [...] of software development"?
"Open environment" sounds like marketing babble, or is it an
expression with a fixed meaning?)

Ulrich

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

[Michał Górny]

W dniu pon, 26.03.2018 o godzinie 19∶54 -0600, użytkownik Daniel Robbins
napisał:
> On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 7:30 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 9:14 PM, Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera
> > (klondike) <klondike@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > > 
> > > If you cvs annotate the index.xml file for the Gentoo Foundation on the
> > > old documentation CVS you'll find that such line was added by Corey
> > > Shields (cshields) on the first edition of the project page itself,
> > > revision 1.1 made on 26-March-2005 before GLEP-39 existed. According to
> > > that same page Corey was one of the members of the Board of the
> > 
> > Foundation.
> > > 
> > 
> > Well, that answers the first half of the question then.
> > 
> 
> Council is related to technical leadership, inter-project technical issues
> and issues impacting development, which can include disciplinary issues.
> 
> Trustees look out for the long-term health of the project. This includes
> legal matters, social contract, and quite a few other things.
> 
> I resigned after the initial trustees were appointed. It appears that the
> initial trustees had challenges making decisions and leading the project.
> However, while they might have been relatively "weak" and had very limited
> scope in practice (most likely due to being overwhelmed with their new
> responsibilities, learning to run a NFP, etc.which has a very high learning
> curve,) that does not mean that the trustees were intended to be passive in
> regards to the direction of the project. Non-technical issues that are
> large in scope should by default go to the trustees for direction.
> 

And this sentence pretty much explains a common problem around Council-
Trustee split. There's a number of people who predate it, and make
assumptions based on the past.

Building on such assumptions, you can pretty much reach the point that
Trustees do everything and Council doesn't even exist. But by omitting
later events, you're creating a false vision of the present.

What really matters is what Council and Trustees do today. And that is
a result of a number of past transformations that go beyond the initial
formation of the Council.

Back when I was recruited, this was the role of the Council I was
taught. If you don't believe it, you are free to research the past to
either prove or disprove it. But in order to do that, you need to
account fo all past events, not only some of them.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 2:19 AM, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>
> Back when I was recruited, this was the role of the Council I was
> taught. If you don't believe it, you are free to research the past to
> either prove or disprove it. But in order to do that, you need to
> account fo all past events, not only some of them.
>

Yes, and the same applies to you. I actually established the Foundation.
GLEP 39 was not designed to usurp the authority of the trustees but to
solve another problem, namely the project metastructure, or day-to-day
running of the project and decision-making and problem resolution related
to technical matters.

The basic delineation that people should (start) to use is that the Council
directly runs the project, and the Trustees oversee issues related to the
long-term health of the project. The Council is the executive team, and the
trustees are the board of directors.

-Daniel

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 11:47 AM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
>
> The basic delineation that people should (start) to use is that the Council
> directly runs the project, and the Trustees oversee issues related to the
> long-term health of the project. The Council is the executive team, and the
> trustees are the board of directors.
>

If that were truly the model then the Council would be responsible for
running the Foundation's operations, including budget/taxes/etc.
Certainly in any business this is a task the board delegates to the
executive.

You obviously understand the intended model here better than anybody
else, but this isn't really the reality on the ground today,
regardless of how we ended up here.

The reality today is that the Council has been running all
non-financial/business aspects of the distro for some time, and the
Trustees have been minding the finance/legal/compliance side of
things.

The problem is that very few members of the Gentoo community are
really interested in operating a non-profit Foundation.  Those who
have should be commended for doing anything at all because they're
unpaid volunteers.  However, the reality is that we haven't been able
to keep up with things.

Normally an executive is accountable to a board, but this is
inappropriate in this case because I suspect a majority of those
casting votes for Council/Trustee members have not been electing
people into the Trustee positions that they wish to exercise oversight
over the Council.  Rather they're just picking the best options they
can from a very limited slate of candidates, and in several recent
years there hasn't even been an election due to a lack of candidates.
At least we're better off than we were a few years ago when we failed
to even fill all the slots.

There is a lack of interest in running for Trustees for a number of reasons:

1.  Most of us are here because we're interested in running a linux
distro, not maintaining budgets and filing taxes.
2.  Because of the general state of neglect historically some have
legal concerns with being associated with the board, since this could
create personal liability.
3.  In general being a member of a board can create legal/compliance
issues with other obligations.  Many who are employed might need
approval from their employers to take on this role.  This is
especially true of those who are likely most qualified to do the work.
4.  The Foundation's resources are pretty limited, which makes it
difficult to pay our way out of these issues.  We can't just go write
a check for $200k to KPMG/etc to get them to fix everything for us.
Obviously we try to be as efficient as possible so $50k goes a long
way towards running our servers/etc, but when you start getting into
professional services this kind of money would basically pay for an
assessment and a few meetings or maybe a small project.

And then this is compounded by our understaffing in general.

So, on one hand we should be grateful for those who do run for
Foundation positions and who are trying to fix the
financial/compliance side of things.  On the other hand many are
concerned because a lot of people with complaints seem to see the
Trustees as a way to basically try to overrule the Council.

There are a couple of potential ways to solve this problem but none of
them are going to work without agreement across the Council/Trustees.
A challenge here is that the Council is largely composed of people who
want nothing to do with running a non-profit, and the Trustees are
largely composed of people who were interested enough in running a
non-profit that they undertook a rather painful job to try to fix
things.  So, as soon as the question comes up as to whether long-term
we even want to run an independent Foundation we end up with
disagreement between the two bodies.

I don't think that anybody involved means ill by any of this.  There
are just differences of opinion and the problem is that due to some of
the legal problems with the Foundation it is hard to drive to some
kind of consolidation of power that might resolve things.  I'd suggest
that devs who want to get rid of the Foundation should run for Trustee
slots so as to create an actual opportunity for the members to have a
choice when they vote, but this requires devs who are mainly
interested in getting rid of the Foundation to basically assume legal
responsibility for running the Foundation that they mainly want to get
rid of.  If the Foundation was sitting on a big bank account so that
this activity could be self-funded that might be more appealing,
because they could just take over, direct the Foundation to hire a
bunch of lawyers to turn things over to the new owners, and then vote
themselves out of a job.

One thing that might help for the long-term would be to try to isolate
the problems.  Rather than continuing to have the Foundation keep
buying new servers/etc, perhaps it would make sense to start a new
funding model in parallel (whether an independent corp, or an umbrella
org, etc), and have all new operations be funded out of that, with
donations being directed to it.  Then the Foundation would be operated
so as to deplete its assets until it owns little more than the
trademark/copyrights, and a mountain of legal issues.  That reduces
the problem to one of rescuing the IP without the need to actually run
the day-to-day.  With no new financial transactions going onto the
books it also makes the problems more finite.  But, I am not a lawyer
so perhaps there is an issue with an approach like this.

I think what matters most is coming up with something sustainable
moving forward.  Fixing the past is painful, but there is little point
in it if we can't even keep up with the present.  Even if everything
were in good standing right now I have no confidence that we have the
processes in place to ensure they remain in good standing, which means
any effort we spend fixing the past is all for nothing.  On the other
hand, if things were fine going forward we could figure out what it
would take to fix the past, and then have a donation drive or
something to deal with it and people would feel more confident in
giving because they know that things are in good hands moving forward.
I don't think we could honestly call for such a thing today.

I think that if you asked around most community members would just
prefer to not have to own servers/IP/etc at all.  If such a thing were
practical it would let us focus on actually running a distro and not a
business empire.

Again, my goal here isn't to slight Trustees, past or present (myself
among them historically).  They're volunteers, and we're getting what
we paid for.

Hopefully this explains why I have concerns with increasing the scope
of the Trustees/Foundation.  IMO in the long term we ought to be
reducing the Foundation to a shell that will ultimately go away, and
increasing its scope is going backwards.  If the Foundation were
actually healthy I might feel differently, but right now I see it as
the biggest source of risk in Gentoo right now.

-- 
Rich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:28 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 11:47 AM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > The basic delineation that people should (start) to use is that the
> Council
> > directly runs the project, and the Trustees oversee issues related to the
> > long-term health of the project. The Council is the executive team, and
> the
> > trustees are the board of directors.
> >
>
> If that were truly the model then the Council would be responsible for
> running the Foundation's operations, including budget/taxes/etc.
> Certainly in any business this is a task the board delegates to the
> executive.


Yes, however, the "business" of Gentoo is to develop software, not to run a
business. So the analogy is correct. The Council should be focused on the
business of software development, and the Trustees look out for the
long-term health of the project, which includes taking care of annoying
stuff like real business matters.

-Daniel

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 12:31 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
>
> Yes, however, the "business" of Gentoo is to develop software, not to run a
> business. So the analogy is correct. The Council should be focused on the
> business of software development, and the Trustees look out for the
> long-term health of the project, which includes taking care of annoying
> stuff like real business matters.

Then perhaps we should wait until they figure out how to take care of
that annoying stuff like real business matters before we give them
more important matters to do, like care for the Social Contract?

IMO putting the Trustees in some kind of overall position of power is
a mistake, because it neglects the fact that we're a Linux distro
first and foremost, and the fact that we own assets is secondary to
that mission.  If we could do without owning assets we probably would.
If we did away with running a Linux Distro there would be no reason
for the Foundation to even exist.  The role of the Foundation ought to
be minimized as a result, and if it were up to me it would be
dissolved in favor of an umbrella org or some other more-sustainable
approach.

Alas, I'd run for Trustees on that platform, but I have little
interest in the potential legal liability that could bring for me
personally.  I suspect most who agree with me would have similar
concerns.  And so we end up with a Foundation that exists simply
because it was spun up and nobody cares enough to rein it in.
Granted, it is somewhat in the nature of organizations to become more
focused on self-perpetuation than accomplishing their missions,
something that ironically the Council was accused of not long ago.

-- 
Rich

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

[Alec Warner]

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On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 8:39 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 6:15 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Wouldn't it make sense to have these assigned to the council?
>>
>> GLEP 39 states that "Global issues will be decided by an elected
>> Gentoo Council."  Surely the social contract is a global issue, and I
>> don't see any exception in GLEP 39 pertaining to the social contract
>> specifically
>
>
> No -- it's a trustee issue. GLEP 39 is not written very well and is not
> explicit in what it means by "global issues", but in context it is pretty
> clear the Council is meant to address project-related problems that
> bothered ciaranm and g2boojum at the time, thus technical problems, and
> "global issues" are technical issues that span multiple projects.
>
> And if you look at the definition of trustee responsibilities, "Oversee
> Adherence to the Social Contract" is one of them. This includes overseeing
> the Social Contract itself.
>

I actually thought this too, but sadly its not in the Bylaws[1].

Instead its just in some text about the Foundation[2].

[1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Foundation:Bylaws
[2]
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Foundation:Main_Page#Trustee_Responsibilities


>
> -Daniel
>

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:49 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

>
> Then perhaps we should wait until they figure out how to take care of
> that annoying stuff like real business matters before we give them
> more important matters to do, like care for the Social Contract?


Rich, there is so many things wrong with what you just said, I don't know
where to begin. First, I have noticed that you have a tendency of making
insulting comments about the Trustees as well as Foundation members who
have legitimate concerns. Your comment above is insulting to the Trustees.
It is not helpful to be dismissive or insulting.

Secondly, this idea that you have to "give them" the authority to do what
they are chartered to do in the first place is totally wrong. It is
actually the other way around. The trustees, as a whole, have complete
authority over the project, and have the ability and legal authority to
remove Council members that they may feel are a threat to the long-term
stability of the project, similar to how a Board of Directors can axe a
problematic CEO. So in regards to running the project, GLEPs, etc., the
trustees have the ability to intervene when needed to keep the project on
track. However, they do not "run" the project on a day-to-day basis, or
even engage in most strategic decisions, unless it involves a significant
departure from our existing focus (for example, if Gentoo were to decide to
build a search engine, I could see the Trustees being involved in that
decision.)

-Daniel

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:49 AM, Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org> wrote:

>
> I actually thought this too, but sadly its not in the Bylaws[1].
>
> Instead its just in some text about the Foundation[2].
>
> [1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Foundation:Bylaws
> [2] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Foundation:Main_Page#
> Trustee_Responsibilities
>

Let me direct you to Article 5 ("Trustees"), Section 1 ("Powers"):

"The business and affairs of the foundation shall be managed by or under
the direction of the Board of Trustees, the "Trustees", which may exercise
all such powers of the foundation and do all such lawful acts and things as
are not by statute or by the Certificate of Incorporation or by these
Bylaws specifically reserved to the members."

^^^^^^^

I think I may need to insert some asterisks. The Trustees may exercise
**all such powers of the foundation**. Which powers? **all powers**. What
lawful acts, **all such lawful acts and things as are not by statute or by
the Certificate of Incorporation or by these Bylaws specifically reserved
for the members.** Let me clarify here that "statute" means "written law",
so in other words, GLEP 37 is not a statute.

What this means is that while a Council system exists, this is with the
consent of the Trustees, and its existence does not in any way diminish the
authority of the Trustees over the project.

What the Trustees *cannot* do is ignore what is in the Bylaws, which means
that they are elected by members, and that their positions have a term, etc.

That's the law, folks.

-Daniel

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 1:18 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
>
> Rich, there is so many things wrong with what you just said, I don't know
> where to begin. First, I have noticed that you have a tendency of making
> insulting comments about the Trustees as well as Foundation members who have
> legitimate concerns. Your comment above is insulting to the Trustees. It is
> not helpful to be dismissive or insulting.
>

You do realize that this very topic was brought up in an insulting
email written by a Trustee putting down the members of the Council,
right?

