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W dniu pon, 09.04.2018 o godzinie 12∶50 -0500, użytkownik Matthew Thode |
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napisał: |
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> On 18-04-09 18:57:27, Michał Górny wrote: |
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> > But let's get to the details. |
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> > |
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> > Your proposal -- once again -- makes Trustees the highest-level |
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> > governing body of Gentoo and reduces Council to technical matters. This |
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> > is against GLEP 39 which clearly states that Council is responsible for |
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> > all global decisions and as far as I'm aware is the most recent policy |
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> > defining the role of Council. Unless you have a strong reason to |
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> > believe that this policy has been illegally forced upon Gentoo, you are |
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> > not 'formalizing' anything but attempting to change well-established |
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> > metastructure and outright lying to the community that the current state |
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> > is undefined. |
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> > |
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> > I believe that Trustees can't be the highest governing body of Gentoo |
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> > for a number of reasons. I will enumerate those I can think of below: |
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> > |
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> |
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> GLEP 39 is not legally binding. This proposal would make glep 39 need |
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> changes (mainly that there would be a governing body above council). At |
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> that point glep 39 could possibly be made into a bylaw. |
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|
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Are you saying that Trustees do not have to respect the result of vote |
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done among all Gentoo developers? |
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|
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> > 1. Trustee elections are not even half as democractic as Council |
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> > elections. |
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> > |
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> > With no 'reopen nominations', with the ability to accept Trustees |
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> > without a vote or for existing Trustees to appoint new Trustees for |
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> > missing slots, and finally with low interest in developers becoming |
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> > Trustees, this is effectively 'Trustee seat giveaway' and not |
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> > an election. This is already bad enough for governing the Foundation |
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> > and I am fully against extending this to governing the whole of Gentoo. |
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> > |
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> > And if you believe that reducing the power of Council will suddenly |
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> > convince developers to increase their interest in becoming Trustees, you |
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> > are wrong, for reasons outlined in further points. |
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> > |
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> |
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> Unfortunately we have not had the turnout we always with to have (for |
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> nominees or voters). Also, as this is a business things are not |
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> necessarily always democratic (as much as we've tried to make them be). |
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|
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Gentoo is not a business. If you are attempting to turn a volunteer- |
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driven open source project into a business... I just can't find |
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appropriate words to describe this. |
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|
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> |
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> > |
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> > 2. Bad Trustee work... increases their chances of re-election. |
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> > |
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> > Given that each new Trustee takes legal responsibility about the state |
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> > of Foundation, he/she is directly endangered by repercussions of any |
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> > problems within the Foundation, including problems caused by previous |
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> > Trustees. As far as I'm aware, we hadn't established any clear way of |
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> > new Trustees protecting themselves against this, and most of the new |
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> > candidates aren't really capable of suing previous board 'just in case' |
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> > as Kristian suggested. |
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> > |
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> > As a result, if Trustees leave Foundation in a bad state (which has been |
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> > the case so far), then a number of candidates is going to refuse |
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> > the nomination because they do not want to take responsibility for |
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> > mistakes of their predecessors. And this goes on recursively. At this |
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> > point, even if Trustees finally managed to finish IRS as they claim |
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> > they'll do, I personally would still have serious doubt whether I could |
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> > really trust things are fully solved. |
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> > |
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> |
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> D&O insurance is an option, just a very expensive one. That was the |
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> first task I undertook when I was voted in/joined. Also, if no one |
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> steps up and tries to clean up it'll just go on (as you mention). I |
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> intend to clean this up. |
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|
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Do you intend to clean it up or do you intend to make someone else do |
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it? I think that's a major difference because I don't really see any of |
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the trustees trying to learn bookkeeping so that Robin wouldn't have to |
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do everything himself. |
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|
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> |
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> > |
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> > 4. Not everyone can be a legal Foundation representative. |
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> > |
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> > This has been the argument a lot of people mentioned. Some of our |
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> > developers simply can't legally be an Officer, not to mention Trustee |
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> > because of their employment or other legal positions. Your proposal |
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> > unjustly prevents them from having any governing position. |
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> > |
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> |
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> Yes, it is the biggest drawback. I'm not sure how they are allowed to |
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> be what in effect is an officer though (council members are in effect |
