Re: [gentoo-nfp] Board of trustees

[Corey Shields]

On Sunday 25 April 2004 09:14 pm, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> > Glad to see this coming to pass.  Can you ellaborate on the
> > organization structure of Gentoo once the NFP is created, and
> > what the roles of the board will be versus the roles of other
> > parts of the distribution?  I don't want to see us walk into
> > this NFP upgrading every manager to a board member and then
> > nothing changes with the NFP other than the name.
>
> Well, I am not sure what your expectations are regarding the NFP. In
> earlier emails, you expressed a desire to simply see the NFP set up and
> that would be sufficient (ie. "first things first.") Now, you appear to
> have a very different viewpoint, namely that just setting up the NFP is
> _not_ sufficient and that you are expecting something more. You haven't
> made it clear to make what this "something more" you're expecting is, so
> maybe you could give me a better idea of your expectations?

No reason to get defensive here.  Yes, I feel that setting up the NFP quickly 
is the best thing to do, but I guess I was wrong in assuming that people 
assigned to the board would know what that means and what the board will do, 
for all I know right now it's just a name.  I don't think that coming up with 
a responsability list for the board should delay the NFP creation much, maybe 
a couple of hours or so.  I was thinking that maybe this was already done and 
so I was asking.  You mention some of the qualifications for the board below, 
and that they will have a responsability in the financial area, but that's 
about it.  Will the board as a whole replace you and your responsabilities 
outright?  In what capacities will the board work as opposed to managers?  If 
these kinds of questions are not answered in the creation of the NFP board, 
then I retract my original statement that the NFP creation needs to come 
first.

I understand that EVERYTHING can't be laid out beforehand and that many things 
will smooth out with time, but there has to be a little thought put into some 
issues beforehand.

> The transition to NFP is purposely not addressing any organizational issues
> besides getting the NFP in place and getting a board of trustees in place.
> Let me just highlight some points about the NFP to make sure we're on the
> same page and your concerns aren't due to a misunderstanding. There are
> clearly many other issues related to Gentoo that need to be addressed, and
> there always will be. The initial board and successive boards will be
> responsible for addressing these issues -- or maybe it's better to say that
> they'll be responsible for ensuring that Gentoo as a whole is able to
> readily address these issues.

Ok, so where is the line drawn between issues that the board needs to handle 
and issues that managers will handle?   Sure, right now there's not much 
difference because most (if not all) board members are managers as well.  
But, 2 years down the road, that may not be the case.  I hope that for the 
sake of burnout and efficiency that it's not.

> For trustees to continue to be able to serve as trustees for successive
> terms, they will need to be able to demonstrate to the developers as a
> whole that they have knowledge and concern about those "key Gentoo needs"
> that you are concerned about. This is how the establishment of the NFP in
> itself creates a mechanism to ensure that your concerns and the concerns of
> other developers do get addressed.

Good..

> The board will be responsible to the developers to improve our
> organizational model so that it's more pleasant and productive for
> developers and project leads. They'll also be responsible for looking into
> funding for Gentoo as a whole. The plan is to get the NFP set up first and
> then allow the board to address these issues as a team.
> Their role is to be gentle caretakers who allow the project to move
> forward.

Now that was the kind of answer I was looking for.  Thanks!

-- 
Corey Shields - IU Unix Systems Support Group
http://ussg.iu.edu/~cshields

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