And I've repeatedly said that my intent is not to smear individual
Trustees and that I believe that most participating in this discussion
right now mean well.  I think that the problems here are systemic, and
not so much with the individuals, other than that they are human and
unpaid volunteers (which is systemic).  Heck, I used to be a Trustee
and was an officer until not all that long ago.

There are MANY of us who have concerns over Gentoo's current state.
The problem is that there is disagreement around how to resolve it.

> The trustees, as a whole, have complete authority over
> the project, and have the ability and legal authority to remove Council
> members that they may feel are a threat to the long-term stability of the
> project.

Only on paper.  If they actually tried to exercise this right it would
certainly lead to complete chaos.  I suspect for the most part
everybody would just ignore them, and they'd be forced to try to
undertake legal measures to seize control of the Foundation assets
assuming they could even afford to do this.  In the meantime most of
the distro would probably just carry on without them.

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.

But, this is all hypothetical.  I doubt any of this would ever happen,
because the Trustees have no incentive to basically destroy the
Foundation over something like this.  At the very least it would be
counterproductive.

-- 
Rich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 11:43 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

>
> > The trustees, as a whole, have complete authority over
> > the project, and have the ability and legal authority to remove Council
> > members that they may feel are a threat to the long-term stability of the
> > project.
>
> Only on paper.  If they actually tried to exercise this right it would
> certainly lead to complete chaos.  I suspect for the most part
> everybody would just ignore them, and they'd be forced to try to
> undertake legal measures to seize control of the Foundation assets
> assuming they could even afford to do this.  In the meantime most of
> the distro would probably just carry on without them.
>

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.

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 actually think that would acceptable. Please go ahead and do so, there is
nothing stopping you. 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 will be supporting Gentoo, not your effort.

-Daniel

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

[Matthew Thode]

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On 18-03-27 11:38:22, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:49 AM, Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> >
> > I actually thought this too, but sadly its not in the Bylaws[1].
> >
> > Instead its just in some text about the Foundation[2].
> >
> > [1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Foundation:Bylaws
> > [2] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Foundation:Main_Page#
> > Trustee_Responsibilities
> >
> 
> Let me direct you to Article 5 ("Trustees"), Section 1 ("Powers"):
> 
> "The business and affairs of the foundation shall be managed by or under
> the direction of the Board of Trustees, the "Trustees", which may exercise
> all such powers of the foundation and do all such lawful acts and things as
> are not by statute or by the Certificate of Incorporation or by these
> Bylaws specifically reserved to the members."
> 
> ^^^^^^^
> 
> I think I may need to insert some asterisks. The Trustees may exercise
> **all such powers of the foundation**. Which powers? **all powers**. What
> lawful acts, **all such lawful acts and things as are not by statute or by
> the Certificate of Incorporation or by these Bylaws specifically reserved
> for the members.** Let me clarify here that "statute" means "written law",
> so in other words, GLEP 37 is not a statute.
> 
> What this means is that while a Council system exists, this is with the
> consent of the Trustees, and its existence does not in any way diminish the
> authority of the Trustees over the project.
> 
> What the Trustees *cannot* do is ignore what is in the Bylaws, which means
> that they are elected by members, and that their positions have a term, etc.
> 
> That's the law, folks.
> 

I tried bringing that up a while ago (and people got all up in arms
about it).  I suggest to people that wish to respond that they make a
thread specifically about who does what or has what power.

-- 
Matthew Thode (prometheanfire)

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

[Michał Górny]

W dniu wto, 27.03.2018 o godzinie 11∶38 -0600, użytkownik Daniel Robbins
napisał:
> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:49 AM, Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > I actually thought this too, but sadly its not in the Bylaws[1].
> > 
> > Instead its just in some text about the Foundation[2].
> > 
> > [1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Foundation:Bylaws
> > [2] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Foundation:Main_Page#
> > Trustee_Responsibilities
> > 
> 
> Let me direct you to Article 5 ("Trustees"), Section 1 ("Powers"):
> 
> "The business and affairs of the foundation shall be managed by or under
> the direction of the Board of Trustees, the "Trustees", which may exercise
> all such powers of the foundation and do all such lawful acts and things as
> are not by statute or by the Certificate of Incorporation or by these
> Bylaws specifically reserved to the members."
> 
> ^^^^^^^
> 
> I think I may need to insert some asterisks. The Trustees may exercise
> **all such powers of the foundation**. Which powers? **all powers**. What
> lawful acts, **all such lawful acts and things as are not by statute or by
> the Certificate of Incorporation or by these Bylaws specifically reserved
> for the members.** Let me clarify here that "statute" means "written law",
> so in other words, GLEP 37 is not a statute.
> 
> What this means is that while a Council system exists, this is with the
> consent of the Trustees, and its existence does not in any way diminish the
> authority of the Trustees over the project.
> 
> What the Trustees *cannot* do is ignore what is in the Bylaws, which means
> that they are elected by members, and that their positions have a term, etc.
> 
> That's the law, folks.
> 

Sure they can do anything. And what we can do in return is to stop
developing Gentoo and let Trustees build their great Gentoo without
the code to actually run it.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

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

[Rich Freeman]

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

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 1:37 PM, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>
> Sure they can do anything. And what we can do in return is to stop
> developing Gentoo and let Trustees build their great Gentoo without
> the code to actually run it.


You can't in one breath complain that the trustees need to be doing more,
and then in another say that if they actually do what they are supposed to
be doing, you're going to leave the project. That is a catch-22 situation
seemingly designed to benefit no one except for those who desire to
continue to whine and complain but without the actual initiative to start
their own Open Source project.

It is very clear what the authority of the trustees is. You making threats
on mailing lists about consequences for the trustees exercising their fully
justified legal authority is not a great position to put yourself in.

-Daniel

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

[Michał Górny]

W dniu wto, 27.03.2018 o godzinie 14∶12 -0600, użytkownik Daniel Robbins
napisał:
> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 1:37 PM, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > Sure they can do anything. And what we can do in return is to stop
> > developing Gentoo and let Trustees build their great Gentoo without
> > the code to actually run it.
> 
> 
> You can't in one breath complain that the trustees need to be doing more,
> and then in another say that if they actually do what they are supposed to
> be doing, you're going to leave the project. That is a catch-22 situation
> seemingly designed to benefit no one except for those who desire to
> continue to whine and complain but without the actual initiative to start
> their own Open Source project.

I never said that they need to be doing more.

> It is very clear what the authority of the trustees is. You making threats
> on mailing lists about consequences for the trustees exercising their fully
> justified legal authority is not a great position to put yourself in.
> 

I'm merely making a verbose point of 'with great power comes great
responsibility'.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 1:40 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> 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.


My point is this -- the organizational structure that exists, exists. It's
for everyone's benefit if those who do not like the organizational
structure leave the project and do their own thing, under a different
organizational structure, and those that do stay, do support it as it is
intended to function so that it can be the best it can be.

Anyone who really isn't behind the trustees and the NFP system should
leave, because that is the system we have and will continue to have. It is
not appropriate to make ominous predictions of what might happen if the
trustees actually exercise the authority they have absolutely every legal
right -- and frankly, obligation to the members -- to do.

I can tell you right now that these ominous predictions give the impression
that certain developers are co-opting the normal functioning of the
trustees through threats and intimidation via FUD, and that is not OK. It's
politics and power games. So I would encourage you to not participate in
that.

I am not close to current trustees or council, and I have no "side" in this
battle other than fighting for the proper functioning of Gentoo. I am just
calling things as I see them.

-Daniel

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

[Alec Warner]

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On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 4:26 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 1:40 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
>
> My point is this -- the organizational structure that exists, exists. It's
> for everyone's benefit if those who do not like the organizational
> structure leave the project and do their own thing, under a different
> organizational structure, and those that do stay, do support it as it is
> intended to function so that it can be the best it can be.
>

I appreciate this sentence, I feel like its the most honest sentence you've
sent thus far.


>
> Anyone who really isn't behind the trustees and the NFP system should
> leave, because that is the system we have and will continue to have. It is
> not appropriate to make ominous predictions of what might happen if the
> trustees actually exercise the authority they have absolutely every legal
> right -- and frankly, obligation to the members -- to do.
>

> I can tell you right now that these ominous predictions give the
> impression that certain developers are co-opting the normal functioning of
> the trustees through threats and intimidation via FUD, and that is not OK.
> It's politics and power games. So I would encourage you to not participate
> in that.
>

In running a business, sometimes decisions must be made when we don't know
the outcome. No one *knows* what will happen (we are not mind readers.)
However, when making risky decisions, its important to consider the
ramifications of said decisions. Sure, the outcome is not known; but its
*likely* that, based on conversations I have had with individual
contributors, that a significant number of contributors would leave if this
happened. Saying we should not take that into consideration while making
decisions is not a reasonable thing to ask; IMHO. Its not "blackmail" or
"co-opting". Its a risky choice to make, and I haven't seen a board even
come *close* to making it.

I think the trustees in general value the "community" and "contributors"
more than they value other things; I suspect these are different to your
values (or you think that most people would stay after a re-org, and you
could be right!)


>
> I am not close to current trustees or council, and I have no "side" in
> this battle other than fighting for the proper functioning of Gentoo. I am
> just calling things as I see them.
>

If folks wanted change they can:

1) Join the foundation.
2) Hold a meeting of the members.
3) Pass whatever resolutions or bylaws they wanted by full member vote.

OR

1) Join the foundation.
2) Nominate a trustee they trust to drive their agenda (including
themselves)
3) Vote for trustees on the board.

I haven't see anyone do either (or even try) precisely because I don't
think its the foundation that holds all the cards here. The value isn't in
"Gentoo" the name, the value is in the contributors and the work they do.
This is *why* the council holds all the power (being the elected
representatives of all the contributors) and not the Foundation (regardless
of actual law.)

-A


> -Daniel
>

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 4:26 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
>
> My point is this -- the organizational structure that exists, exists. It's
> for everyone's benefit if those who do not like the organizational structure
> leave the project and do their own thing, under a different organizational
> structure, and those that do stay, do support it as it is intended to
> function so that it can be the best it can be.

What if "the best it can be" simply isn't good enough?  That is the
concern here.

If I thought that the system that puts the board responsible for
finances in charge of everything else was sustainable I'd just work
within that system.  I'd just encourage the Council to run for Trustee
slots and all would be well, and I'd probably have run for a Trustee
position last year again.

However, there are real problems with this because the
skills/interests of those capable of running the distro vs the
Foundation don't overlap well.  And honestly I'm not sure anybody is
really capable of running the Foundation in its current state, at
least not who is inclined to do so or has the time to do so.  That
isn't a knock on the Trustees - it is just pointing out that they have
quite a hole to dig themselves out of.

> Anyone who really isn't behind the trustees and the NFP system should leave,
> because that is the system we have and will continue to have.

This assumes that this is something impossible to change, and that
makes no sense.  Other FOSS projects have restructured into
umbrella-based models, and there are surely other models that might
also work.

For all the talk of ivory towers around here the ones suggesting
having the Trustees be in charge seem to be ones trying to get
everybody who disagrees to leave.  You're actually the second person
to suggest that I do so, though the other was not made publicly.

The Foundation has been around for quite a while.  It has had MANY
turnovers in the Trustees.  Many of them have no doubt been capable.
And yet in this time we've had the corporate registrations expire
once, a few terms with not all the slots filled, and the latest news
seems to be that nobody can find any evidence that anybody has filed
the legally-required annual tax forms (which was news to me because
when I was on the Trustees I'm pretty sure I had been told that they
were being filed).

IMO the blame is not in the Trustees themselves, but that the approach
just isn't a good fit for Gentoo.  I don't blame those who set it up
either, because I don't think anybody would have realized how it would
have turned out in the end, and there weren't a lot of alternative
models back then.  I think that people step into the role of Trustee
or Treasurer intending to get things sorted out, and then find that it
is a huge black hole of time demands that they just can't keep up
with, until they leave.  Maybe they'll advance things while they're in
the role, but it never seems to be enough.

If we're going to stay in the NFP business then we need to come to
grips with the effort required and actually make it sustainable.
Otherwise we're just playing games with a legal entity until somebody
gets around to calling the whole thing into question.  Granted, that
might never happen since we're small potatoes, but nobody can promise
that so it is a risk.

-- 
Rich

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 4:39 PM, Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> If folks wanted change they can:
>
> 1) Join the foundation.
> 2) Hold a meeting of the members.
> 3) Pass whatever resolutions or bylaws they wanted by full member vote.
>

This is of course by design VERY difficult to do, and not at all
desirable.  This is really a last resort if the sky is falling.

As much as I advocate change, I don't think the right approach is to
go in and dump some bylaws changes on the board that they don't want,
and make them deal with it.

> 1) Join the foundation.
> 2) Nominate a trustee they trust to drive their agenda (including
> themselves)
> 3) Vote for trustees on the board.

This assumes that anybody cares to do the job, and that is the problem
I'm trying to get at.  Honestly, I don't see any practical way to do
it unless somebody wants to donate the cash to hire a board and a team
to fix things.

If your goal is to dissolve the Foundation and hand it over to an
umbrella org, then if you volunteer to be a Trustee the most likely
outcome is that not enough people of like mind will end up in that
position, so now you're stuck waiting a year until you can take over
the board.  Maybe if you were super-organized about it and started in
a year with three open slots you could do it in one year.

