On Fri, Apr 16, 2004 at 03:16:30PM -0600, Daniel Robbins wrote:

> Gentoo Technologies, Inc. will transfer the copyrights and trademarks to the
> Gentoo Foundation. In exchange, the Gentoo Foundation will grant Daniel
> Robbins & Gentoo Technologies, Inc. perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free
> use of the "Gentoo" trademark and "G" logo. This will allow me to continue
> to run the Gentoo Store if I want.

This sounds very reasonable. In general, if the NFP wants to "lend out"
the trademark and logo, I guess the contract should state that the
recipient cannot run away with the name and logo to start his own
shop completely separate from the Gentoo project (hostile fork).

> If you have any suggestions for improvement or for coordinator/project lead
> structure, try to see if you can suggest it so that it can work in the
> context of what I've just outlined above.

At the outset, I trust you and the board to ratify a reasonable project
structure based on feedback and past experience. 

In order to speed up the transition to NFP, I would suggest keeping much
of the current structure as-is, then spending serious thinking time on
the board, in public, how to do any necessary reorganisations.

Imho, earlier suggestions to -core where the projects are created by the
board, and each project gets an active lead (ie, a working lead, who is
also the de facto lead in everyday operations) appointed by the board is
a good suggestion.

In selecting the lead, the board should also look at his lieutenants;
when running for a project lead, the candidate should be open about who
he'll initially want as support crew.


As a side note: My view on the board is as a piece of infrastructure. It
is a necessary component in the production pipeline of Gentoo, but in
and of itself, the board doesn't produce any code. It should support and
try to appease the Gentoo Community by being as non-intrusive as
possible.


Finally: I am extremely happy to see that we are at a stage where we
formalise our intended goal of making Gentoo NFP in form as well as in
spirit. So many heaploads of kudos as is shovelable to the people
involved, and especially to Daniel for sticking it out. "... for better
and for worse", one should think you married the project;)


Kind regards,

Karl T