Re: [gentoo-nfp] Questions For Gentoo Foundation Trustee Candidates

[Alec Warner]

On Mon, Jul 15, 2019 at 4:45 AM Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote:

> On Mon, 2019-07-15 at 10:44 +0000, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
> > On 13/07/19 21:25, Michał Górny wrote:
> > > On Sat, 2019-07-13 at 22:15 +0100, Roy Bamford wrote:
> > > > On 2019.07.13 21:56, Alec Warner wrote:
> > > > > On Sat, Jul 13, 2019 at 1:15 PM Roy Bamford
> > > > > <neddyseagoon@g.o> wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > > > Maybe an example will help? What group or individual within
> > > > Gentoo will determine if directing the umbrella to buy a Power9
> > > > system for the distro is a good idea or not.
> > >
> > > The Council, obviously.  As it should be doing it today, except by
> > > some weird mistake Foundation decides to skip it entirely and
> > > authorize technical decisions on its own.
> >
> > I strongly disagree with this position,.
> > Both Infra and Releng shouldn't (I'd go as further as saying don't)
> > need Council approval for spending money. Both teams funding requests
> > are rightly evaluated by Trustees and can be refused, but in neither
> > case should there be a "technical oversight" by the Council.
> > Best regards,
> >
>
> Do you have any arguments to support this claim?  I'd dare say you need
> one, especially that you're talking about special privileges that affect
> yourself.
>
> Why do you claim that Trustees (= people ideally with financial or legal
> background) are the right people to evaluate technical merits of funding
> requests?  Just because our Trustees happen to be technically competent
> people doesn't justify a general rule.
>

> Does that mean that if we switch to an umbrella, Infra and RelEng want
> to request expenses directly from the umbrella, entirely skipping Gentoo
> supervision?
>

So in the current setup, anyone can submit a funding request. Arguably,
even non-developers could submit funding requests. Currently the Foundation
receives 1-2 requests a year; most requests are approved. In addition, the
Foundation typically makes more money in a year than it spends, so
oversight on requests is minimal because pressure on funds is also minimal;
we are in little danger of running out of funds.

I don't believe the existing trustees (certainly I do not) exercise
technical judgement for a funding request. Either it falls within the
bounds of the mission or it doesn't. Either we have the funds, or we do
not. Either the request is reasonably priced, or not. Perhaps the last one
is a technical judgement, but I consider it administrative and it mostly
prevents misuse of funds (e.g. buying services from a relative and paying
3x the normal rate.)

To use a concrete example; in https://bugs.gentoo.org/607622 the Foundation
approved $4,000 to buy a new SPARC machine. I don't think we should be
spending money on a SPARC machine because I think SPARC is dumb; and the
SPARC port probably has like 20 users[0]. However, I approved the request
because what I think about the SPARC port doesn't matter; my job is to
ensure the request meets the mission, that we have the funds and that the
price is reasonable.

In a situation where funds *are* limited, I think we would need to have a
set of spending priorities. Without a board, I agree that this falls into
the Council territory in the new system because someone has to make global
spending decisions when allocating limited resources. I also don't expect
an umbrella to accept expense requests from anyone because its a pretty
loose financial control. I'm not sure this is necessarily technical
judgement though.

To use a concrete example: Lets assume we have $2k in the bank of an
umbrella. Infra has $3.4k in proposed expenses at the beginning of the
year. I would expect the Council to say "Hey Infra, we have 2k total money,
your portion of this is $1200, figure out what items of your 3.4k in
expenses you should fund with the $1200." I would not typically expect the
council to make this judgement themselves (e.g. to go through the infra
budget and pick items; its literally the job of the infra lead.) This
oversight is still pretty administrative and not technical though. In
theory they could say "Infra is dumb, your budget is 0$!" but I don't
expect this to happen in practice.

-A


> --
> Best regards,
> Michał Górny
>
>