Re: [gentoo-nfp] Trustee nomination: Aaron Bauman (bman)

[Aaron Bauman]

On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 02:21:51PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 2:01 PM Roy Bamford <neddyseagoon@g.o> wrote:
> >
> > Also, we would need to operate two NFPs when at this election
> > we only secured enough candidates to staff one ... if they are all
> > ranked above _reopen_nominations in the poll.
> >
>
> ++
>
> This just sounds like twice as many opportunities to get things wrong,
> and it splits our resources.
>

You didn't read my previous reply to Roy.  It also does not split
resources.  Plain and simple.

> > To follow on your example, there are several competing 2FA
> > solutions with differing feature sets. While Nitrokey may be
> > selected for <reasons> the comparative value assesment still
> > needs to be performed or the trustees would be neglecting their
> > duty by rubber stamping council decisions.
>
> Why would we think that the trustees would do any better a job at this
> than the Council?  Why would the Council want to waste money?  There
> is a limited pool of resources, and if the Council is making decisions
> like this I'd imagine most developers would vote to select people they
> trust to make these decisions.
>

No one said the council will do any better at this than the council and
once again read my reply to Roy.  Why would this be a waste of money?
It is a technical decision and I shouldn't have called out a particular
vendor.  Your paragraph is full of assumptions and no digestion of what
I wrote.

> If we went to an umbrella org then there is a good chance that the
> Council will end up making these kinds of decisions.
>
> Besides, why would we want multiple decision-making bodies, where one
> body can choose to invest in something, and then another body can
> ensure that all that investment is wasted by denying complementary
> investment?  That could go either way.
>

It is not multiple decision making bodies.  The council is leading and
the Foundation is providing.  The only split is that of legal and
financial decision making for (hopefully) obvious reasons.

> > Such bylaws would make me nervous ... what happens if the new
> > legal entity has insuffcient funds to pay these people. I suppose it
> > just goes bankrupt, like any other legal entity.
>
> Honestly, I don't see any point in codifying random decisions in bylaws.
>

Which random decisions?

> Bylaws are supposed to be general principles we operate on.  They
> don't codify individual operating decisions.  Those decisions should
> be documented, but elsewhere.
>

Sure, by-laws can codify anything you want to set into statute.  It
allows for enforcement and legal soundness.

> Also, we don't need to spin up a new legal entity just to change the
> bylaws.  They can be changed at any time fairly easily actually,
> assuming the Trustees concur.
>

Of course we don't need a new entity to do that. It is just a by-product
of the course of action.

> That said, I'm all for paying people to do jobs that need to be done
> reliably when volunteers aren't cutting it (and historically, they
> haven't been).  This is a big argument in favor of an umbrella,
> because there is an economy in splitting these costs across many orgs.
> But, if we were independent I'd rather pay a CPA to do the taxes
> properly/etc.  And then we'd make sure that not a dime gets paid to
> anybody without the CPA knowing about it...
>

The sad part is, that if years hadn't gone by and it was done
incrementally over time this wouldn't be such a burden.  Again, see my
reply to Roy regarding umbrellas.

> --
> Rich
>

-- 
Cheers,
Aaron