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Am Donnerstag, 5. Januar 2017, 15:36:45 CET schrieb Matthew Thode: |
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> Merging Trustees and Council / Developers and Foundation |
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> |
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[...] |
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> This split is suboptimal for Gentoo (all of it). |
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I agree with this statement, though probably for slightly different reasons. |
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In my opinion the main problem with the current situation is that it invites |
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to "game the system". People unhappy with a council decision run to the |
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foundation trustees. When foundation and council cooperate well, that's no |
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problem, but as soon as personalities clash and responsibilities are ill |
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defined, anyone can trigger a "Gentoo constitutional crisis" at will. |
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> In order to solve this Gentoo needs to have a combined electorate, |
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> meaning those that would vote for Council would also vote for Trustees |
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> and visa-versa. This would ensure that everyone’s needs are represented. |
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> We should have a single combined governing body, let’s call it ‘The |
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> Board’. This is so that conflicts between Council and Trustees (as they |
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> exist now) would have a straightforward resolution. This new ‘Board’ |
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> would be able to use the existing project metastructure to delegate |
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> roles to various groups (Comrel, Infra, etc would still exist, but under |
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> this new Board). |
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> (personal opinion) I imagine the merging of voting pools would coincide |
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> with the merging of governing bodies. |
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That sounds like a good plan to me, in principle, however we need to figure |
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out some details first. I think we really need to merge the voting pools, so |
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there is one well-defined electorate for the board. Also, I think that voting |
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for the board should be restricted to Gentoo developers (with or without main |
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tree access), since that provides a good "proof of productive involvment". |
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Let's first try to list resulting topics, and then discuss a possible |
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solution. |
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Problems: |
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* Developers have to (?) become members of a US-based foundation in order to |
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be able to vote for the board. |
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One side is how many (US law) legal obligations follow from membership; I'd |
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guess not many, but it should be clarified. This is probably the smaller |
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issue. |
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The other side is that we can't predict worldwide legal impact, and that it |
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may well be disadvantageous for someone in another country to officially be |
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member of a US legal body. |
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* Board members have a different legal status. |
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It may become impossible for some of our developers to be elected to the |
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Gentoo "board", since the legal position may lead to conflicts of interest |
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with real-life work. |
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[I'd have to research that, but it's not impossible that even as a civil |
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servant I'd have to get that officially approved by the "Free State of |
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Bavaria".] |
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* We need to figure out what to do with non-dev foundation members. |
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* Anything else? |
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So how can we solve this? |
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[Disclaimer: I haven't done any detailed research yet, so some of the ideas |
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presented below may well be premature.] |
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* Transfer administration of Gentoo assets and finanicals to an organization |
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as, e.g., SPI ( http://www.spi-inc.org/ ). See e.g. http://www.spi-inc.org/ |
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projects/ for references. |
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* Dissolve the Gentoo Foundation. |
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This means: |
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* Anyone now running for trustees can run for council and be involved in all |
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aspects of Gentoo oversight. |
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* There is only one controlling body (I guess whether we name it "board" or |
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"council" doesn't matter). |
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* The part of Gentoo where mistakes are fatal (IRS filings, corporate status, |
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trademarks, financial statements) is handled by professionals (or not relevant |
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anymore). |
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[Robin is doing a great job of handling our finances at the moment, and it's |
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good that the trustees are very active now. As in all volunteer organizations, |
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we can't take that continuously for granted though.] |
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* The Gentoo "council" or "board" does not involve any legal status which can |
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make it difficult for anyone to run. |
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* The electorate lists for the "council" or "board" are handled by ourselves, |
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and do not require membership of any legal body. |
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The end result in terms of self-administration is not that much different from |
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Matthew's proposal. The legal construct, however, is very much different. |
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Opinions? Additions? Flames? |
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Cheers, Andreas |
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-- |
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Andreas K. Hüttel |
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dilfridge@g.o |
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Gentoo Linux developer (council, perl, libreoffice) |
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