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On Sat, 2008-05-10 at 22:13 -0700, Alec Warner wrote: |
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> |
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> > How do you informally run a foundation? A foundation is a business |
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> > entity under the law. Therefore it should be run and operated as any |
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> > other business. Formally. |
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> > |
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> > I have 0 interest in an informal foundation, agreements, etc. |
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> |
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> I don't see how negociating each agreement separately is less formal |
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> than having The One True Policy that covers all agreements. |
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How do you know the terms to any agreement? Like start/end dates? |
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While I am ok for like informal agreements, one policy for like selling |
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Gentoo stuff, and paying back royalties. For things that we will be |
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depending on like infra services, hardware, etc. Those things need to be |
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handled individually. Gain or loss of them is visible to all almost |
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immediately. |
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> I want to make my thoughts clear here. If Gentoo was a for-profit |
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> entity that derived revenue from it's web presense then having |
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> services randomly go down due to lack of sponsors would be a |
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> liability. Luckily, Gentoo is a non-profit entity composed entirely |
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> of unpaid (by Gentoo) volunteers and having downtime affects one thing |
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> and one thing only, Gentoo the distribution. |
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There are plenty of mostly volunteer organization, that many in the |
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world depend on. For profit or npo, really shouldn't matter here. |
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> I could make a counterargument that instead of paying our sponsors we |
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> should pay our developers who probably contribute more cash value via |
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> their contributions to gentoo than any of our hardware sponsors. |
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I fully agree, and if you look in the archives of this list. I had past |
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thoughts of the foundation eventually having paid staff. Not like |
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Mozilla Foundation and Corporation, but more like Red Cross. Starting |
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with Devs, not higher ups (trustees, etc.) |
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|
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> While Gentoo can live on without major sponsors it cannot live on |
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> should key people leave the project. Likewise the Gentoo foundation |
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> lacks the funds to operate the Gentoo project for a number of months |
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> should key members leave. |
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Again I agree, loss of key personal is just as bad as loss of infra, |
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hardware, etc. I am not sure if the tax codes, etc have any provisions |
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for accounting for ones volunteer time. If there is any perceived cash |
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value there. I am pretty sure there isn't, but something to look into |
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either way for sure. |
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> In short we have the equivelant problem of cash shortage and inability |
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> to operate the Gentoo project without donations. |
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Correct, and for a long time it was never seen as a problem. Since we |
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had no budget, plans for spending the $, etc. But some of that I think |
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might have been us being naive. No eye toward the possibility of losing |
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a key sponsor etc. |
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Granted next we need to discuss and do something regarding the loss of |
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key personal. What we would do to find a replacement. |
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> Which is in the end, my whole point. This is not a liabilty for us |
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> because contrary to popular belief we have a good community where |
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> people actually step up and do work and if those key people were to |
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> leave I'm fairly sure most would be replaced. And if key sponsors |
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> were to leave I'm sure we could find replacements. |
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Unfortunately it's easier to donate ones time, even a highly skilled |
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individual. It's much harder to donate thousands of dollars on a monthly |
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or re-occurring basis. Only medium to large size business will be able |
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to afford that. Unless we get a sugar daddy/mommy for Gentoo :) |
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Loss of a key developer while horrible. Would be more of a trickle |
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effect on Gentoo. Loss of infra would be slamming on the breaks. |
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> Both of these are likely without us wasting thousands of dollars and |
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> ad space on www.gentoo.org trying to solve a problem that honestly |
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> does not really exist and is just a 'business liability.' |
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Well this liability does exist. We are still in negotiations with a |
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major sponsor. We are working on scaling back rather than loosing them |
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entirely. The main reason we didn't loose them entirely was the |
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importance of those services and lack of ability to move them else |
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where. |
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This problem is real, exists today, and is not resolved. If all goes |
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well, no services will move. But last it was brought up. At some point |
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some services would have to be scaled back or find a new home. Need to |
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see where things are at there. I think it's partly a chain reaction, |
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based on what happens with the Foundation legal status, 501c3, etc. |
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|
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-- |
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William L. Thomson Jr. |
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amd64/Java/Trustees |
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Gentoo Foundation |