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Alistair Bush wrote: |
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> |
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> And what happens if the Council actions funding that is against the |
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> interests of Gentoo. Is the Foundation to blindly accept there decision. |
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> |
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|
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Well, if the two bodies have the same constituency I can't see this |
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being too likely to happen. |
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|
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While the foundation can technically exercise a veto on the spending of |
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money, and has other legal powers with regard to the trademark and use |
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of property owned by the foundation, its ability to use this power is |
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limited practically. |
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|
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Imagine what would happen if the trustees decided they really didn't |
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like the council's actions and decided to take any kind of serious |
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action as a result. I'm not talking about not paying $200 for a booth |
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at a conference - I'm talking about calling up a hosting company and |
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reassigning root access on an infrastructure box or something like that, |
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so that policy can be changed and enforced. That kind of action could |
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potentially lead to a fork - particularly if a majority of devs oppose |
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the action. It would only work out ok if the devs managed to elect a |
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bunch of dictators to the council and regretted their choices later (but |
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somehow managed to not elect similarly-minded dictators to the trustees). |
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|
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Again, as long as both bodies are elected by the same developers I don't |
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think that it is likely that they'll ever be in this kind of opposition. |
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However, in practice neither body has that great a "veto" power over |
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the other. Legal ownership of property isn't a big trump card in an |
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open-source linux distro. It is nice to come up with theoretical |
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scenarios where various groups can override each other, but we're |
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talking about human beings here, and people don't just sit and watch |
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while their democratically-elected leaders are dismantled (in either |
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organization). Both groups have the needs of Gentoo at heart, and as a |
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result neither can afford to start a war with the other... |
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|
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-- |
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