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On Sunday 25 April 2004 09:14 pm, Daniel Robbins wrote: |
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> > Glad to see this coming to pass. Can you ellaborate on the |
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> > organization structure of Gentoo once the NFP is created, and |
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> > what the roles of the board will be versus the roles of other |
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> > parts of the distribution? I don't want to see us walk into |
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> > this NFP upgrading every manager to a board member and then |
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> > nothing changes with the NFP other than the name. |
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> |
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> Well, I am not sure what your expectations are regarding the NFP. In |
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> earlier emails, you expressed a desire to simply see the NFP set up and |
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> that would be sufficient (ie. "first things first.") Now, you appear to |
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> have a very different viewpoint, namely that just setting up the NFP is |
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> _not_ sufficient and that you are expecting something more. You haven't |
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> made it clear to make what this "something more" you're expecting is, so |
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> maybe you could give me a better idea of your expectations? |
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No reason to get defensive here. Yes, I feel that setting up the NFP quickly |
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is the best thing to do, but I guess I was wrong in assuming that people |
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assigned to the board would know what that means and what the board will do, |
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for all I know right now it's just a name. I don't think that coming up with |
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a responsability list for the board should delay the NFP creation much, maybe |
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a couple of hours or so. I was thinking that maybe this was already done and |
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so I was asking. You mention some of the qualifications for the board below, |
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and that they will have a responsability in the financial area, but that's |
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about it. Will the board as a whole replace you and your responsabilities |
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outright? In what capacities will the board work as opposed to managers? If |
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these kinds of questions are not answered in the creation of the NFP board, |
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then I retract my original statement that the NFP creation needs to come |
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first. |
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I understand that EVERYTHING can't be laid out beforehand and that many things |
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will smooth out with time, but there has to be a little thought put into some |
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issues beforehand. |
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> The transition to NFP is purposely not addressing any organizational issues |
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> besides getting the NFP in place and getting a board of trustees in place. |
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> Let me just highlight some points about the NFP to make sure we're on the |
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> same page and your concerns aren't due to a misunderstanding. There are |
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> clearly many other issues related to Gentoo that need to be addressed, and |
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> there always will be. The initial board and successive boards will be |
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> responsible for addressing these issues -- or maybe it's better to say that |
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> they'll be responsible for ensuring that Gentoo as a whole is able to |
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> readily address these issues. |
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Ok, so where is the line drawn between issues that the board needs to handle |
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and issues that managers will handle? Sure, right now there's not much |
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difference because most (if not all) board members are managers as well. |
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But, 2 years down the road, that may not be the case. I hope that for the |
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sake of burnout and efficiency that it's not. |
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|
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> For trustees to continue to be able to serve as trustees for successive |
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> terms, they will need to be able to demonstrate to the developers as a |
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> whole that they have knowledge and concern about those "key Gentoo needs" |
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> that you are concerned about. This is how the establishment of the NFP in |
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> itself creates a mechanism to ensure that your concerns and the concerns of |
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> other developers do get addressed. |
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Good.. |
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> The board will be responsible to the developers to improve our |
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> organizational model so that it's more pleasant and productive for |
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> developers and project leads. They'll also be responsible for looking into |
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> funding for Gentoo as a whole. The plan is to get the NFP set up first and |
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> then allow the board to address these issues as a team. |
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> Their role is to be gentle caretakers who allow the project to move |
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> forward. |
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Now that was the kind of answer I was looking for. Thanks! |
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|
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-- |
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Corey Shields - IU Unix Systems Support Group |
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http://ussg.iu.edu/~cshields |
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|
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My PGP/GPG public encryption key is at: |
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http://www.ussg.iu.edu/~cshields/cshields_pub_key.asc |
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GPG fingerprint: 78A8 E5EB E455 0A90 F392 59BC A6AF F8A3 A304 1453 |
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|
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-- |
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