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Richard Freeman wrote: |
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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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Why? There are plenty of examples within democracies of Governments |
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ignoring their constituency when passing law's etc. |
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|
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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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Except that a fork doesn't limit the foundations powers, it just |
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influences the state of Gentoo after all the developers abandon it. |
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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). |
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|
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Really? You read the news don't you? Have learnt some history? Why do |
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you think most governments have Upper and Lower Houses? There is one |
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thing that I want to make clear. I don't want to overly formalise the |
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whole governance structure gentoo, but I also don't want it to be |
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ad-hoc. The one problem I see is that Conventions will never work |
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within an open-source org as developers will change them willy nilly to |
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prove a point. Therefore, I believe, we need some simple, easy to |
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follow rules. |
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|
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> 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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And yet that won't stop a war from happening. At least if both the |
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Foundation and the Council have the right to call elections then the |
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power rest firmly with those who vote. If for instance the Foundation |
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were to dismiss the Council against the wishes of the large dev |
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community I would expect the community to vote the Council members back |
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in and give the Foundation its marching orders. |
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-- |
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