Then you'd need to do a ton of work to actually clean things up, and
somebody who wants to get rid of the Foundation probably wouldn't
really want to do all that work.  Heck, the people who want to keep it
around are struggling to do that work.

And that is my concern - I think we have a systemic problem in that we
basically have enough manpower working on the Foundation to sort-of
sustain the status quo as long as nobody looks at it too closely.
Actually trying to drive the Foundation into some kind of clean state
would take a huge amount of dedication concentrated in a short enough
period of time that we resolve issues faster than we create them
through our ongoing operations.

-- 
Rich

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

[Sam Jorna (wraeth)]

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Disclaimer: I have not been involved in the Social Contract in any substantial 
manner, so this is only my understanding of it as a native English speaker.

On Tuesday, 27 March 2018 7:07:28 PM AEDT Ulrich Mueller wrote:
> (Not being a native speaker of English, I have difficulties
> understanding this sentence. "Far" appears to be a typo for "for"?

Yes, "far" appears to be a typo of "for".

> But what is the meaning of "education [...] of software development"?

This means education _about_ software development to others, specifically those 
involved in the development of it. We teach newcomers what it means to be a 
part of a FOSS project, generally speaking.

> "Open environment" sounds like marketing babble, or is it an
> expression with a fixed meaning?)

It doesn't have a fixed meaning, as such, but I take it to effectively stand 
for FOSS, or at least _not_ a closed environment such as commercial, 
proprietary development.

In essence, the sentence reads as:

"... for the education of others in, and the advancement and promotion of, 
developing software in an FOSS environment."

-- 
Sam Jorna (wraeth)
GnuPG ID: 0xD6180C26

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 2:44 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

>
> What if "the best it can be" simply isn't good enough?  That is the
> concern here.


Trust me, no one is being limited by the project structure itself.

C'mon. Grumpy email from a trustee, grumpy replies... then the conversation
goes to the project structure holding you guys back. The project structure
isn't holding anyone back. The PEOPLE and their attitudes are holding
everyone back.

If I thought that restructuring the project and getting rid of the trustee
system were necessary to bring eternal bliss to the land of Gentoo, I would
be the first person fighting for it, laws or not. You guys just need to
respect the structure that is in place and GET ALONG.

Trust me, the project structure is just fine.

-Daniel

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

[Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera (klondike)]

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El 28/03/18 a las 00:52, Daniel Robbins escribió:
> Grumpy email from a trustee,

Just for the record, that first mail was sent by somebody who happens to
be a trustee, but not from the role of a trustee (as in that case I
would just bring it up on the next Board meeting agenda or request
support from the other trustees (and have clearly stated so in the
e-mail signature).

Klondike


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

[Robin H. Johnson]

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On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 04:44:21PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> The latest news seems to be that nobody can find any evidence that
> anybody has filed the legally-required annual tax forms (which was
> news to me because when I was on the Trustees I'm pretty sure I had
> been told that they were being filed).
I wouldn't call this the 'latest' news. It's known for nearly two years
at this point.

Matthew Summers (quantumsummers), in his previous role as treasurer, and
during public trustee meetings, stated that he had a CPA for Gentoo, and
that filing was taking place [1]. 

As the successor treasurer to quantumsummers, I sought out those
filings, and could not find any evidence that they actually took place:
- The IRS claimed no record of the filings. 
- quantumsummers did not:
  - reply to any requests asking for the filings 
  - nor my request to get the CPA's contact information

In my reconstructed book-keeping, there were also no expenses on record
paying for any accounting during quantumsummers' tenure, nor any
unaccounted expenses or income that could be correlated to it [2] 

[1] Here's the entries from the repo that holds the meeting logs:
git://git.gentoo.org/sites/projects/foundation.git
# git grep -i -e 'quantumsummers.*CPA' \
  >sites-projects-foundation-git__quantumsummers-cpa.txt
https://dev.gentoo.org/~robbat2/sites-projects-foundation-git__quantumsummers-cpa.txt

[2] There was a gap in source records earlier, when NetBank collapsed,
but quantumsummers was not yet a trustee, and never had access to the
NetBank account. I have a small loss recorded for that account & time-
frame, that was probably unrecorded expenses (under $500 total) drawn
from the NetBank account prior to the FDIC insurance coverage. It could
have been more than that only if there was also unrecorded income to
that account.

-- 
Robin Hugh Johnson
Gentoo Linux: Dev, Infra Lead, Foundation Treasurer
E-Mail   : robbat2@gentoo.org
GnuPG FP : 11ACBA4F 4778E3F6 E4EDF38E B27B944E 34884E85
GnuPG FP : 7D0B3CEB E9B85B1F 825BCECF EE05E6F6 A48F6136

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

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Tue, 27 Mar 2018, Daniel Robbins wrote:

>>> The trustees, as a whole, have complete authority over the project,
>>> and have the ability and legal authority to remove Council members
>>> that they may feel are a threat to the long-term stability of
>>> the project.

Council and trustees are independently elected bodies, so there is no
hierarchy between them. Especially, the only way to remove a council
member is by election (or by slacker mark). GLEP 39 is very clear
there.

> 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.

Good luck with exercising that authority over developers who are all
volunteers. :)

Ulrich

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

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Sam Jorna (wraeth) wrote:

> Disclaimer: I have not been involved in the Social Contract in any
> substantial manner, so this is only my understanding of it as a
> native English speaker.

> On Tuesday, 27 March 2018 7:07:28 PM AEDT Ulrich Mueller wrote:
>> (Not being a native speaker of English, I have difficulties
>> understanding this sentence. "Far" appears to be a typo for "for"?

> Yes, "far" appears to be a typo of "for".

>> But what is the meaning of "education [...] of software
>> development"?

> This means education _about_ software development to others,
> specifically those involved in the development of it. We teach
> newcomers what it means to be a part of a FOSS project, generally
> speaking.

>> "Open environment" sounds like marketing babble, or is it an
>> expression with a fixed meaning?)

> It doesn't have a fixed meaning, as such, but I take it to
> effectively stand for FOSS, or at least _not_ a closed environment
> such as commercial, proprietary development.

Right, but then it should say "free software" or "open source", rather
than using a term that is ill-defined and open for interpretation.

> In essence, the sentence reads as:

> "... for the education of others in, and the advancement and
> promotion of, developing software in an FOSS environment."

Honestly, the whole Articles of Incorporation look like somebody took
a boilerplate text and spent no more than 10 minutes to customise it.
And apparently nobody has proofread.

(But maybe the version in the wiki isn't what has actually been
filed?)

Ulrich

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

[Matthias Maier]

On Mon, Mar 26, 2018, at 19:15 CDT, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 8:09 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
>>
>> "This social contract is intended to clearly describe the overall
>> development policies and standards of the Gentoo project development team.
>> Potential improvements to the social contract should be submitted to the
>> Gentoo Linux bug tracker at https://bugs.gentoo.org, and assigned to
>> gentoo-trustees. Specific questions about social contract, and discussion
>> about potential future improvements can be posted to the gentoo-project
>> mailing list."
>>
>
> Wouldn't it make sense to have these assigned to the council?

If you two want this to make a matter the council should vote on / say
something. Now is the time to propose meeting agenda items (see separate
mail) :-)

Best,
Matthias

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 3:12 AM, Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org> wrote:

> >>>>> On Tue, 27 Mar 2018, Daniel Robbins wrote:
>
> >>> The trustees, as a whole, have complete authority over the project,
> >>> and have the ability and legal authority to remove Council members
> >>> that they may feel are a threat to the long-term stability of
> >>> the project.
>
> Council and trustees are independently elected bodies, so there is no
> hierarchy between them. Especially, the only way to remove a council
> member is by election (or by slacker mark). GLEP 39 is very clear
> there.
>

GLEP 39 has absolutely no legal standing. It is a fantasy document compared
to the actual authority of the trustees.

> 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.
>
> Good luck with exercising that authority over developers who are all
> volunteers. :)
>

Sure, the Trustees have no authority over these volunteers -- as long as
they are not operating under the Gentoo name, Gentoo infrastructure, Gentoo
repos, not using the Gentoo logo, Gentoo domains, etc. They are totally
free to leave the project which is run by the Trustees, and then the
trustees have no authority over them. But as long as they are on a project
called "Gentoo Linux", the trustees have the authority to remove assholes
from the project if they so desire.

-Daniel

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

[Alec Warner]

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On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 11:38 AM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org>
wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 3:12 AM, Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>> >>>>> On Tue, 27 Mar 2018, Daniel Robbins wrote:
>>
>> >>> The trustees, as a whole, have complete authority over the project,
>> >>> and have the ability and legal authority to remove Council members
>> >>> that they may feel are a threat to the long-term stability of
>> >>> the project.
>>
>> Council and trustees are independently elected bodies, so there is no
>> hierarchy between them. Especially, the only way to remove a council
>> member is by election (or by slacker mark). GLEP 39 is very clear
>> there.
>>
>
> GLEP 39 has absolutely no legal standing. It is a fantasy document
> compared to the actual authority of the trustees.
>
> > 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.
>>
>> Good luck with exercising that authority over developers who are all
>> volunteers. :)
>>
>
> Sure, the Trustees have no authority over these volunteers -- as long as
> they are not operating under the Gentoo name, Gentoo infrastructure, Gentoo
> repos, not using the Gentoo logo, Gentoo domains, etc. They are totally
> free to leave the project which is run by the Trustees, and then the
> trustees have no authority over them. But as long as they are on a project
> called "Gentoo Linux", the trustees have the authority to remove assholes
> from the project if they so desire.
>

Cool, if you want the name, maybe we should just negotiate selling it back
to you so you can do whatever with it?

-A


>
> -Daniel
>

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 10:23 AM, Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org> wrote:

Sure, the Trustees have no authority over these volunteers -- as long as
>> they are not operating under the Gentoo name, Gentoo infrastructure, Gentoo
>> repos, not using the Gentoo logo, Gentoo domains, etc. They are totally
>> free to leave the project which is run by the Trustees, and then the
>> trustees have no authority over them. But as long as they are on a project
>> called "Gentoo Linux", the trustees have the authority to remove assholes
>> from the project if they so desire.
>>
>
> Cool, if you want the name, maybe we should just negotiate selling it back
> to you so you can do whatever with it?
>

Nice snarky non-sequitur.

What I want is for Gentoo members to understand the role of the Trustees.
So far, it seems that ulm and you are both openly hostile to the concept of
trustees, and yet you operate in a project that is run by trustees. So,
while I could reply in turn with a snarky comment like "suck it", or
whatever, I will instead say that I tend to try to side with reality,
because reality always wins. Unless of course, you choose to engage in mass
delusion, which is always an option as well.

-Daniel

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 11:38 AM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
>
> Sure, the Trustees have no authority over these volunteers -- as long as
> they are not operating under the Gentoo name, Gentoo infrastructure, Gentoo
> repos, not using the Gentoo logo, Gentoo domains, etc. They are totally free
> to leave the project which is run by the Trustees, and then the trustees
> have no authority over them. But as long as they are on a project called
> "Gentoo Linux", the trustees have the authority to remove assholes from the
> project if they so desire.
>

I'm sorry, was this supposed to represent the pro-openness side of the debate?

-- 
Rich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 10:41 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 11:38 AM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > Sure, the Trustees have no authority over these volunteers -- as long as
> > they are not operating under the Gentoo name, Gentoo infrastructure,
> Gentoo
> > repos, not using the Gentoo logo, Gentoo domains, etc. They are totally
> free
> > to leave the project which is run by the Trustees, and then the trustees
> > have no authority over them. But as long as they are on a project called
> > "Gentoo Linux", the trustees have the authority to remove assholes from
> the
> > project if they so desire.
> >
>
> I'm sorry, was this supposed to represent the pro-openness side of the
> debate?
>

I have no agenda here other than to enlighten those who don't really
understand the concept of Trustees. I am not part of any debate regarding
mailing lists, etc.

-Daniel

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

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Daniel Robbins wrote:

> GLEP 39 has absolutely no legal standing. It is a fantasy document
> compared to the actual authority of the trustees.

The developer community has accepted it and voluntarily adheres to it.
As long as that is the case, I think that we need not care about its
legal status.

> Sure, the Trustees have no authority over these volunteers -- as
> long as they are not operating under the Gentoo name, Gentoo
> infrastructure, Gentoo repos, not using the Gentoo logo, Gentoo
> domains, etc. They are totally free to leave the project which is
> run by the Trustees, and then the trustees have no authority over
> them. But as long as they are on a project called "Gentoo Linux",
> the trustees have the authority to remove assholes from the project
> if they so desire.

Maybe that is the case in the United States of America. But for
example, the Foundation doesn't hold the Gentoo trademark in
Europe [1].

Also, what's in a name? Even if a fork would stick to penguin species,
it could pick from about 20 of them. :)

Ulrich

[1] https://euipo.europa.eu/eSearch/#details/trademarks/005275714

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 12:44 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 10:41 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 11:38 AM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Sure, the Trustees have no authority over these volunteers -- as long as
>> > they are not operating under the Gentoo name, Gentoo infrastructure,
>> > Gentoo
>> > repos, not using the Gentoo logo, Gentoo domains, etc. They are totally
>> > free
>> > to leave the project which is run by the Trustees, and then the trustees
>> > have no authority over them. But as long as they are on a project called
>> > "Gentoo Linux", the trustees have the authority to remove assholes from
>> > the
>> > project if they so desire.
>> >
>>
>> I'm sorry, was this supposed to represent the pro-openness side of the
>> debate?
>
>
> I have no agenda here other than to enlighten those who don't really
> understand the concept of Trustees. I am not part of any debate regarding
> mailing lists, etc.
>

Honestly, I think this is largely moot in practice because when it
comes to passing actual resolutions I haven't really seen either the
Council or Trustees going into open conflict, and I think this is
unlikely.  Sure, there is the strong opinion here or there, but most
involved are fairly reasonable when they put their voting hats on.