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> officers, even if not explicitly so, at least in my view). |
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|
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Your view is not the law. |
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|
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> |
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> > |
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> > 5. You are conflating governing and bureaucracy. |
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> > |
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> > What we have right now is two disjoint bodies: Council which is elected |
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> > as representatives of developers, and Trustees who are responsible for |
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> > dealing with the bureaucracy. With your proposal, developers are now |
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> > partially governed by bureaucrats for no real reason except... we need |
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> > bureaucrats, and bureaucrats want to rule us. |
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> > |
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> > What you're doing here is blocking competent people who were doing a |
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> > good job dealing with non-technical matters on the Council just because |
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> > they do not have the necessary skills or experience to do the Trustee |
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> > work. And on the other hand, giving power to people who may not be |
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> > trusted developer representatives just because they claim they're going |
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> > to take care of the bureaucracy. |
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> > |
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> |
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> I think you are putting words in my mouth. |
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|
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I'm not. If the above paragraphs sound like I am, I am sorry for that. |
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I merely express what the result of this will be, in my opinion. |
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> |
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> > |
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> > 6. Trustees have serious problems dealing with their own work. |
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> > |
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> > Let's be honest. Trustees haven't been exactly the perfect caretakers |
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> > of legal and financial matters. Even skipping the tax problems, let's |
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> > talk about copyright problems. Rich Freeman has started the work on |
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> > solving them long time ago. Then Trustees were responsible for it |
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> > and did not manage to do anything except for copying the Rich's text |
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> > with minor changes (also made by him) to Wiki. |
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> > |
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> > The whole copyright effort started again when I established the 'joint |
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> > venture'. Which was pretty much a nice way of saying 'we will do most |
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> > of it for you because otherwise it will never happen'. But sure, that |
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> > was a complex problem. |
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> > |
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> > Just take a look at their meeting logs and see how many items keep being |
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> > moved from month to month with no action taken: |
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> > |
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> > https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Foundation:Meetings |
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> > |
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> > At some point, you start thinking that Trustees are putting more effort |
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> > in trying to replace Council than in actually doing the things they were |
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> > elected to do. Do you really think they will be doing a better job with |
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> > more responsibilities at hand? |
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> > |
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> |
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> I'd like you to restrict the time period of your attacks against the |
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> trustees to the last 2 years, which have been frustrating, but |
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> productive. |
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> |
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> As far as who's been doing the work. I agree that the council (and |
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> foundation) members have been doing a lot of work, particularly in the |
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> copyright area. Keep in mind that rich0 is a member of the foundation |
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> as well. I wish we had more capable people in the foundation doing this |
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> work but no one seems to want to step into that role but only do the |
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> work outside of the foundation's view then dump it in their laps. |
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Please do not conflate 'Foundation members' with 'Trustees'. Just |
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because someone is a Foundation member doesn't mean you get to claim his |
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work. I should also point out that rich0 has been a Council member |
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in the past. |
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> |
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> I wasn't aware it was you who established the 'joint venture', iirc K_F |
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> even told me it was my responsibility to schedule meetings because it was |
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> my idea :P |
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You're conflating 'joint venture' with 'joint meetings'. I've initiated |
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the venture meant to resolve copyright problems. You've started |
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the meetings afterwards. |
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> |
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> > |
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> > 7. Who will oversee the Trustees? |
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> > |
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> > Right now, the Council handles all the global decisions and appeals |
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> > in Gentoo. However, if Council goes rogue and starts working against |
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> > the goals of Gentoo, Trustees can intervene. If Trustees become the |
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> > highest authority for decisions and appeals, who is going to intervene? |
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> > |
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> |
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> The same argument works for whatever the 'top body' ends up being, but |
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> there are two options we have right now (as in you can invoke it now). |
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No. Because with my proposal, Trustees still are the legal 'top body', |
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and get the legal override for the Council. However, since they only |
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have the power of override and not normal decisions (which means they |
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make a lot less decisions in the end), it is easy to oversee them and |
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act if they abuse their position. |
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|
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-- |
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Best regards, |
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Michał Górny |