It is both a practical and a legal requirement that the Foundation have
a means of communicating with its members.  Because Gentoo and the
Gentoo Foundation do all their work via such media as IRC, email, and
the forums, this really means we must have a mailing list to which all
Foundation members are subscribed.

Roy (NeddySeagoon) believes that this should be a mailing list whose
distribution is exactly the Foundation members and to which only the
trustees and officers of the foundation may post.  After thinking about
it for a bit, I agree with him.  This would be a very low traffic list
because it would be restricted to critical communications from the
Foundation to its members.  (Think of it as a mailing to stockholders,
because that is actually what it is.)

So, I suggest we establish a new mailinglist (say,
foundation-announce@g.o) and make sure that all members are
subscribed to it.  I further suggest that we maintain a small list of
people who may post to the list so that only communications from the
Foundation to its members are sent to it.  This fulfills our obligation
to be able to send required announcements to the membership (announcing
elections, questions put to the membership for approval, and such like).
It has the side benefit of giving us immediate validation of the email
addresses we have on record for our members and allows us to correct (if
possible) any stale email addresses.  (If yours changes but you don't
tell us, we have no way of knowing unless we send something to you.)

Comments?  Please respond rather quickly, because as those of you who
follow Foundation actions know, we are opening nominations for two
trustee positions in a bit over a week.

Thanks and regards,
Ferris
-- 
Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) <fmccor@g.o>
Developer, Gentoo Linux (Sparc, Userrel, Trustees)