In any case, it is a situation I'd love to see resolved in the
long-term precisely because of the possibility of the sorts of
conflict you are bringing up here.  A court would almost certainly see
it the way you're arguing, but with an all-volunteer effort dealing
with FOSS there are a lot of practical limits on what a court can do.
In the US at least justice costs money.  And a court isn't really
going to do much more than bless trademark takedowns of websites
should those even be sought, since the most important assets the
Foundation owns (copyrights) are already open to a large degree with
our FOSS licensing.

IMO we really should embrace this as much as possible and take
advantage of this, by trying to minimize the stuff we do in-house
under the "Gentoo" umbrella and thus minimize our expenses and the
legal compliance issues that go along with them.

-- 
Rich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 10:47 AM, Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org> wrote:

>
> Maybe that is the case in the United States of America. But for
> example, the Foundation doesn't hold the Gentoo trademark in
> Europe [1].
>
> Also, what's in a name? Even if a fork would stick to penguin species,
> it could pick from about 20 of them. :)


Ulm, ulm, ulm. I really appreciate the way you cling to the logo that I
personally designed :) It is very cute :)

Regarding the trademark, the Foundation would simply need to extend its
trademark under the Madrid Protocol and the one held by the Gentoo E.V.
would be wiped out.

Better start working on your graphics skills.

-Daniel

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

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Daniel Robbins wrote:

> What I want is for Gentoo members to understand the role of the
> Trustees.

Please define "Gentoo members". Do you mean the 192 developers, the 92
members of the foundation, or the 71 developers (about 35 %) that at
the same time are foundation members?

> So far, it seems that ulm and you are both openly hostile to the
> concept of trustees,

For the record, this is not the case and I have never said this.

> and yet you operate in a project that is run by trustees. So, while
> I could reply in turn with a snarky comment like "suck it", or
> whatever, I will instead say that I tend to try to side with
> reality, because reality always wins.

Reality is that there will be no winner if we start fighting against
each other, like trustees trying to override council, or vice versa.

Ulrich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 11:09 AM, Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>
> Reality is that there will be no winner if we start fighting against
> each other, like trustees trying to override council, or vice versa.


I appreciate you saying that, because that is my point. We can casually
toss around the idea of forking, having some epic battle for the future of
Gentoo, etc, but ultimately if people just respected one another and
supported one another in doing their jobs, and cooperated, and were
friendly, and apologized when they made an occasional slip into bad
behavior, things would be a lot better.

My point I am trying to make is: support the trustees, because that is the
organizational structure that exists. Work with them. Engage with them.
Help them out. They do have power, even if they choose not to exercise it.

As I try to encourage friendliness in Gentoo, I want to start at the "top",
which is the Trustees. Be nice to them. You have every reason to. They are
in fact quite tolerant of many things and it is a thankless job. And for
those who choose to be mean to them, realize that they technically have the
ability to whoop your butt, but choose not to exercise it. So maybe be
thankful for that. And then of course, trustees, be nice to everyone else
too. You are examples of the project.

That, above, is really why I am making such a fuss about the trustees and
their authority. One way to gain respect for someone is to respect their
'position' and their authority if they were to choose to exercise it. So I
hope everyone has a new respect and understanding of trustees, and in the
future, be nice to them. The bashing of trustees should stop, as it will
only make them frustrated and more liable to be grumpy with you. You are
all on the same team. And I am speaking as one who has bitterly complained
about trustees in the past. I am trying to support the structure that
exists and model the behavior I am encouraging in others.

-Daniel

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 1:21 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
> realize that they technically have the
> ability to whoop your butt, but choose not to exercise it. So maybe be
> thankful for that.

People aren't going to be thankful merely because somebody chooses not
to exercise the power to whoop your butt.  :)

As I've said, I agree that the Trustees have a thankless job, and I'd
argue an impossible one at this point.  My point hasn't been to bash
the individuals in this role, but to question whether we really need
to go on this way.

This has nothing to do with the individuals currently holding the
title of Trustee or Council member.  IMO what really matters is how we
want to be governed.  If we decide to make big changes, then we can
always hold another election to decide who gets to sit in what chair
going forward.  I think the #1 concern needs to be sustainability,
because if we don't have that then everything else just becomes words
on paper.

-- 
Rich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 11:39 AM Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 1:21 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org>
> wrote:
> > realize that they technically have the
> > ability to whoop your butt, but choose not to exercise it. So maybe be
> > thankful for that.
>
> People aren't going to be thankful merely because somebody chooses not
> to exercise the power to whoop your butt.  :)
>

I don't know if you've heard, but there is this guy named Thanos who has
spent the last decade sitting in a really uncomfortable chair floating
around somewhere in the middle of space.

If he comes to Earth, all hell is going to break loose. I wake up every
morning very thankful that is too lazy to get out of his stupid uncomfy
cosmic stone chair and collect the infinity stones by defeating Earth's
mightiest heroes.

Some people claim that this situation may change sometime soon, but I'll
believe it when I see it.

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

[Andreas K. Huettel]

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Am Dienstag, 27. März 2018, 02:09:21 CEST schrieb Daniel Robbins:
> Hey All,
> 
> It appears that the Social Contract needs a bit of a clean-up.

[...]


> Potential improvements to the social contract should be submitted to the
> Gentoo Linux bug tracker at https://bugs.gentoo.org, and assigned to
> gentoo-trustees.

This has no relation to the Gentoo Foundation at all. So it's a council issue 
and should be assigned as such.


-- 
Andreas K. Hüttel
dilfridge@gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux developer
(council, toolchain, perl, libreoffice, comrel)

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

[Andreas K. Huettel]

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> But, if the Council + Trustees want to sort it out more power to them.
> I'm sure they'll quickly come to an agreement.

(I'm trying not to slip on the surplus irony.)

-- 
Andreas K. Hüttel
dilfridge@gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux developer
(council, toolchain, perl, libreoffice, comrel)

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

[Andreas K. Huettel]

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Am Dienstag, 27. März 2018, 03:54:51 CEST schrieb Daniel Robbins:
> 
> Council is related to technical leadership, inter-project technical issues
> and issues impacting development, which can include disciplinary issues.
> 
> Trustees look out for the long-term health of the project. This includes
> legal matters, social contract, and quite a few other things.
> 
> I resigned after the initial trustees were appointed. It appears that the
> initial trustees had challenges making decisions and leading the project.
> However, while they might have been relatively "weak" and had very limited
> scope in practice (most likely due to being overwhelmed with their new
> responsibilities, learning to run a NFP, etc.which has a very high learning
> curve,) that does not mean that the trustees were intended to be passive in
> regards to the direction of the project. Non-technical issues that are
> large in scope should by default go to the trustees for direction.

Daniel, 

please don't try to wind back the clock. 

While you were absent, Gentoo has been working just fine, and only because you 
*intended* for something to develop in a certain way, that doesn't mean that 
it *did*. 

I signed up in 2010, for most of the time since then the separation of 
responsibilities was pretty much clear, and there was no infighting between 
trustees and council that wasted everyone's time. 
* The council decided on global issues and steered Gentoo's development in 
every respect, from personnel to technical issues.
* The trustees handed money to infra, filed tax returns and posted financial 
summaries. (The latter two only occasionally.)

Recently some people have proposed the theory that the Gentoo Foundation 
somehow "owns" Gentoo. The problem is that not many of us see the point of 
handing over more power to a body that was barely functional at its core 
competencies for many years, just because its members ask for it.

The separation between technical and social responsibilities is a similar 
myth. Devrel (and now comrel) supervision was always by the council.

Cheers, 
Andreas

-- 
Andreas K. Hüttel
dilfridge@gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux developer
(council, toolchain, perl, libreoffice, comrel)

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

[Andreas K. Huettel]

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Am Dienstag, 27. März 2018, 17:47:20 CEST schrieb Daniel Robbins:
> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 2:19 AM, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > Back when I was recruited, this was the role of the Council I was
> > taught. If you don't believe it, you are free to research the past to
> > either prove or disprove it. But in order to do that, you need to
> > account fo all past events, not only some of them.
> 
> Yes, and the same applies to you. I actually established the Foundation.

So?

Daniel, you're welcome back to Gentoo, but to the rules that we have *now*. 
Not to the rules as you intended them to be.


-- 
Andreas K. Hüttel
dilfridge@gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux developer
(council, toolchain, perl, libreoffice, comrel)

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

[Andreas K. Huettel]

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Am Dienstag, 27. März 2018, 18:49:08 CEST schrieb Rich Freeman:
> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 12:31 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> 
wrote:
> > Yes, however, the "business" of Gentoo is to develop software, not to run
> > a
> > business. So the analogy is correct. The Council should be focused on the
> > business of software development, and the Trustees look out for the
> > long-term health of the project, which includes taking care of annoying
> > stuff like real business matters.
> 
> Then perhaps we should wait until they figure out how to take care of
> that annoying stuff like real business matters before we give them
> more important matters to do, like care for the Social Contract?

This.

-- 
Andreas K. Hüttel
dilfridge@gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux developer
(council, toolchain, perl, libreoffice, comrel)

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

[Andreas K. Huettel]

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Am Dienstag, 27. März 2018, 22:39:06 CEST schrieb Alec Warner:
> 
> If folks wanted change they can:
> 
> 1) Join the foundation.
> 2) Hold a meeting of the members.
> 3) Pass whatever resolutions or bylaws they wanted by full member vote.
> 
> OR
> 
> 1) Join the foundation.
> 2) Nominate a trustee they trust to drive their agenda (including
> themselves)
> 3) Vote for trustees on the board.
> 

I think we've already had this discussion in the context of how to un-seat a 
trustee. Turns out it's surprisingly hard to do, and if nobody wants to run as 
replacement, quasi impossible.


-- 
Andreas K. Hüttel
dilfridge@gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux developer
(council, toolchain, perl, libreoffice, comrel)

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

[Andreas K. Huettel]

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Am Mittwoch, 28. März 2018, 19:06:27 CEST schrieb Daniel Robbins:
> On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 10:47 AM, Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > Maybe that is the case in the United States of America. But for
> > example, the Foundation doesn't hold the Gentoo trademark in
> > Europe [1].
> > 
> > Also, what's in a name? Even if a fork would stick to penguin species,
> > it could pick from about 20 of them. :)
> 
> Ulm, ulm, ulm. I really appreciate the way you cling to the logo that I
> personally designed :) It is very cute :)

As a personal advice, it might help your arguments if you come over a bit less 
condescending.

-- 
Andreas K. Hüttel
dilfridge@gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux developer 
(council, toolchain, perl, libreoffice, comrel)

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 9:03 AM, Andreas K. Huettel <dilfridge@gentoo.org>
wrote:

>
> As a personal advice, it might help your arguments if you come over a bit
> less
> condescending.


I'm just trying to keep up with your and ulm's level of condescension --
quite a task! I think you win that battle. :)

-Daniel

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

[Seemant Kulleen]

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Happy Friday Daniel,

Quick note here.

No.  Please no.

A few emails ago, you said you were modeling ideal behavior.  Please
continue to model good behavior, rather than fall to pride/ego things like
this.

Thank you,
Seemant

On Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 10:35 Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 9:03 AM, Andreas K. Huettel <dilfridge@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> As a personal advice, it might help your arguments if you come over a bit
>> less
>> condescending.
>
>
> I'm just trying to keep up with your and ulm's level of condescension --
> quite a task! I think you win that battle. :)
>
> -Daniel
>

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

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Ulrich Mueller wrote:

>>>>> On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Daniel Robbins wrote:
>> [...]
>> the trustees have the authority to remove assholes from the project
>> if they so desire.

> Maybe that is the case in the United States of America. But for
> example, the Foundation doesn't hold the Gentoo trademark in
> Europe [1].

> Also, what's in a name? Even if a fork would stick to penguin
> species, it could pick from about 20 of them. :)

Reading this again 48 hours later, I think that I got a little carried
away there. Apologies to all readers of this list.

Ulrich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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Hey Seemant! :)

OK, that was a snarky reply to something I was saying that I was being dead
serious about. Here's try number 2.

If the Council is to be taken seriously, and not continue to have its
legitimacy questioned, it needs to adhere to the same standards of behavior
that it enforces for the rest of the project. I actually care very little
about the details of the Foundation and even the Council, in principle, but
I do have a serious problem with the Council as it is manifesting itself
today as well as its insular nature. If no corrective action is taken, I
consider it a noble and fairly easy task to get rid of the Council and
replace it with a body that can actually be respected. One of the Council
members is arguably the worst serial verbal abuser in the history of the
project, and nothing has been done about this. It is hard to take an entity
seriously when they do not practice what they preach. It is pretty clear to
many that the Council has some serious problems and is only nominally
supported by developers. Yet I would prefer to not have an epic throw-down
with Gentoo leadership to get rid of the Council. With a few modest and
fair reforms, the Council can effectively be fixed.

