Re: [gentoo-nfp] You need to pay them

[Alec Warner]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 4:03 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@××××××.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 11:51 AM, Matthew Thode <prometheanfire@g.o
> > wrote:
>
>> Forgetting if it's possible to pay us (trustees).  I'm not in support of
>> it.  I'd rather spend the money hiring a CPA and then deal with less
>> overhead than get paid and also not do as good of a job as hiring it out
>> would be.
>>
>
> That would certainly be nice, but so far our trustees haven't found the
> time to find the right people to help them run the Foundation. This takes
> time too. Maybe this year will be the exception.
>
> So maybe that will happen. Maybe it will not. Either way, I think, we need
> to realize that even coordinating with outside contractors and attorneys
> who are doing the books and handling legal issues for us requires
> significant time. Maybe quite a bit less than doing the books in-house. But
> I will continue to suggest that my idea (maybe in some modified form) has
> merit, and that my observation that we are getting exactly the kind of
> results we should expect is entirely true.
>
> I also think the pursuit of fund-raising has merit. Growing the Foundation
> has merit.
>
> And I think that the trustees should offer some value to Gentoo
> developers. You see the rift between trustees and Council right now. What
> would things look like if the Foundation brought in tons of donations and
> these donations allowed our top devs to actually work on Gentoo full-time?
> I think you would start to see developers looking at the Foundation as an
> incredible asset because the Foundation would accelerate development. That
> is what it should be doing. The vision is to transform the Foundation from
> project liability to asset.
>

I think the main objection to this is that then the Foundation would then
drive development in the direction the Foundation wants; as opposed to the
direction advocated by the developer base. I don't think the friction you
see is necessarily due to the value-less nature of the Foundation (If
nothing else, the Foundation continues to invest in Gentoo's server
infrastructure as an example of value added) but instead that the
developer-base and the foundation are not aligned in objectives and instead
the developer-base sees the Foundation as a means to exert influence (over
project direction) and inevitably, power over developers themselves.

This is already true in some way on the infrastructure side, as you alluded
to in your earlier thread, about 'who owns and manages the infrastructure.'

-A


>
> I want to help people see that vision. The Foundation should be grown into
> an asset that helps Gentoo accomplish its mission. Right now it is seen as
> a set of annoying responsibilities. It need not be that way.
>

> Best,
>
> Daniel
>
>