Re: [gentoo-nfp] Gentoo NPO Business Model thoughts

[Marius Mauch]

On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:09:25 -0500
"William L. Thomson Jr." <wltjr@g.o> wrote:

> Entities can scale up or down based on revenue. There is nothing saying
> one has to sustain any level of business. When one has no one to answer
> to but oneself and their purpose. Only thing that would dictate anything
> for Gentoo would be the people within Gentoo running it based on what
> they felt was best or etc.

And this is what can't work when you have people on the payroll, with
money from third parties you (both the distro and the individual dev)
have to answer those one way or the other.

> Well it seems there are many problems that won't be solved when things
> are handed over to the SFC. Most say the current direction is either non
> or not a good one. Most borderline quitting as is :)

As said before (and on similar -core threads in the past):
Define the problem before even thinking about a solution!

Mixing multiple mostly unrelated problems together (without ever
really defining them) and then come up with a proposal as an
alternative to a proposed solution to one of those problems (that is
fairly obvious and even documented) isn't going to work.

So if you want to solve any social problems in the project, go back and
identify and define them, figure out why they exist and only then start
thinking about how they can be solved. Until then this discussion is
pointless as we're arguing from two completely different positions.

> >   The Gentoo Foundation and its
> > trustees are a failed experiment.  In four years, we've gotten nothing
> > more accomplished than was *handed* to us by Daniel Robbins.  I'd call
> > that a pretty significant failure.
>
> Granted the foundation structure and etc as is has likely failed. I
> think there are many successful foundations out there. One of my long
> time favorite has been the Firebird Foundation. But we have another to
> look at, the Gnome Foundation. Who left the SPI, which still manages
> Debian.

The structure hasn't failed, the people in charge have. The structure
only failed in that most foundation members don't care much about the
foundation (maybe the copyright assignment stuff would have changed
things a bit, but that also failed).
Hell, things failed so miserably that the structure was never properly
set up int he first place (bylaws anyone?).

> While I get that the SFC will correct and handle the legal aspects. I
> think the role the foundation was to fill I think extended a bit beyond
> that. Maybe not. Either way, doesn't necessarily mean the council will
> be any more effective. Or respected when major controversial decisions
> are made. Just that legal administration and etc is handled.

Not sure what you want to say here, but again: the council has nothing
to do with the foundation and the legal aspects, so any decision
regarding joining the SFC doesn't affect the council.

> > Trying to do anything with the Foundation *other* than letting someone
> > else to the administrative work is pretty much not even something we
> > (the current trustees) would consider at this stage.
>
> Ok, but then again we were supposed to be electing in new trustees. So
> given that the existing seem burned out. Some not as ideally present or
> available. Might be a decision best left to a fresh board of trustees.
> Much less the time frame to handing things over to the SFC? Sounds like
> that decision has been finalized.

Not sure if you realized it, but we didn't even have enough nominees to
hold an election a few months ago. I don't think we'd have so many more
now.

Marius
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