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Merging Trustees and Council / Developers and Foundation |
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First, let me state that this is a generic solution right now so as to |
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remain flexible to any needed changes, details still need to be ironed out. |
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Second, this is a request for comment. I'd appreciate it if you either |
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replied via email, replied via irc or replied via the comment on the |
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gdocs link below. |
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Thanks for going over this (if you are going to read this). |
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==================== |
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When the Foundation and subsequently the council were set up, both |
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bodies had common members despite their declared different purposes. |
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Over the years the common members have vanished. Indeed, since 2008, |
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the Foundation bylaws have forbidden a single individual to serve on |
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council and as a trustee concurrently. |
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Thus the split in responsibilities identified when the foundation was |
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created has become more absolute. |
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This split is suboptimal for Gentoo (all of it). There is a reason why |
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normal corporations are structured the way they are and Gentoo has not |
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been like that since 2004. |
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This proposal sets out a plan to revert to the normal corporate |
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structure that Gentoo enjoyed before the Foundation and Council were |
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created. |
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Right now this is a general plan for discussion, if we wish to go this |
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way details need to be hammered out. |
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Current situation, cause for change |
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Issues: |
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Foundation/Trustees exist to take away the burden of running Gentoo |
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financially, infrastructure and legally. There is some crossover with |
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projects run under the Council though. PR, Recruitment, Comrel and |
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Infrastructure exist under the Council, not Foundation. Each of those |
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have implications for Legal reasons (mainly due to how their actions |
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may expose Gentoo to legal conflict) and monetary reasons |
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(Infrastructure particularly). |
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What it means to ‘be’ Gentoo. There’s the legal definition, meaning |
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only the Foundation members ‘are’ Gentoo (non-EU, ‘Gentoo eV’ exists |
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there). There is also the reality of the developers actually being |
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Gentoo, as they do the work. Problems occur when the membership of one |
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does something the other doesn’t like or thinks needs to stop (for |
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example, the Foundation forcibly removing all non-GPL software from the |
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tree would probably not go over well). |
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Possible Solution: |
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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. I don’t think there will be |
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compulsory voting, I feel opt out is the best option here. |
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This draft of the proposal has nothing to say about the detail of the |
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formation of the ‘Board’, how many members it would have, nor how they |
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will be selected. |
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https://docs.google.com/document/d/10xzPUREMzZllT7dLs85JjMvlymEY9wWzYPRCnTZIsfI/edit?usp=sharing |
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Matthew Thode |
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Matthew Thode (prometheanfire) |
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