My proposal, which will satisfy me and frankly also help to preserve the
legitimacy of the Council long-term are for the following reforms to happen:

If the Council wants to handle comrel and devrel, and even technical
decision-making, fine. However, they will be held accountable to the same
behavioral standards that they establish project-wide by the trustees. This
rule must exist to ensure that if the Council does not keep itself
accountable in the area of behavior to the same standards they define for
others, the Trustees can and will intervene. The ultimate goal is
self-accountability where the Council will hold themselves accountable and
thus the Trustees will not need to intervene. But if not, and there are
behavioral problems, then the trustees can and will remove misbehaving
members of the Council. I want this to be recognized as an absolutely
needed part of the "checks and balances" related to Gentoo leadership and
established in stone. It is badly needed.

Currently, the Council is elected only by developers, a relatively insular
group. While this is fine when it comes to very technical decisions that
are developer-centric in nature, it is unfortunate for Gentoo Users who are
disenfranchised from the decision-making process and who are represented by
the Foundation. This creates a schism between the ultimate goals of the
Council -- to represent developers -- and the goals of the Foundation -- to
represent the entire Gentoo community.  There is an absolute need for
Gentoo Users to be represented in decision-making for the project and the
Foundation is the ideal organization to do this. Therefore, I propose that
the Foundation have a new position of User Representative and that these
officers have an official (voting) role in the Council decision-making
process. I have no problems with Gentoo Developers serving in this capacity
as long as they are clearly people who care deeply about the Gentoo user
base. This position would be an appointed position, with the trustees
appointing them and serving as their "boss". This effectively democratizes
the Council as there is an official channel for user representation without
just opening up developer discussion to be a free-for-all like it can
become on the gentoo-dev mailling list. The Foundation currently has funds
to pay User Representatives a modest salary or consulting fee.

The role of the User Representative are three-fold:

1) Help improve transparency between Council decision-making and the larger
Gentoo community, and act as a liaison between non-developer Foundation
members and the Council.
2) Encourage Gentoo users to become members of the Foundation through
outreach and other initiatives.
3) Help to keep Trustees and Council informed by contributing to
transparency between these two groups.

These Use Representatives will be our evangelists for Gentoo development to
users and also ensure that users have a voice. I think at least two user
representatives (ideally, 3) should be appointed by the Trustees, and each
should have a vote in all Council decisions.

I believe this addresses the two key missing pieces in our current
structure -- lack of accountability and the insular and developer-centric
nature of the Council which locks out users from the decision-making
process. It also defines the relationship between the Trustees and the
Council, and how this relationship works in regards to user representation.
This preserves the democratic ideal of the Foundation, which has currently
been lost as more and more responsibilities have migrated to the Council
over time.

Best,

Daniel


On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 12:14 PM, Seemant Kulleen <seemantk@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Happy Friday Daniel,
>
> Quick note here.
>
> No.  Please no.
>
> A few emails ago, you said you were modeling ideal behavior.  Please
> continue to model good behavior, rather than fall to pride/ego things like
> this.
>
> Thank you,
> Seemant
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 10:35 Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 9:03 AM, Andreas K. Huettel <dilfridge@gentoo.org
>> > wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> As a personal advice, it might help your arguments if you come over a
>>> bit less
>>> condescending.
>>
>>
>> I'm just trying to keep up with your and ulm's level of condescension --
>> quite a task! I think you win that battle. :)
>>
>> -Daniel
>>
>

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 1:38 PM, Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> > Also, what's in a name? Even if a fork would stick to penguin
> > species, it could pick from about 20 of them. :)
>
> Reading this again 48 hours later, I think that I got a little carried
> away there. Apologies to all readers of this list.
>

Apology respected and accepted.

It is easy to get our feathers ruffled as we discuss things that we care
very much about. I am not immune from this either.

-Daniel

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 7:49 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
>
> I do have a serious problem with the Council as it is manifesting itself
> today as well as its insular nature.

How is the Council any more insular than the Trustees?  They have
almost identical constituencies.

> It is pretty clear to many that the Council has some serious problems and is only nominally supported by developers.

Most of the Council has been re-elected numerous times, usually with
twice as many candidates as posts up for election.  If developers
didn't care for them they wouldn't keep voting for them.

Sure, there are both developers and non-developers who disagree and
they repeatedly post on the lists.  In part they post on the lists
because the candidates they prefer lose in the elections.  For many
who support the Council there is little point to argue on the lists,
because things are going the way they want already.

> However, they will be held accountable to the same
> behavioral standards that they establish project-wide by the trustees.

And then who will hold the trustees accountable?  If annual elections
of the Council are apparently not enough accountability, how are
bi-annual elections of the Trustees any better?

> 2) Encourage Gentoo users to become members of the Foundation through
> outreach and other initiatives.

IMO this is a mistake, because there is no proof of stake.  If
somebody actually does have a significant stake and is willing to
accept the responsibilities then they should be made a developer
anyway.

I'm not aware of any organization that just lets random interested
parties without any stake hold voting rights over their affairs.

Voting is easy.  Dealing with the consequences of those votes often is
not easy.  It is best that voting be limited to those who understand
the burden of the policies being proposed, and who have already
demonstrated a willingness to shoulder them.

Otherwise it just becomes too easy for a majority to vote for stuff
that becomes somebody else's problem to deliver, and to basically hold
the project hostage.  Right now the Council mainly acts to eliminate
roadblocks so that devs can work on the things that interest them,
because they appreciate that you can't force devs to work on the
features somebody else wants.  A bunch of voters without this
perspective could end up saying "you're not allowed to work on this,
because you still haven't delivered what we told you to deliver last
month."

Letting anybody and everybody tell your project what it should do
sounds democratic, but I don't really see what the incentive is for
everybody doing the work when they end up having to bend over
backwards to please people who aren't doing work.

> The Foundation currently has funds to pay User Representatives a modest salary or consulting fee.

You're actually proposing that the only paid position in Gentoo be one
that orders all the unpaid volunteers around, wearing the mantle of
"the users" with no accountability to the voluteers they're issuing
orders to because the intent is to dilute their votes for the board
using a larger number of non-volunteers?

Again, if somebody IS a volunteer but isn't a developer, then I'm all
for giving them developer status as long as they follow the code of
conduct and generally get along.  Gentoo developers are not limited to
ebuild maintainers.  We already allow forum moderators and
documentation maintainers and other roles to vote for Council and to
become Foundation members.  This isn't about whether people can
program or not, so hopefully the term "developer" isn't confusing.

If somebody isn't an active contributor, then why let them vote?

-- 
Rich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 6:24 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

>
> If somebody isn't an active contributor, then why let them vote?
>

I have to say that I am very shocked by your response. Do you really
believe that users should have no voice?

-Daniel

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

[Paweł Hajdan, Jr.]

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On 31/03/2018 02:24, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 7:49 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
>> It is pretty clear to many that the Council has some serious problems and is only nominally supported by developers.
> 
> Most of the Council has been re-elected numerous times, usually with
> twice as many candidates as posts up for election.  If developers
> didn't care for them they wouldn't keep voting for them.

+1 ; that may still be within the "nominal" support depending on how
exactly we understand it.

Here's one theory: with Council's limited powers and a lot of day-to-day
development not being directly affected by it, the support might not be
enthusiastic, just sticking to people known not to cause trouble.

My opinion is somewhere in between. There are people in Gentoo I'd
enthusiastically support for Council, and I generally respect it. On the
other hand, there is obviously room for improvement.

>> 2) Encourage Gentoo users to become members of the Foundation through
>> outreach and other initiatives.
> 
> IMO this is a mistake, because there is no proof of stake.  If
> somebody actually does have a significant stake and is willing to
> accept the responsibilities then they should be made a developer
> anyway.

+1 ; Gentoo already gives users a lot of power compared to other
distros, with its tools philosophy, USE flags, flexibility, offering
choice where possible etc.

Here's an idea: send users a survey somewhat like
<https://blog.golang.org/survey2017-results>, so that there is some
general feedback loop mechanism beyond bugs.

Paweł


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

[Rich Freeman]

On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 12:13 AM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 6:24 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> If somebody isn't an active contributor, then why let them vote?
>
> I have to say that I am very shocked by your response. Do you really believe
> that users should have no voice?
>

We're not talking about giving them voices - they already have that.
We're talking about giving them votes.

There is a reason that no organization I'm aware of (FOSS or
otherwise) operates the way you suggest: it decouples cost from
direction.

I want all our users to be happy.  I want every single one of them to
get the distro they want to have.  I want our users to have a distro
with no directories with "systemd" in the name.  I want our users to
have a distro where every application is well-integrated with systemd.
I want our users to not be exposed to packages that may break.  I want
our users to always have the latest cutting-edge software.  I want our
community to never force anybody to leave.  If somebody is harassing
somebody I want the offender gone the next day.  I want all our taxes
to be filed on time, and I don't want anybody who doesn't genuinely
enjoy tax returns to have to think about our taxes.

The fact is that there will ALWAYS be people who are dissatisfied with
something you produce.  They will point out that you could have done
things a little differently, and made them happier.  If you produce
something that is free and worth a million dollars, somebody will
point out that it could have been worth a dollar more.  Some of these
people will be vocal in their complaints.  That is just human nature.

For the most part Gentoo gives volunteers the ability to work on the
things they're interested in.  If somebody hates systemd nobody forces
them to create systemd units.  If they love systemd they can go adding
units to every package they see.  Users can then make choices from
among the ones we provide.  We don't always generate the choices that
people want, but we also try to accept whatever contributions people
want to make.

When a user becomes a more dedicated volunteer we give them a vote in
the governance of the project.  This is a commitment that goes two
ways.  The volunteer has demonstrated that they have a larger stake in
the community, and a willingness to abide by its basic principles (the
social contract and code of conduct - neither of which are
particularly onerous IMO).  They understand the costs of asking for
"free stuff."

Free is not without cost, and that is true of both beer and freedom.
Every time a user is given a feature, somebody put effort into making
that available.  Every time a user is given a choice, somebody put
effort into making both the flexibility available, and each of the
offered options.

Some try to cast this as "developers" vs "users" - but for the most
part we use "developer" as an honorific, not as some kind of
delineation of skill.  One need not be a programmer to be a Gentoo
developer, and I don't think that everybody gets that.  Rather, I
think that the distinction is in "users" and "users who significantly
contribute back."  There will ALWAYS be more of the former, and I
don't think that any of us begrudge them for that.  The latter have
something the former lack: stake and reputation.  They've invested
sweat and tears, much as you (Daniel) have.  Gentoo isn't just a
plaything to them.  Their name and email address isn't just something
that passed the duplicate ID check on gmail.

We all use a ton of FOSS, and we all tend to pick and choose which
projects we give back to for a million practical reasons.  I get all
the benefits of openssl, but because I don't contribute significantly
to openssl I don't really get a vote in how it is developed.  I
occasionally use other distros, and I get all their benefits, but
likewise I don't get a vote in how those distros operate.  I
contribute back more to Gentoo, and as a result I get a vote (IMO that
vote is significantly less influential than simply talking to other
contributors whether on this list or elsewhere, because the reality is
that most of our contributors are fairly open-minded and interested in
collaborating).

Now, I'll certainly agree that we have significant contributors who
don't have the "developer" badge and I'm all for getting them over
that hump, and giving them a vote.  That doesn't necessitate creating
a new class of community members.  However, with that vote must also
come responsibility to the social contract and code of conduct,
because we all have to live with each other.

Apologies for this rather long post to your very short email, but I
thought it was necessary.  Your idea is a simple one and simple ideas
have an elegance to them.  However, Mencken rightly pointed out,
"Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a
well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and
wrong."

If there is some other organization that has successfully applied what
you're proposing for Gentoo I'm certainly interested in hearing about
it.  And don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to dismiss Gentoo's
problems here.  I just don't think this is the way out.

-- 
Rich

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 2:48 AM, Paweł Hajdan, Jr.
<phajdan.jr@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> Here's one theory: with Council's limited powers and a lot of day-to-day
> development not being directly affected by it, the support might not be
> enthusiastic, just sticking to people known not to cause trouble.
>

++

I hate to bring this up here, but this sounds a lot like the Old
Testament.  When things got rough the Israelites wanted to go back to
Egypt.  Then they wanted a king to lead them into prosperity (a simple
solution to real problems they were facing).

Everybody would love to have Elon Musk running Gentoo.  Or at least,
the vision they personally have of Elon Musk.  People look at SpaceX
and think that is where they'd want to work...at least until they see
the statistics that the average employee only sticks around for 1.5
years.

The thing is that we already have a system where anybody can propose
any radical change they want.  The only thing they lack is the ability
to force this change on everybody else.

Without this ability I'll concede that a lot of great ideas probably
don't get introduced, and perhaps many great leaders may look for
other flocks to lead.  I know I've seen frustrations expressed on the
lists and elsewhere about how it takes too long to get things done
around here.

If we created a position for benevolent dictator would we find an Elon
Musk applying to fill it?  Would we want this?  Would people stay?

I don't pretend to know the answer better than anybody else.  It is a
tempting idea, but then again there is probably a reason that we're
"sticking to people known not to cause trouble."  We can probably all
think of somebody we'd love to see in charge of Gentoo, with all the
barriers removed to them making Gentoo a great place.  Then we can
probably also all think of somebody who would be an absolute nightmare
if given the same power.  Heck, we can probably also think of
individuals who could be both in a single package.

The question is whether we want to roll the dice.  When you put a
committee in charge reversion to the mean is the norm.  When you put
one person in charge you get that opportunity to roll a natural 20, or
1.

