Re: [gentoo-nfp] Questions For Gentoo Foundation Trustee Candidates

[Aaron Bauman]

On Sat, Jul 13, 2019 at 07:52:53AM -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 13, 2019 at 5:18 AM Roy Bamford <neddyseagoon@g.o> wrote:
>
> > On 2019.07.13 13:12, Roy Bamford wrote:
> > > Team,
> > >
> > > This is a meta topic to collect Questions For Gentoo Foundation
> > > Trustee Candidates together.
> >
> > We have several candidates with a declared platform of dissolving
> > the Gentoo foundation.
> >
> > 1. Will all candidates make their position on the future of the Foundation
> > clear.
> >
>
> I plan to dissolve the Foundation. I would prefer the assets go to an
> umbrella, but I'm also open to other options.
>
>
> >
> > 2. Will all candidates explain the reasoning supporting their position
> > on their future plans for the existence (or otherwise) of the Foundation.
> >
>
> The Foundation has three main problems:
>
> - It needs a minimum of three capable / interested trustees to be on the
> board and operate the Foundation. Note here i don't mean that these three
> humans do the work (because they should contract with professionals to do
> much of it.) I'm not convinced there are three people to do it. In this
> election we have 4 humans for 3 slots. When discussing with the current
> board, half of the board doesn't even want to be on the board; but without
> a board the Foundation would be in trouble. This is not the kind of board
> that I would want to have, and I think its one reason why the work the
> board is accountable for rarely happens. This is not unique to this year.
> In previous years; boards that did not even do basic Foundation activities
> (e.g. taxes, accounting, etc.) *and* ran unopposed (e.g. some years there
> was no election.)
>

Can you explain why you ran for election on the platform of dissolving the
foundation, in favor of an umbrella, but have not conducted any research into
what is required to do so? Presented any definitive options, figures, impacts,
etc to the electorate?

Is this why you voluntarily put yourself up for re-election during the current
cycle?

> - The members themselves don't hold anyone accountable. Basically this
> follows the last piece of the first bullet; that the board can basically be
> bad at their job and keep their seats trivially. The members are supposed
> to care about the board's mission (to support Gentoo!) but in fact most
> members do nothing and vote once a year when asked (like now!) I suspect if
> a potato was put on the ballot the members would vote for that as a trustee
> if it filled a seat; because they don't care about the foundation working
> correctly or not provided it continues to fund Infra (nominally one of two
> useful things the Foundation actually does.)
>

This can be fixed by proper by-laws, but the board has failed to adopt any
reasonable by-laws to make forward progress.  Also, I think a bit of
transparency from the board would result in our sister nations understanding why
by-laws and Articles of Incorporation are important.

Many understand the significance of a GLEP, but do not neccasarily understand
the importance/role of by-laws and AoI.

Additionally, I do believe members and devs know the Foundation "holds the
purse" as they have seen from the purchase of the Nitrokeys to support their
mission.

> - The scope of work done by the Foundation during it's 15 years is minimal
> (trademark defense and funding) and I believe an umbrella organization can
> do both. I concede it limits future options (because once we give assets to
> the umbrella they can only do what is in any agreement we sign.) However,
> its a risk I'm willing to take given the poor performance of the Foundation
> in the past (and the anticipated poor performance in the future; see first
> two points.)
>
> -A
>

c.f my statement above and consider the performance during this cycle. 

Overall, each individual has simply pointed out the financial failures of the
foundation... which I agree with.  However, dissolution has many more
potential ramifications than benefits.

The majority of failures can simply be fixed by retaining a CPA.

>
> > --
> > Regards,
> >
> > Roy Bamford
> > (Neddyseagoon) a member of
> > elections
> > gentoo-ops
> > forum-mods
> > arm64

-- 
Cheers,
Aaron