Re: [gentoo-nfp] infra agenda item

[Alec Warner]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 12:27 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@××××××.org>
wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> An agenda item for next meeting. I would like trustees to have official
> control of all Gentoo infrastructure. Gentoo infrastructure is a critical
> part of project assets and it is essential that access to such
> infrastructure by the -infra lead or -infra members cannot be used as
> leverage to gain influence on the project. While I have no reason to
> believe we are in this situation, so I don't want to alarm or upset anyone,
> I just want to make sure we are protected from this issue and make sure
> that appropriate safeguards are in place.
>

I'm working on a policy on how Infra makes changes at the direction of the
Foundation (the board) and the community (via Comrel and Council projects.)
The Foundation currently has control over its assets. The vast majority of
Gentoo's Infrastructure are Foundation assets (there are like edge cases
where chain of ownership of specific assets is unclear, but I think we have
good paper on the majority.) Speaking as someone on Infra, I would be
against any use of infra for the purposes outlined in your proposal (Infra
acts in good faith to meet th needs of the community.) I think the policy
will help address some of your concerns. The Infra team and the board have
a liaison and a good relationship today (and I suspect will continue to
have one provided Infra funding remains a priority for the board.)

Specifically regarding your proposal, I'm not sure what outcome you are
actually expecting. Explicitly stating that the Foundation owns and
controls assets that it literally owns and controls seems a bit
tautological (and thus of little value.) It might be useful to state that
in that event of a 'hostile takeover' type situation the board will pursue
all legal remedies; but this too seems somewhat tautological (but I'm open
to more leeway here.)


>
> This is an issue that I am quite sensitive to, as I have experienced it
> personally with Gentoo. I actually set up the Foundation and resigned when
> -infra was co-opted by an -infra lead who removed all my access and pushed
> me to set up the Foundation rapidly. Since I was basically a kid, I didn't
> know how to handle this situation (person who did this was an IT Manager at
> Goldman Sachs and much more versed in playing 'hardball' with people, and I
> had limited experience in dealing with it) so I tried to handle it
> privately and failed. I now know that I could have simply posted to any
> public forum and said "Hey, this person has taken over -infra and I no
> longer have access to it. Please ask him to leave the project and return
> the keys to me instead of using it as leverage to get what he wants."
>

> To me, it is very clear that the Foundation should have full control of
> all assets, including infra (this includes control of mirrors, etc.) on
> behalf of the larger Gentoo community.
>

Many mirrors are run by third parties and neither the Foundation nor Infra
have control over them; just as an FYI.

-A


>
> Best,
>
> Daniel
>
>