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

[Chris Gianelloni]

On Fri, 2007-12-28 at 11:05 -0500, William L. Thomson Jr. wrote:
<snip>

While I find your ideas engaging, there's really no point in discussing
them.  Your grasp on how things work currently is quite skewed and
you're making massive leaps based off those faulty assumptions.

Let me simplify some things:

The Gentoo Foundation is *independent* of Gentoo Linux.  Please, get
this one in your head immediately.  The *only* thing the Gentoo
Foundation does is retain the legal filings and standing of the
Foundation itself and act as a container for funds and intellectual
property.  The Foundation has no say in the direction of Gentoo Linux,
and vice versa.  This was by design to keep the Foundation, which is
allowed membership outside of Gentoo Linux, from ever being able to
"take over" the distribution.

> We lack leadership, and I am not talking about council leadership. More
> overlord/CEO type leadership. Moving Gentoo as a whole forward on all
> fronts.
>
> Beyond leadership we lack an organized structure and any forms of
> responsibility on an enforced basis, beyond not breaking something via a
> commit or etc. Also some minor social stuff, but that was reactive no
> proactive, and doesn't really pertain to my proposal or the problems at
> the top.

If you think the Foundation will change any of this, you're delusional.
This all must be changed from within Gentoo Linux, by Gentoo Linux.  In
other words, this if fodder for gentoo-council, not gentoo-nfp.  The
Gentoo Foundation is, once again, nothing more than a container for
legal and financial responsibilities.  The entire idea was to have an
entity that was independent of the distribution so that the developers
had no need to concern themselves with legal matters.

> I guess I am not being clear that in the proposal process, one of the
> first things is to identify ALL problems. Then come up with a proposed
> plan to address those problems. This is nothing different than starting
> any business, or coming up with a new business plan/model for an
> existing entity.

You're proposing "solutions" without identifying the problem(s) you're
wanting to solve.  If this was not your intent, then you'll probably
want to *stop* giving specific examples of how you think things should
be done when you cannot even describe what potential problems with the
current structure you're trying to resolve.  This is compounded by your
mixing of "Foundation" and "distribution" as if they are the same thing.
They are not.  They have independent problems sets that need to be
investigated and resolved independently.

> > 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.
>
> I am not talking about social aspects. More so than the project as a
> whole moving forward. If a snake has no head, what's the point in
> discussion what the body can or can't do. Or any problems there in?

Did you ever think that the project isn't "moving forward" because those
that have the time, energy, and ability to do so gave up a long time ago
because we've allowed those that do *not* have those things an equal
voice and they're drowning out those that can actually make a
difference?  Ever wonder why *nobody* wants to run for trustees?  Ever
wonder why almost none of the previous Council ran for re-election?
Noticed that we're dropping more and more experienced developers every
day for other projects where they have less politics to deal with than
Gentoo?

Now, you think that by involving developers *more* in what is going on
that it'll make people happy?

> But I am not sure it's separation from the council and etc makes those
> two bodies effective in their own right. Oversight? Leader of both?

Umm... Listen, just because people don't bother to actually use the
mechanisms in place, doesn't mean they're ineffective.  Are you a
Foundation member?  Thought about holding a vote of your own?  After
all, as a Foundation member, you're entitled to question any and every
decision made by the trustees and they can be overridden by a vote.  YOU
are the oversight.  So yes, every single Foundation member has failed in
their job, not just the trustees.  Gentoo is full of self-absorbed
people who enjoy pointing fingers at everybody else to have things done,
but when it comes to stepping up and taking some responsibility
themselves, you suddenly don't hear from them.

Given the projects that I am a member of that I see dying/understaffed,
such as PR, Events, GWN, Trustees, QA, x86, amd64, ppc... I wonder how
we function, at all.  Oh, right, we added some new VDR app, rather than
fixing those bugs in glibc...

I'm long past the point where I think "Gentoo" needs to be scrapped.  It
is a failed experiment.  Give it to the little ricers who still seem to
care about the name.  Gentoo's name hasn't been worth anything for well
over two years.  It's not worth keeping a hold of, as all it gives to
most people is negative connotations and years of baggage that we really
don't want or need.

> Look at the US with our three, and the problems that lie there,
> ineffectiveness, lack of oversight etc. Gentoo with only 2 is almost
> assured to fail there.

Umm... You're comparing apples and oranges.  The USA has 3 branches of
the same government, designed to balance each other.  Gentoo has 2
separate entities responsible for specific aspects of Gentoo with no
oversight and no overlap.  They are completely independent.

> And there is no one else to care about the foundation if the devs don't.

...exactly... so why are we even bothering?

> Nor is there anyone responsible for the duties the foundation didn't
> perform. Does the council take over when the foundation falls short, or
> visa versa?

No.  The members of the Foundation are responsible... every single one
of them.  See, I'm sick of this bullshit attitude of trying to blame the
trustees for everything.  We've been trying.  The problem is simply that
nobody knows what they want and nobody is willing to do anything but
bitch and complain like a bunch of little girls.

> But I don't recall much of a push or talk about the foundation elections
> in general. Which normally is done to spark nominations and the rest.

We did.  Nobody paid attention.

> Like what was done for the council elections. It's allot of work, and I
> think maybe those with the ability to hold and administrate the
> elections. Barely pulled off the council election, and were burned out
> there. No clue where that would put us for next year.
>
> I guess elections are a responsibility of the ? :)

Foundation members...

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams
Games Developer/Foundation Trustee
Gentoo Foundation