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Richard Freeman wrote: |
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> Roy Bamford wrote: |
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>> The rule prevents the Foundation being a subset of the council and |
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>> preseves the split that was intended when the Foundation was |
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>> established. Maybe the split wasn't a good idea in the first place? |
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>> Its certainly an odd management structure that Gentoo has. |
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>> |
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Many organisations separate out day-to-day "product development" from legal |
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oversight, HR, finance etc, and interaction with the wider environment. |
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>> It also prevents a huge hole being left in the gentoo management |
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>> structure by the loss of a single individual. |
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>> |
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> |
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> I understand the arguments that have been put forth for the separation, |
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> but I don't agree. Honestly, the one organization being largely a |
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> subset of the other sounds perfectly fine to me - almost ideal. There |
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> should really be "One Gentoo" - the more unity between the organizations |
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> the better. Of course, the skills needed to be a trustee and a council |
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> member are not identical, so it isn't a bad idea to allow different |
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> people to participate on each. However, forced independence isn't a |
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> good idea in my opinion. |
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> |
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Hmm I see it as a "separation of powers" which yes, is forced, but it's the |
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Constitution that members voted for, isn't it? |
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Given that the skillset is so very different, how can "different people |
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participate on each" if there are not two separate bodies? |
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NB: I'm not saying that people don't fall on a range, from non-technical but |
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good with people, to totally crap with people but good technically, nor even |
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that one precludes the other. Simply that they are very different jobs, and |
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if you only have a Council, voted on by developers, that will naturally |
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reflect their interests. And there are other people involved. |
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Further, many developers, while being happy to discuss technical minutiae, |
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will run a mile from non-technical issues, preferring to label |
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them 'political' until it's something they care about (whereupon it becomes |
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a 'pressing technical problem';) Irrespective of what you call them, they |
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still need to be handled, as was evinced at the beginning of last year. |
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> At the same time, I appreciate that doing a good job on either |
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> organization takes time, so care should be taken before just stepping up |
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> to the plate for both. On the other hand, representation matters more |
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> on a board than effort. In fact, I'd encourage both boards to delegate |
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> tasks to individuals willing to perform them and focus more on |
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> oversight. This largely happens with the council (devrel, recruiters, |
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> and other project/arch leads), but the trustees seem to be a bit more |
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> limited in manpower. |
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Agreed. Hopefully, now that the legal issues have been resolved, we'll be able |
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to see the Trustees take on the other things they discussed in their |
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manifestos last time around, and will no doubt raise this year. Personally I |
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think things have got a lot better in the last year, and I'd like to thank |
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the people who have made that happen, usually out of public sight and for no |
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thanks, nor even acknowledgement. |
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