To tie this to my other email, I'll say one other thing about rolling
dice:  Who do you see buying the most lottery tickets in the real
world?  Those would be the people who have the least stake in the
current state.  Gentoo does have some real problems, and if it costs
you nothing, there can be a real temptation to roll those dice.  After
all, there are plenty of other distros out there if it doesn't turn
out well...

-- 
Rich

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

[Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera (klondike)]

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El 31/03/18 a las 12:59, Rich Freeman escribió:
> Who do you see buying the most lottery tickets in the real
> world?

Those who don't know enough math to see the game is rigged.



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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 4:39 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

>
> I want all our users to be happy.  I want every single one of them to
> get the distro they want to have.  I want our users to have a distro
> with no directories with "systemd" in the name.  I want our users to
> have a distro where every application is well-integrated with systemd.
> I want our users to not be exposed to packages that may break.


There is a serious ethical problem with saying "I care about
_insert_group_name_here_, but I don't want them to vote." Let's apply this
same logic to women, or to black people. Does it make sense in that
context? What if I came back, took over control of Gentoo, and said this
same thing about developers? I care about you being happy, but you no
longer have a voice. Maybe some would be OK with having a BDFL back, but a
large percentage of developers would be outraged. Why? Because they
wouldn't buy this line of reasoning. It creates an ethical dilemma and
moral hazard (see principal agent problem:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem ). How do you
know you are actually "caring" about the disenfranchised group if they
don't have a voice?

User representation absolutely needs to exist. When I led the project, it
was entrusted to me. I entrusted it to the trustees. If the Council is now
making technical decisions, there needs to be some user representation here
as well.

What I have proposed accomplishes this, and protects developers from
unproductive direct user interaction, which frustrates users and developers
alike. Again, here's how it works. Users vote and elect trustees, who
_appoint_ User Representatives, who in turn _can be Gentoo developers_ and
have the skills to work constructively with other developers, who sit on
the council in a _non-majority_ position and have the ability to represent
user interests. Users will be represented in a way that is constructive,
compatible with internal Gentoo development culture and provides valuable
feedback to the project as a whole.

I have not taken a position on the gentoo-dev mailing list restriction
because I know that unproductive conversations or ranting from users can be
incredibly distracting and unproductive. It's a lose-lose situation. I get
that. That is not what we are talking about here. Direct user feedback
needs to be received by User Representatives who in turn can coordinate
productively with ongoing Gentoo development efforts.

Being a meta-distribution, Gentoo is an amorphous blob of cool technology.
As developers, we hack away on it hoping that it will be useful to someone
besides us in doing something that they want to do too. We appreciate the
flexibility it offers us and want to offer this flexibility to others as
well. It is very important to have these people who are using Gentoo to be
able to provide constructive feedback on their experiences with what we
have created. You no longer have a BDFL to provide leadership and assess
the needs of the outside world, so this is doubly needed. Otherwise Gentoo
development can become very insular, in-grown and detached from reality.
This actually allows for a situation to exist where there is a lot of
internal drama, debate and angst between developers as there is no clear
focus for the project and it becomes difficult to assess what to focus on.
While you may view user representation as a threat to Gentoo development
efforts, when done right it is actually going to be a refreshing change
that brings a new calmness and focus to the project and also provides a
much-needed positive feedback loop.

You bring up a point that volunteers should be able to work on whatever
they want, without being 'forced' to do what users want. This will still be
true. If a dev doesn't want to work on something, they won't work on
something. Assuming no existing devs want to work on areas of user
interest, at least we will be tracking areas that users would like us to
work on, and new devs can be recruited who want to work on these areas. My
personal opinion is that devs aren't this "black and white" -- some stuff
will get whittled away on happily, other stuff may languish, but then we'll
be looking for new devs to handle these areas. The idea that somehow
volunteer devs will be forced to work on stuff they don't want to work on
is just not going to happen. We couldn't make it happen if even if we
wanted to. That's not how free (and gratis, volunteer) software development
works.

I hope this helps you to understand my position on the importance of user
representation in Gentoo. It is very important: ethically, legally, and
just to make the project better.

-Daniel

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 3:06 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 4:39 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I want all our users to be happy.  I want every single one of them to
>> get the distro they want to have.  I want our users to have a distro
>> with no directories with "systemd" in the name.  I want our users to
>> have a distro where every application is well-integrated with systemd.
>> I want our users to not be exposed to packages that may break.
>
>
> There is a serious ethical problem with saying "I care about
> _insert_group_name_here_, but I don't want them to vote." Let's apply this
> same logic to women, or to black people. Does it make sense in that context?

I'm certainly not discriminating based on identity here.  It isn't
unethical for an organization to deny voting to people who aren't
members of that organization, or to have qualifications for
membership.

You act as if Gentoo is doing something egregious here.  In fact, I'm
not aware of any organization that operates in the manner you suggest.
If you were aware of one you'd be citing it instead of arguing in the
abstract.

>
> User representation absolutely needs to exist. When I led the project, it
> was entrusted to me.

Back then I was a user, and I certainly don't remember being given the
opportunity to vote for somebody to tell you what to do.  As far as
I'm aware Funtoo also doesn't have an elected (and paid) user
representative to ensure that you're listening to your user's needs
today.

And that is fine, because just like everybody who uses Gentoo today I
used it of my own free will, and had no obligation to continue using
it if for whatever reason it didn't meet my needs.  I appreciate the
great things you created for the benefit of all, and that you continue
to contribute.  It isn't my place to assert some right to oversee the
work you graciously donate.

More than most distros Gentoo already gives users a lot of empowerment
by giving them meaningful choices.  They don't get to vote for their
favorite service manager, then some committee listens to their input
and picks the final answer for them that they can take or leave.  No,
we actually give them more than one, and they get to make their own
final decision.  Unfortunately we can't always do that for everything.
I can get why those who use a distro that offers so much user
empowerment might naturally seek to empower users even more.  However,
my main concern here is that this can backfire.

I'm genuinely curious as to whether anybody has ever tried to actually
do anything like this, and if so how it went.

-- 
Rich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 2:30 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:


> You act as if Gentoo is doing something egregious here.  In fact, I'm
> not aware of any organization that operates in the manner you suggest.
> If you were aware of one you'd be citing it instead of arguing in the
> abstract.
>

Please pardon my language, but I think your comment merits this kind of
response -- are you fucking kidding me? So you are unaware of any
organization that produces software which solicits feedback from the people
who actually use the software? EVERY organization does this. Find me one
that doesn't. The burden of proof is on you.

-Daniel

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 3:48 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 2:30 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>
>> You act as if Gentoo is doing something egregious here.  In fact, I'm
>> not aware of any organization that operates in the manner you suggest.
>> If you were aware of one you'd be citing it instead of arguing in the
>> abstract.
>>
>
> Please pardon my language, but I think your comment merits this kind of
> response -- are you fucking kidding me? So you are unaware of any
> organization that produces software which solicits feedback from the people
> who actually use the software? EVERY organization does this. Find me one
> that doesn't. The burden of proof is on you.
>

Also, Rich, I think it's unfortunate that you don't see the benefit of
having input from users in regards to software development. We clearly
disagree on this topic, so I don't see the point of continuing discussion
with you on this list.

Best,

Daniel

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

[Michał Górny]

W dniu sob, 31.03.2018 o godzinie 16∶01 -0600, użytkownik Daniel Robbins
napisał:
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 3:48 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 2:30 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > > You act as if Gentoo is doing something egregious here.  In fact, I'm
> > > not aware of any organization that operates in the manner you suggest.
> > > If you were aware of one you'd be citing it instead of arguing in the
> > > abstract.
> > > 
> > 
> > Please pardon my language, but I think your comment merits this kind of
> > response -- are you fucking kidding me? So you are unaware of any
> > organization that produces software which solicits feedback from the people
> > who actually use the software? EVERY organization does this. Find me one
> > that doesn't. The burden of proof is on you.
> > 
> 
> Also, Rich, I think it's unfortunate that you don't see the benefit of
> having input from users in regards to software development. We clearly
> disagree on this topic, so I don't see the point of continuing discussion
> with you on this list.
> 

Daniel,

Your tone is inappropriate, and I really dislike the kind of populism
you're trying here. I really don't know if you're truly concerned about
users, or merely trying to use them as tools to satisfy your hunger for
power.

Yes, soliciting feedback from users is important. However, I don't know
of any entity that gives 'point blank' ability to *decide*
on the project to anyone who claims to be an user.

If you disagree, then please try this experiment in Funtoo. After what
you've done here already, I'm pretty sure you'll find enough 'users'
wishing to remove you from the project or otherwise prove how broken
this concept is.

And yes, people actually do things like that. Not really from malice,
no. Just because they see something completely broken and feel that
their arguments are ignored. They do it to make things better, just
as you try to claim you're doing.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

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

[Chris Reffett]

On 3/31/2018 6:01 PM, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 3:48 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org 
> <mailto:drobbins@funtoo.org>> wrote:
> 
>     On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 2:30 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org
>     <mailto:rich0@gentoo.org>> wrote:
> 
>         You act as if Gentoo is doing something egregious here.  In
>         fact, I'm
>         not aware of any organization that operates in the manner you
>         suggest.
>         If you were aware of one you'd be citing it instead of arguing
>         in the
>         abstract.
> 
> 
>     Please pardon my language, but I think your comment merits this kind
>     of response -- are you fucking kidding me? So you are unaware of any
>     organization that produces software which solicits feedback from the
>     people who actually use the software? EVERY organization does this.
>     Find me one that doesn't. The burden of proof is on you.
> 
> 
> Also, Rich, I think it's unfortunate that you don't see the benefit of 
> having input from users in regards to software development. We clearly 
> disagree on this topic, so I don't see the point of continuing 
> discussion with you on this list.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Daniel

You've completely misrepresented Rich's position here. He was saying 
that he isn't aware of software organizations which give their users a 
direct and formal part of the decision-making process (that is, a vote), 
and you turned that around and accused him of saying that software 
organizations don't solicit user feedback. Those are two completely 
separate things -- user feedback drives software development, certainly, 
but that's not the same as giving users a direct vote on the development 
process. Users can submit all the feedback they want, and it's obviously 
beneficial to listen to them, but in the end, it's the 
company(/organization/whatever) that decides what to work on.

-creffett

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 4:09 PM, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>
> Yes, soliciting feedback from users is important. However, I don't know
> of any entity that gives 'point blank' ability to *decide*
> on the project to anyone who claims to be an user.


I have a very specific proposal to fix Council, and it does not involve
giving users direct involvement in decision-making. Go re-read what I
wrote. I have attempted to explain it multiple times.

-Daniel

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 4:13 PM, Chris Reffett <creffett@gentoo.org> wrote:

>
> You've completely misrepresented Rich's position here. He was saying that
> he isn't aware of software organizations which give their users a direct
> and formal part of the decision-making process (that is, a vote), and you
> turned that around and accused him of saying that software organizations
> don't solicit user feedback. Those are two completely separate things --
> user feedback drives software development, certainly, but that's not the
> same as giving users a direct vote on the development process. Users can
> submit all the feedback they want, and it's obviously beneficial to listen
> to them, but in the end, it's the company(/organization/whatever) that
> decides what to work on.
>

You clearly haven't read my proposal, which does not involve giving users
direct involvement in the decision-making process. You and Rich need to
actually read my proposal.

-Daniel

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 5:48 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 2:30 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> You act as if Gentoo is doing something egregious here.  In fact, I'm
>> not aware of any organization that operates in the manner you suggest.
>> If you were aware of one you'd be citing it instead of arguing in the
>> abstract.
>
>
> So you are unaware of any
> organization that produces software which solicits feedback from the people
> who actually use the software? EVERY organization does this. Find me one
> that doesn't. The burden of proof is on you.

You didn't propose soliciting feedback from users.  You proposed
giving non-contributing users the power to vote for members of the
board of directors.

As far as orgs that do not do this, I'll go ahead and cite a few:

Software in the Public Interest (Debian, Wikipedia, etc)
https://www.spi-inc.org/membership/guidelines/
(non-contributing members do not get to vote for the board)

Ubuntu
https://www.ubuntu.com/community/governance
(Closest thing to a user rep there is the Community Council, which is
only elected by what we would call developers.)
https://launchpad.net/~ubuntumembers

Funtoo Solutions
(Couldn't find published bylaws, but with only one director named I
have a pretty good guess as to how he was selected.)

To avoid an extra reply, you clearly advocate giving users a direct
vote in the governance of the organization in your original proposal.
Quoting your original email:

> Therefore, I propose that the Foundation have a new position of User Representative and that these officers have an official (voting) role in the Council decision-making process.
> Encourage Gentoo users to become members of the Foundation through outreach and other initiatives.

So, basically users become members.  Members vote for Trustees.
Trustees appoint User Representative.  User Representative gets to
vote in Council decision-making, and Trustees get to remove Council
members in your proposal.

The key part of the above is users becoming Foundation members, who
ultimately govern the Foundation through their representatives, the
Trustees.

In any case, my point is basically that no organization I'm aware of
allows non-contributing users to vote for their board of directors.
Gentoo already has a path for contributing users to vote for the
board.

-- 
Rich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 4:22 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>
> You didn't propose soliciting feedback from users.  You proposed
> giving non-contributing users the power to vote for members of the
> board of directors.
>

No I did not. I did not propose any changes to the current policies for
membership in the Foundation.

