Re: [gentoo-nfp] Gentoo metastructure reform - reality and SPI

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 9:08 AM, Daniel Campbell <zlg@g.o> wrote:
> I wasn't referring to retired or otherwise-gone developers, just the
> ones who've been doing it and are still around. They likely have voting
> power to begin with, but it's their work we'd be throwing away. It's up
> to them if they want to keep trying to work it out or if we should throw
> in the towel and take a chance on SPI.

Well, once they've divested all the assets I suppose they can continue
to run the foundation as a personal hobby, but I see this as something
that affects more than a half-dozen people.

> If we decide to go with SPI, I hope at least one of us thinks of an
> alternate name should things fall out, we lose our trademark/assets, and
> have to fork. I'd argue that this same lack of foresight likely created
> a lot of the issues surrounding the foundation in general. The bus
> factor in particular seems dangerously low.

Well, go ahead and brainstorm if you wish.  This doesn't strike me as
being any more likely than having the Trustees at some point decide to
take unilateral action without the backing of the distro.  In fact,
back in the day when we were down to only 2-3 trustees and the
registration lapsed, there was discussion of them taking unilateral
action of them inviting back drobbins or something as a BDFL.  As I
recall he had made the offer to do so.  I didn't see any suggestion
that they'd give the developers a vote on the matter.

And that is the issue with legal entities.  They're all well and good
until a dispute comes up and the suits decide that they are the ones
who know what is best for everybody else.  :)

-- 
Rich