Re: [gentoo-project] Foundation membership and who can join

[Rich Freeman]

On Fri, Oct 14, 2016 at 8:08 AM, Ian Stakenvicius <axs@g.o> wrote:
>
> The tricky technical part here that I worry about is the Gentoo Dev
> <-> Gentoo Staff assertion, and the hard
> staff-must-be-foundation-member and foundation-member-must-be-staff
> rules listed above.  Loss of foundation membership seems that it must
> remove staff status by definition, but since dev's are staff simply
> because they're dev's, are they still a dev when they lose their staff
> status?
>

Yes

> Now, there may well be good reason to force the Dev<->Foundation
> member assumption.  However I think the Dev<->Staff thing should
> probably be decoupled if one cannot be staff without being a
> foundation member.

I disagree.  Let me explain why I am suggesting making the various
groups tightly bound:

One of the problems we have with the current organizational model is
that we have two different pools of voters (Foundation members and
"Developers" (which today includes anybody with an @g.o address even
if they don't have commit access - the proposal splits that into Staff
and Developers)).  They each elect a set of leaders, which differing
areas of responsibility (but also with some degree of overlap, since
the Foundation has a mission bigger than keeping the lights on and the
Council currently oversees Comrel/CoC/etc).

If we want to rationalize the leadership, we also need to deal with
their constituencies.

Let's take for example the case of somebody booted as a Dev because of
some CoC violation.  For the sake of simplicity let's assume it was an
open-and-shut case perfectly handled and Comrel worked in a manner all
would agree with.  Under our current model, they would stop being a
dev and might be banned from IRC/etc.  However, they can still vote
for Trustees.  Does that really make sense?  Likewise, if somebody
leaves due to inactivity but keeps voting in Trustee elections, they
also can remain part of the Foundation indefinitely.

I'm sure our "alumni" in general care about Gentoo, but the reality is
that they don't really have much involvement in the day-to-day.  Do we
want them picking our leaders/etc?  Today the functions of the
Trustees are more limited, so it hasn't been as large an issue (though
as has been pointed out, the legal powers of the Trustees are quite
large and even if they wisely choose not to exercise them carelessly
we should certainly exercise care with who we trust in this role).
However, if we want to expand their powers in practice (setting aside
whether they already have them legally) then we should probably think
about who they answer to.  Suppose we did come up with a new Comrel
GLEP and decided to put it up to a general vote for approval; right
now we need to figure out which of the two groups of constituents to
poll.

I don't think we need to add a lot of bureaucracy in practice to make
this work.  In general anybody qualified to be a dev is already
qualified to be a Foundation member, even if we make them apply for it
currently.  While we don't automatically boot people who aren't devs I
don't see why this would become a problem if the Foundation is
overseeing the processes by which people leave anyway.

The only real administrative burden it would place on devs is the
requirements to vote for a Trustee at least once every two years.  I'm
all ears if somebody has a way to make that go away.  The practical
issue here is the need to have a quorum under New Mexico law, so if we
get low turnout the election may not be valid.  While this hasn't come
up, there is another benefit to making the pool of foundation members
both large and reasonably active: it makes any kind of "hostile
takeover" much harder to pull off, while actually making a "good
takeover" easier.  If some kind of outsider wants to infiltrate they
need to get a quorum to show up to a meeting and control a majority of
votes there, and that is harder when there are more members required
to constitute a quorum.  On the other hand, if somehow things get out
of control and the community needs to take things back, then not
having deadwood in the voting rolls means that those who are actively
involved would find it easier to constitute a quorum at such a
meeting.  Really, you just want the legal representation of the
organization to match those who are actively a part of it.

So, the question becomes is compulsory voting a reasonable price to
pay for better governance.  In some (but not many) countries they feel
strongly enough about such things that they actually fine you for
failing to vote.

If we just maintain the status quo across the board I can see less
urgency here.  However, if we're going to go so far as to consider
putting the Trustees at the top of the food chain wouldn't it make
sense to also take a look at how they get elected?  And why would we
want them maintaining multiple sets of criteria and admission
processes for the two groups of members they'd now administer?

All that said, this should also demonstrate that "re-organizing"
Gentoo isn't really just as simple as changing a word in the Wiki
about where Comrel appeals go.  There are a multitude of concerns that
need to be dealt with.

-- 
Rich