Best,

Daniel

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 6:24 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 4:22 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> You didn't propose soliciting feedback from users.  You proposed
>> giving non-contributing users the power to vote for members of the
>> board of directors.
>
> No I did not. I did not propose any changes to the current policies for
> membership in the Foundation.

As I quoted in that email, you proposed: Encourage Gentoo users to
become members of the Foundation through outreach and other
initiatives.

However, if you're fine with only having people with @g.o email
addresses be Foundation members then there is no conflict on this
particular point.  Though, honestly, I don't get how your arguments
about how people don't have a voice unless they have a vote fits into
that.

I still object to the concept that everybody with an @g.o email
address can vote for Council members, who apparently will
automatically disregard users, and the same people can vote for
Trustees, who apparently will automatically prioritize users.  That
seems a bit nonsensical, but if it were true it would be best to only
have one governing body in the first place.

The problem as I've pointed out elsewhere is that it is difficult to
find people willing to assume the liability of being on the board in
the current state of affairs, and it also can create challenges for
some who have employers who limit such memberships.  If it weren't for
that issue I suspect we would have merged the bodies a while ago.

Ultimately I don't think it makes sense to have "user representatives"
per se because it just leads into moralistic arguments about how one
person's opinion counts more than an other's because according to
their job title they officially represent "the users."  I think it
also implies that everybody else necessarily isn't interested in "the
users" and has to be reined in.

Since none of us are paid to be here, I think it is safe to say that
we're here because we ARE fairly heavy users and thus have an interest
in a good user experience...

-- 
Rich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 4:42 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 6:24 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org>
> wrote:
> > On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 4:22 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> You didn't propose soliciting feedback from users.  You proposed
> >> giving non-contributing users the power to vote for members of the
> >> board of directors.
> >
> > No I did not. I did not propose any changes to the current policies for
> > membership in the Foundation.
>
> As I quoted in that email, you proposed: Encourage Gentoo users to
> become members of the Foundation through outreach and other
> initiatives.


Well then I'm glad we found the source of our confusion. In this context, I
use the word "user" to refer to non-Gentoo-developer members, and potential
members, if they meet the criteria for membership. You perform outreach to
the user community and those who qualify for membership can become members,
and those that don't qualify would not.

User Representatives can also represent the needs of non-member users, but
these non-member users would not be voting for trustees.

I am proposing absolutely no changes to the criteria for membership in the
Foundation.

Best,

Daniel

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 4:42 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>
> Ultimately I don't think it makes sense to have "user representatives"
> per se because it just leads into moralistic arguments about how one
> person's opinion counts more than an other's because according to
> their job title they officially represent "the users."  I think it
> also implies that everybody else necessarily isn't interested in "the
> users" and has to be reined in.
>

Every participant in council gets a vote. User Representatives get one
vote, and they are in a minority. On pressing issues, I would expect them
to potentially swing some votes, but only if they could get some level of
support from the other Council members.


> Since none of us are paid to be here, I think it is safe to say that
> we're here because we ARE fairly heavy users and thus have an interest
> in a good user experience...
>

Again, this is a moral hazard -- while developers are clearly heavy users
of Gentoo, they do not necessarily represent interests of non-developers.

I would think you would have no issue of having a more formal process of
obtaining user feedback and incorporating it into our development process.

This is also a nice counter-balance for restricting mailing lists that get
overrun with off-topic discussions and thus impact volunteer developer
productivity. It replaces this old, informal and inefficient method with
one that is better integrated into our internal processes.

Best,

Daniel

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 6:53 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 4:42 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 6:24 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org>
>> wrote:
>> > On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 4:22 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> You didn't propose soliciting feedback from users.  You proposed
>> >> giving non-contributing users the power to vote for members of the
>> >> board of directors.
>> >
>> > No I did not. I did not propose any changes to the current policies for
>> > membership in the Foundation.
>>
>> As I quoted in that email, you proposed: Encourage Gentoo users to
>> become members of the Foundation through outreach and other
>> initiatives.
>
>
> Well then I'm glad we found the source of our confusion. In this context, I
> use the word "user" to refer to non-Gentoo-developer members, and potential
> members, if they meet the criteria for membership. You perform outreach to
> the user community and those who qualify for membership can become members,
> and those that don't qualify would not.
>

So, this has been debated before, so I won't elaborate on it
extensively, but I think it would be healthier to have these sorts of
users become developers and vote for both the Council and the
Trustees, than to have two different constituencies, because this only
increases the opportunity for conflict between these bodies.  Such a
conflict might be unresolvable if it is rooted in genuine
representation of these two different constituencies, and this would
be harmful to the community as a whole.

Perhaps the issue is with the term "developer."  Gentoo does not have
any requirements of software development expertise to become a
"developer."  A contributor who is a forum moderator, or a
documentation author, or even a Foundation accountant would be
eligible to become a "developer."  Once upon a time we had a class of
contributors called "staff" but this was merged with the developers
precisely because we did not want to suggest that we had some kind of
lower tier of contribution.

My intent here is not to be exclusionary, but if anything to be more
inclusive by not having a separate tier of non-developer Foundation
members.  To be fair, this also means that Foundation members would be
accountable to the code of conduct as well as developers, but IMO this
is just part of having a stake in the organization beyond being able
to cast a vote.

All that said I will acknowledge that many consider the developer
recruitment process burdensome even for non-committers.  I'd rather
see that fixed than having separate constituencies as a workaround,
and if somebody wanted to lead some kind of task force on this topic I
personally would consider it a good idea (not that I get a vote in any
of that).

I'm not really sure I'm a big fan of your particular proposal for how
to go about giving users more of a voice, but at the same time I doubt
many would have objection to trying to be more proactive about getting
feedback and trying to incorporate it.  Honestly, on that front I
don't think anybody should wait for a "user representative" to be
appointed - just do it, and if you have an idea and want help, ask.
The concept of learning from our users' experiences certainly isn't
what I'm objecting to here.

-- 
Rich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 5:17 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

>
> So, this has been debated before, so I won't elaborate on it
> extensively, but I think it would be healthier to have these sorts of
> users become developers and vote for both the Council and the
> Trustees, than to have two different constituencies, because this only
> increases the opportunity for conflict between these bodies.


I disagree strongly and think this is unwise because many may contribute
but not have time to go through the recruitment process or any interest in
being part of the project. Also, it is critical that there is
representation from outside of the project proper, as the Gentoo developer
world can become (many will argue that is already has become) a kind of
mono-culture.

My proposal was very specific and accomplishes what is necessary to ensure
user representation in decision-making and also ensures that current
behavioral issues are addressed.

-Daniel

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 4:09 PM, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:

>  I really don't know if you're truly concerned about
>
users, or merely trying to use them as tools to satisfy your hunger for
> power.


If I wanted to use these issues to gain power, I would not have submitted a
specific proposal that does not give me any role or power whatsoever, and I
definitely wouldn't indicate as I have done that if it is accepted, I will
be completely happy with the Council and accept it as legitimate.

Instead, I would make vague rants and complain about Gentoo not being
democratic and use this as leverage to try to fork the project. But, I have
not done this.

Instead I have given you something very specific and reasonable and
indicated I will be happy with it if accepted. I believe it is a completely
reasonable proposal and by accepting it you remove any possibility of me
complaining about these issues in the future. It is my effort to be fair by
being up-front with the Council about what I feel are needed reforms. It is
unfair if I complain about various issues but do not provide clear criteria
to you for reform that I feel would be acceptable to resolve such issues.

Best,

-Daniel

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 7:35 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 5:17 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> So, this has been debated before, so I won't elaborate on it
>> extensively, but I think it would be healthier to have these sorts of
>> users become developers and vote for both the Council and the
>> Trustees, than to have two different constituencies, because this only
>> increases the opportunity for conflict between these bodies.
>
> I disagree strongly and think this is unwise because many may contribute but
> not have time to go through the recruitment process or any interest in being
> part of the project. Also, it is critical that there is representation from
> outside of the project proper, as the Gentoo developer world can become
> (many will argue that is already has become) a kind of mono-culture.

Is the intent really for these non-developer Foundation members to be
considered "outside of the project proper?"

Are they stakeholder or aren't they?  If they are, then we shouldn't
treat them like second class citizens.  If they aren't, then we
shouldn't treat them as if they are.  Certainly we can listen to them,
but they shouldn't be part of formal governance.

If the concern is that we become a "mono-culture" wouldn't it make
more sense to bring in the voices that would make it not be a
mono-culture?

How is it better to instead keep those voices outside, but then give
them the power to shame those who are actually actively contributing?

-- 
Rich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 5:58 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 7:35 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > I disagree strongly and think this is unwise because many may contribute
> but
> > not have time to go through the recruitment process or any interest in
> being
> > part of the project. Also, it is critical that there is representation
> from
> > outside of the project proper, as the Gentoo developer world can become
> > (many will argue that is already has become) a kind of mono-culture.
>
> Is the intent really for these non-developer Foundation members to be
> considered "outside of the project proper?"
>
> Are they stakeholder or aren't they?  If they are, then we shouldn't
> treat them like second class citizens.  If they aren't, then we
> shouldn't treat them as if they are.  Certainly we can listen to them,
> but they shouldn't be part of formal governance.
>
> If the concern is that we become a "mono-culture" wouldn't it make
> more sense to bring in the voices that would make it not be a
> mono-culture?
>
> How is it better to instead keep those voices outside, but then give
> them the power to shame those who are actually actively contributing?
>

Rich, I really have no time to discuss every minor point into the ground,
so I will refrain from replying to your esoteric questions. I think my
perspective is clear and can be understood by anyone who sincerely attempts
to do so.

-Daniel

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

[R0b0t1]

On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 7:16 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 5:58 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 7:35 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > I disagree strongly and think this is unwise because many may contribute
>> > but
>> > not have time to go through the recruitment process or any interest in
>> > being
>> > part of the project. Also, it is critical that there is representation
>> > from
>> > outside of the project proper, as the Gentoo developer world can become
>> > (many will argue that is already has become) a kind of mono-culture.
>>
>> Is the intent really for these non-developer Foundation members to be
>> considered "outside of the project proper?"
>>
>> Are they stakeholder or aren't they?  If they are, then we shouldn't
>> treat them like second class citizens.  If they aren't, then we
>> shouldn't treat them as if they are.  Certainly we can listen to them,
>> but they shouldn't be part of formal governance.
>>
>> If the concern is that we become a "mono-culture" wouldn't it make
>> more sense to bring in the voices that would make it not be a
>> mono-culture?
>>
>> How is it better to instead keep those voices outside, but then give
>> them the power to shame those who are actually actively contributing?
>
>
> Rich, I really have no time to discuss every minor point into the ground, so
> I will refrain from replying to your esoteric questions. I think my
> perspective is clear and can be understood by anyone who sincerely attempts
> to do so.
>

http://wondermark.com/1k62/


To respond to Mr. Freeman:

All I (or really anyone) has complained about or can complain about is
unanswered questions. I sincerely doubt anyone is bothered that people
they aren't paying won't do exactly what they want. But in the sense
that most individuals involved, users and developers, are trying to
find the best technical solutions to hard problems, some users expect
decisions to be justified.

If a decision is being made there should be *something* that can be
said in its defense. At some point, yes, questions will bog the
answerer down and there's no point in replying.

Not so cheerfully,
     R0b0t1

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

[Dean Stephens]

On 03/31/18 17:48, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 2:30 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> 
>> You act as if Gentoo is doing something egregious here.  In fact, I'm
>> not aware of any organization that operates in the manner you suggest.
>> If you were aware of one you'd be citing it instead of arguing in the
>> abstract.
>>
> 
> Please pardon my language, but I think your comment merits this kind of
> response -- are you fucking kidding me? 
Actually, it does not, we have quite enough noise on the lists, do
kindly avoid adding to it with aggressive vapidity.

> So you are unaware of any
> organization that produces software which solicits feedback from the people
> who actually use the software? EVERY organization does this.
Both "sides" would do well to recall their strawmen, lest a stray spark
find them.

> Find me one
> that doesn't. The burden of proof is on you.
As you have a stated position, specifically that this User
Representatives proposal would resolve (largely unspecified) problems,
the burden of proof in that regard is very much upon you.[1] Unless of
course you merely intend to play "I'm rubber, you're glue", in which
case my previous request regarding vapid noise applies.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_%28philosophy%29

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

[Dean Stephens]

On 03/31/18 19:35, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> I disagree strongly and think this is unwise because many may contribute
> but not have time to go through the recruitment process or any interest in
> being part of the project. 
If someone does not have any interest in being part of the project, why
would they take part in the project via User Representatives?

As for the lack of time argument, which is a recurring meme, especially
as it applies to those without tree access, formal recruiting can be
done in trivial amounts of time compared to making any sort of ongoing
contributions. If one were to have a mentor and dedicate some time to
just getting the quiz answered, without merely spoonfeeding the answers,
it should take perhaps a few hours, past that the requirements
essentially boil down to making some keys (call it a minute or two),
minor interaction via bugzilla (a few more minutes, call it half an
hour), and a meeting with Recruiters (mine was brief, but call it an
hour, two if you feel like wildly overestimating things). If you are
just focusing on the recruitment process itself, the executive summary
is: perhaps six hours at worst, more realistically closer to half that,
and potentially notably less still.

However, we (specifically the forums team) do not typically do it that
way for a very simple reason: doing so would be pointless. We recruit
based on abilities and interests that are not so much as touched on by
the quiz. So we get our recruits up to speed on what they are being
recruited for and generally just let the quiz follow.

