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On Mon, Jul 15, 2019 at 4:45 AM Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote: |
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|
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> On Mon, 2019-07-15 at 10:44 +0000, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote: |
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> > On 13/07/19 21:25, Michał Górny wrote: |
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> > > On Sat, 2019-07-13 at 22:15 +0100, Roy Bamford wrote: |
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> > > > On 2019.07.13 21:56, Alec Warner wrote: |
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> > > > > On Sat, Jul 13, 2019 at 1:15 PM Roy Bamford |
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> > > > > <neddyseagoon@g.o> wrote: |
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> > |
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> > <snip> |
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> > |
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> > > > Maybe an example will help? What group or individual within |
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> > > > Gentoo will determine if directing the umbrella to buy a Power9 |
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> > > > system for the distro is a good idea or not. |
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> > > |
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> > > The Council, obviously. As it should be doing it today, except by |
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> > > some weird mistake Foundation decides to skip it entirely and |
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> > > authorize technical decisions on its own. |
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> > |
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> > I strongly disagree with this position,. |
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> > Both Infra and Releng shouldn't (I'd go as further as saying don't) |
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> > need Council approval for spending money. Both teams funding requests |
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> > are rightly evaluated by Trustees and can be refused, but in neither |
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> > case should there be a "technical oversight" by the Council. |
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> > Best regards, |
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> > |
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> |
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> Do you have any arguments to support this claim? I'd dare say you need |
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> one, especially that you're talking about special privileges that affect |
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> yourself. |
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> |
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> Why do you claim that Trustees (= people ideally with financial or legal |
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> background) are the right people to evaluate technical merits of funding |
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> requests? Just because our Trustees happen to be technically competent |
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> people doesn't justify a general rule. |
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> |
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|
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> Does that mean that if we switch to an umbrella, Infra and RelEng want |
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> to request expenses directly from the umbrella, entirely skipping Gentoo |
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> supervision? |
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> |
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|
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So in the current setup, anyone can submit a funding request. Arguably, |
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even non-developers could submit funding requests. Currently the Foundation |
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receives 1-2 requests a year; most requests are approved. In addition, the |
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Foundation typically makes more money in a year than it spends, so |
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oversight on requests is minimal because pressure on funds is also minimal; |
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we are in little danger of running out of funds. |
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|
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I don't believe the existing trustees (certainly I do not) exercise |
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technical judgement for a funding request. Either it falls within the |
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bounds of the mission or it doesn't. Either we have the funds, or we do |
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not. Either the request is reasonably priced, or not. Perhaps the last one |
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is a technical judgement, but I consider it administrative and it mostly |
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prevents misuse of funds (e.g. buying services from a relative and paying |
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3x the normal rate.) |
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|
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To use a concrete example; in https://bugs.gentoo.org/607622 the Foundation |
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approved $4,000 to buy a new SPARC machine. I don't think we should be |
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spending money on a SPARC machine because I think SPARC is dumb; and the |
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SPARC port probably has like 20 users[0]. However, I approved the request |
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because what I think about the SPARC port doesn't matter; my job is to |
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ensure the request meets the mission, that we have the funds and that the |
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price is reasonable. |
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|
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In a situation where funds *are* limited, I think we would need to have a |
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set of spending priorities. Without a board, I agree that this falls into |
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the Council territory in the new system because someone has to make global |
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spending decisions when allocating limited resources. I also don't expect |
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an umbrella to accept expense requests from anyone because its a pretty |
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loose financial control. I'm not sure this is necessarily technical |
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judgement though. |
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|
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To use a concrete example: Lets assume we have $2k in the bank of an |
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umbrella. Infra has $3.4k in proposed expenses at the beginning of the |
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year. I would expect the Council to say "Hey Infra, we have 2k total money, |
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your portion of this is $1200, figure out what items of your 3.4k in |
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expenses you should fund with the $1200." I would not typically expect the |
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council to make this judgement themselves (e.g. to go through the infra |
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budget and pick items; its literally the job of the infra lead.) This |
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oversight is still pretty administrative and not technical though. In |
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theory they could say "Infra is dumb, your budget is 0$!" but I don't |
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expect this to happen in practice. |
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|
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-A |
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|
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> -- |
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> Best regards, |
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> Michał Górny |
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> |
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> |