Recruitment for gentoo.git access does necessarily take longer, given
that there are multiple quizzes and more questions, but they are also
biases quite a bit more heavily toward specific technical information
that those being recruited should, by and large, already know before
they reach the point of formal recruiting. Recruits do not, yet, spring
forth from pods with no prior life experience. Recruits come in via
filing bugs and submitting patches with are then reviewed, and modified,
and the reasons for the modifications are discussed which provides an
education in what the policies in effect are and how they are
implemented, which in turn typically covers a significant fraction of
the material on the quiz, the balance of which their mentor should cover
with them. As such, even for gentoo.git access, recruitment itself is
not, has not been, and is not likely to become the major time sink, the
actual work being done is.

> Also, it is critical that there is
> representation from outside of the project proper, as the Gentoo developer
> world can become (many will argue that is already has become) a kind of
> mono-culture.
A monoculture of people who are adamantly for and against many of the
same packages and policies, and those who scarcely care either way so
long as things work. A monoculture of people who get along reasonably
well with virtually anyone and those who manage to get along poorly with
virtually everyone. A monoculture of people who deliberately try to
throw their weight around and those who simply try to work on their
corner of their project. A very extraordinarily diverse monoculture,
especially given its relatively small, and dare I call it cellular, nature.

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

[Dean Stephens]

On 03/31/18 06:59, Rich Freeman wrote:
> Everybody would love to have Elon Musk running Gentoo.  Or at least,
> the vision they personally have of Elon Musk.
Everybody would appreciate it if you stopped overgeneralizing.

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 9:59 PM, Dean Stephens <desultory@gentoo.org> wrote:

>
> If someone does not have any interest in being part of the project, why
> would they take part in the project via User Representatives?
>

I think it's pretty clear that not everyone wants to join the Gentoo
project, but many still contribute in some way to Gentoo. I think this is a
good question for User Representatives to ask, to get feedback.

To pretend that this doesn't happen because joining Gentoo takes so little
time is a pretty silly argument, I think. If you were more in touch with
the user community I think you would be aware of tons of examples of this.
I am.

-Daniel

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 10:56 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:

> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 9:59 PM, Dean Stephens <desultory@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> If someone does not have any interest in being part of the project, why
>> would they take part in the project via User Representatives?
>>
>
> I think it's pretty clear that not everyone wants to join the Gentoo
> project, but many still contribute in some way to Gentoo. I think this is a
> good question for User Representatives to ask, to get feedback.
>
> To pretend that this doesn't happen because joining Gentoo takes so little
> time is a pretty silly argument, I think. If you were more in touch with
> the user community I think you would be aware of tons of examples of this.
> I am.
>

Didn't mean for this to sound rude -- maybe you do know of many examples of
this. I think there are tons of examples of this, is my point.

-Daniel

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 9:59 PM, Dean Stephens <desultory@gentoo.org> wrote:

>
> As you have a stated position, specifically that this User
> Representatives proposal would resolve (largely unspecified) problems
>

I think I have been clear on the problems, but I can try to be more clear.
The Council are Gentoo developers who are voted upon by Gentoo developers,
and there is no clear accountability to any outside group.

There are severe behavioral problems on the Council right now. There is a
lack of enforcement of behavioral standards upon Council members, even
though the Council is in theory responsible for defining these standards.

I think the responses to my proposal demonstrate that the Gentoo developer
culture is isolated and protective of its own interests, not interested in
accountability (no responses saying "yes, Council members *should* indeed
be held to the same standards they hold others" -- isn't this obvious?),
and in need of reform.

Best,

Daniel

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 11:41 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:

> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 9:59 PM, Dean Stephens <desultory@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> As you have a stated position, specifically that this User
>> Representatives proposal would resolve (largely unspecified) problems
>>
>
> I think I have been clear on the problems, but I can try to be more clear.
> The Council are Gentoo developers who are voted upon by Gentoo developers,
> and there is no clear accountability to any outside group.
>
> There are severe behavioral problems on the Council right now. There is a
> lack of enforcement of behavioral standards upon Council members, even
> though the Council is in theory responsible for defining these standards.
>
> I think the responses to my proposal demonstrate that the Gentoo developer
> culture is isolated and protective of its own interests, not interested in
> accountability (no responses saying "yes, Council members *should* indeed
> be held to the same standards they hold others" -- isn't this obvious?),
> and in need of reform.
>

I will also add that there are a lot of great people on the project who
just want to code and tend to keep quiet. And if you talk to this group,
rather than the outspoken group that tends to post to mailing lists, there
is an understanding that there is room for improvement and that reasonable
steps should be taken to help the project. Certainly there is a diversity
of opinion here but I think that people who have been on the project a
while have seen some things happen that have been pretty distasteful and
know who the behavioral problems are.

Best,

Daniel

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

[Michał Górny]

W dniu nie, 01.04.2018 o godzinie 23∶41 -0600, użytkownik Daniel Robbins
napisał:
> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 9:59 PM, Dean Stephens <desultory@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > As you have a stated position, specifically that this User
> > Representatives proposal would resolve (largely unspecified) problems
> > 
> 
> I think I have been clear on the problems, but I can try to be more clear.
> The Council are Gentoo developers who are voted upon by Gentoo developers,
> and there is no clear accountability to any outside group.
> 
> There are severe behavioral problems on the Council right now. There is a
> lack of enforcement of behavioral standards upon Council members, even
> though the Council is in theory responsible for defining these standards.
> 
> I think the responses to my proposal demonstrate that the Gentoo developer
> culture is isolated and protective of its own interests, not interested in
> accountability (no responses saying "yes, Council members *should* indeed
> be held to the same standards they hold others" -- isn't this obvious?),
> and in need of reform.
> 

...and in the end you pretty much admit that it all boils down to 'I do
not like who the developers voted for and they do not want to give me my
BDFL back, so I am going to try hard to find some other way to get it'.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 3:47 AM, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:

>
> ...and in the end you pretty much admit that it all boils down to 'I do
> not like who the developers voted for and they do not want to give me my
> BDFL back, so I am going to try hard to find some other way to get it'.


Um.... no. I will be perfectly satisfied if my proposal is accepted.

-Daniel

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

[Paweł Hajdan, Jr.]

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On 31/03/2018 22:30, Rich Freeman wrote:
> More than most distros Gentoo already gives users a lot of empowerment
> by giving them meaningful choices.  They don't get to vote for their
> favorite service manager, then some committee listens to their input
> and picks the final answer for them that they can take or leave.  No,
> we actually give them more than one, and they get to make their own
> final decision.

Spot on.

This is one of the key things that I value in Gentoo: I can make choices
myself that in other distros are decided once, globally.

Paweł


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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 1:42 PM, Paweł Hajdan, Jr. <phajdan.jr@gentoo.org>
wrote:

> On 31/03/2018 22:30, Rich Freeman wrote:
> > More than most distros Gentoo already gives users a lot of empowerment
> > by giving them meaningful choices.  They don't get to vote for their
> > favorite service manager, then some committee listens to their input
> > and picks the final answer for them that they can take or leave.  No,
> > we actually give them more than one, and they get to make their own
> > final decision.
>
> Spot on.
>
> This is one of the key things that I value in Gentoo: I can make choices
> myself that in other distros are decided once, globally.
>

I also so very much agree, strongly. :) However, this doesn't mean that
user feedback isn't valuable in other areas (pain points, installation
issues, prioritizing bugs, etc.)

Best,

Daniel

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

[Paweł Hajdan, Jr.]

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On 31/03/2018 21:06, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> Otherwise Gentoo development can become very insular, in-grown and 
> detached from reality. This actually allows for a situation to exist
>  where there is a lot of internal drama, debate and angst between 
> developers as there is no clear focus for the project and it becomes
>  difficult to assess what to focus on.

I share this concern 100% .

> While you may view user representation as a threat to Gentoo 
> development efforts, when done right it is actually going to be a 
> refreshing change that brings a new calmness and focus to the
> project and also provides a much-needed positive feedback loop.

My impression of others' reactions isn't much that it's a threat, just
doubting if (as currently proposed) it'd be effective.

I hope this thread can lead to improvements to Gentoo. I don't think you
can continue to push your initial idea without applying the IMO
reasonable feedback from the community.

> Assuming no existing devs want to work on areas of user interest, at
> least we will be tracking areas that users would like us to work on,
> and new devs can be recruited who want to work on these areas.

I don't think anyone would be opposed to that. Did you consider leading
such a project?

Paweł


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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 1:55 PM, Paweł Hajdan, Jr. <phajdan.jr@gentoo.org>
wrote:

> On 31/03/2018 21:06, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> > Otherwise Gentoo development can become very insular, in-grown and
> > detached from reality. This actually allows for a situation to exist
> >  where there is a lot of internal drama, debate and angst between
> > developers as there is no clear focus for the project and it becomes
> >  difficult to assess what to focus on.
>
> I share this concern 100% .
>
> > While you may view user representation as a threat to Gentoo
> > development efforts, when done right it is actually going to be a
> > refreshing change that brings a new calmness and focus to the
> > project and also provides a much-needed positive feedback loop.
>
> My impression of others' reactions isn't much that it's a threat, just
> doubting if (as currently proposed) it'd be effective.
>
> I hope this thread can lead to improvements to Gentoo. I don't think you
> can continue to push your initial idea without applying the IMO
> reasonable feedback from the community.
>
> > Assuming no existing devs want to work on areas of user interest, at
> > least we will be tracking areas that users would like us to work on,
> > and new devs can be recruited who want to work on these areas.
>
> I don't think anyone would be opposed to that. Did you consider leading
> such a project?


I am open to counter-proposals and constructive criticism of the proposal,
working towards a goal of improving Gentoo.

I would potentially be open to leading such a project if no one else is
interested in doing it.

Best,

Daniel

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

[Paweł Hajdan, Jr.]

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On 02/04/2018 21:52, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 1:42 PM, Paweł Hajdan, Jr. <phajdan.jr@gentoo.org>
>> This is one of the key things that I value in Gentoo: I can make choices
>> myself that in other distros are decided once, globally.
>>
> I also so very much agree, strongly. :) However, this doesn't mean that
> user feedback isn't valuable in other areas (pain points, installation
> issues, prioritizing bugs, etc.)

Glad to hear this.

The discussion so far seems rather abstract. I wonder if we could
attempt collecting some specifics (maybe on a wiki page?), such as the
major pain points, and unaddressed issues. I'd happy to have a wider
audience vote on such items.

Paweł


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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 1:59 PM, Paweł Hajdan, Jr. <phajdan.jr@gentoo.org>
wrote:
>
> Glad to hear this.
>
> The discussion so far seems rather abstract. I wonder if we could
> attempt collecting some specifics (maybe on a wiki page?), such as the
> major pain points, and unaddressed issues. I'd happy to have a wider
> audience vote on such items.


The vision I have for the User Representatives is that they would help
shape this effort. I think it could involve any number of approaches.
Ultimately, I think it's going to be building relationships with people,
having conversations, having a presence at shows, collecting feedback, and
looking for opportunities to positively influence ongoing dev efforts to
help to address this feedback.

For example, I did a speaking engagement at a University in Krakow last
year. Their feedback was overwhelmingly -- "We love Gentoo, but we can only
afford used laptops here in Poland, as University students. It takes too
long to compile everything." Especially with things like webkit-gtk, guile
and others that eat up a ton of time. Can we look at ways to address these
concerns without compromising the from-source nature of Gentoo? I am
planning to try to address this in Funtoo in some way. Now, I have to say
that it's been a year since I heard this feedback and I still don't have a
set of binary packages for these people. But I haven't forgotten. And I
have engaged in a variety of efforts to work my way towards the point where
I *can* potentially offer binaries for older systems. This has meant
changes to our infrastructure, changes to our release model, changes to our
profiles -- there is a lot of ground-work to be laid to address some of
these issues.

So I think that for the User Rep, it is more a job of having a consistent,
steady voice in development decisions, so the groundwork is laid for
improvements that will eventually benefit users. In many cases, this is a
marathon, not a sprint.

Best,

Daniel

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

[Dean Stephens]

On 04/02/18 01:05, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 10:56 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
> 
>> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 9:59 PM, Dean Stephens <desultory@gentoo.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> If someone does not have any interest in being part of the project, why
>>> would they take part in the project via User Representatives?
>>>
>>
>> I think it's pretty clear that not everyone wants to join the Gentoo
>> project, but many still contribute in some way to Gentoo. I think this is a
>> good question for User Representatives to ask, to get feedback.
>>
>> To pretend that this doesn't happen because joining Gentoo takes so little
>> time is a pretty silly argument, I think. If you were more in touch with
>> the user community I think you would be aware of tons of examples of this.
>> I am.
>>
That a misconception is common does not make it less of a misconception.
My point was quite simple: if it is taking "too much time" for anyone
being recruited to just get the recruiting process completed then the
breakdown was not due to the recruiting process itself, there was some
other problem that should have been addressed before formal recruiting
was undertaken.

> 
> Didn't mean for this to sound rude -- maybe you do know of many examples of
> this. I think there are tons of examples of this, is my point.
No offense was taken.

And, yes, I have encountered the argument before, several times. That
was my primary reason for replying, having repeatedly seen the argument
that recruiting, in itself, takes too long. It doesn't, building and
demonstrating one's skills takes far and away more time than recruiting
and while that might be what has some people complaining they seem to
relatively often complain about recruiting itself instead.

> 
> -Daniel
>