Re: [gentoo-project] Re: Trying to become a Gentoo Developer again spanning 8 years...

[William L. Thomson Jr.]

On Monday, October 3, 2016 6:12:16 PM EDT Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 3, 2016 at 5:52 PM, William L. Thomson Jr.
>
> <wlt-ml@××××××.com> wrote:
> > Comrel could do something that causes legal action on the Foundation the
> > Trustees would have to deal with. Same with regard to the Council. The
> > foundation can do NOTHING to prevent either. The Foundation has no control
> > or influence over Comrel or Recruiting. Yet they oversee the community it
> > is legally responsible for.
>
> I'm not sure why Comrel or the Council would want to take an action
> that could cause legal problems for the Foundation, or why the
> Trustees would be any less likely to do the same.

I never said want. I said they could take action which may bring about legal 
recourse, liability. More than likely it would be unintentionally. In most 
businesses action is not taken without consulting the legal department.  There 
might be legal recourse to any action a company may take. Against an 
individual or in general. Gentoo is a business, a non profit business, subject 
to the same laws.

Example,
Say a developer decided to file a defamation law suit, due to how they were 
treated by say comrel. The foundation would have no part in this process or 
mess but have to deal with the legal fall out of such.

I was discussing something like that with Robin Johnson Friday night. He 
presented a great scenario, even more complex based on local law...

> I do prefer some kind of consolidated structure, but before that could
> happen there are a lot of issues that need to be resolved:
>
> 1.  How do we reconcile the differing membership of the developer and
> Foundation communities?

In most other projects, the foundation/board controls the direction of 
development. Best examples are Gnome and FreeBSD, maybe Debian.

 I think FreeBSD is the best example given its age.

> 2.  If only one body is ultimately in charge, what kinds of qualities
> do we want in its leadership?  Ultimately they'd have authority over
> both technical and financial concerns (in reality, no matter what you
> put on paper).  Does it make more sense to elect a financial board and
> have them have oversight over the technical side?  Or does it make
> sense to have a technical board, and have them have oversight of the
> financial side?  Or do we go for both in one (which means finding
> people who are both competent and interested in dealing with both)?  I
> think the reality is that you need both in one to some degree, since
> all issues would ultimately fall on them.

Typically finances follow development. In other projects like Gnome board 
members tend to be businesses. Which I assume if they agree with direction 
help provide further funding.

Funding always follows development. People will not just randomly give you 
money and see what you produce. That said if what you are producing they like 
and can use, they will fund further.

But Gentoo like all things has to have a plan of what to do with the money. A 
need that having the finances would help further the project. There need be no 
committee for finances. They have no say in anything just pay the bills.

I have never seen any business run by the finance department or accounting.

> 3.  How should the organization be structured internationally?
> Ultimately there is one distro and when it comes to technical matters
> I think there is not a lot of regional variation.  However, when it
> comes to legal issues I could more easily see regional issues arising.
> We've already had some logistical challenges when there are a lot of
> non-US-residents involved in the Foundation, since while they're
> completely welcome as far as the community is concerned, it makes it
> harder when banks/governments/businesses are asking for tax IDs and
> domestic addresses such.

In the past there were some Gentoo legal entities established in other 
countries. Even for profit businesses do that now for operations outside the 
US. Granted allot for tax havens, soon to be a thing of the past, sorry 
Apple...

That may be the case for Gentoo, but it would have a parent organization with 
local subsidiaries.  But I think that is pretty extreme. I am not aware of any 
others establishing subsidiary local but I could be wrong. Pretty sure there 
is just the 1 Debian, FreeBSD, Gnome, etc. They all face the same 
international issue.

> > It is a perverted structure no other projects have such a structure. Which
> > is why others rise as Gentoo falls.
>
> This is a non-sequitur.

Given I have never found any other business or project structured like Gentoo, 
it seems pretty accurate. Even Daniel said how things ended up is not what was 
intended. That is damn near the definition of perversion.

> While I do think that some kind of reform might be beneficial, I don't
> really see it having any significant impact on where Gentoo stands in
> the "marketplace" of distros.

Limited vision... Gentoo should be playing a major role in open source 
integration.

I bet most do not know that most of RedHat's Java development efforts, IcedTea 
project take place on Gentoo not RedHat.

For those that missed it, IcedTea/OpenJDK Linux Development, that RedHat pays 
to have developed. Takes place on Gentoo.

I have tried getting Dr Andrew John Hughes, gnu_andrew to become a developer. 
He is interested and willing. However the ONLY thing he will work on is open 
source java, The JDK/JRE itself, IcedTea. He will NEVER work in any other area 
or on any other packages. He is employed by RedHat.

I cannot see him ever doing the quizzes, or going through the normal 
recruitment. In my opinion he should not have to. Gentoo should treat him as 
special and help get him on board.

I bet most of comrel/recruiting has no awareness of him... Many on Gentoo 
likely do not either. But that fact that Open Source Java JDK/JRE development 
takes place on Gentoo should matter. Gentoo always has the latest stuff there, 
but sadly resides in the Java overlay. Which little to no one uses, nor is 
aware of what I just said...

> I think the reality is that Gentoo works better for me today than it
> ever has in the past.

Your not using Java, or using enterprise apps, much of which are Java.

> I'm certainly willing to acknowledge that there
> are some niches where this is not the case (like Java), but I don't
> really have your sense of doom.

Java is far from  a niche. Usually only enterprise size organizations have 
stuff in Java because it is not trivial.

> I don't think it is likely that a
> distro like Gentoo will ever compete with the likes of Ubuntu (which
> has taken over most of the casual side of the Linux space which used
> to be split more with projects like Debian, creating more of a path
> into the more exotic distros like Gentoo).  I don't really have a
> problem with that either, since if somebody has a problem that can be
> solved with Ubuntu, then they might as well solve it with Ubuntu and
> not worry about the details unless they really want to.

Google used to base Chome OS off Ubuntu but is been using Gentoo for some 
time. Google has a for sale operating system based on Gentoo.... Chromebooks 
have sold well. Google may have sold more Chrome books, than any other company 
shipping with Ubuntu or other, If you can find manufacturers who will ship a 
laptop with Ubuntu...

CoreOS is also based on Gentoo...

Gentoo can do things other distros can never. Thus there is no reason for 
Gentoo to not be equal to or ahead of others. Gentoo can do more to further 
FOSS development than any other.

Which is why IcedTea development takes place on Gentoo instead of RedHat, 
Ubuntu or others. When I interacted with core Firebird RDBMS developers, they 
also ran Gentoo...

For FOSS development, next to like maybe BSD, there is not really much better 
than Gentoo...

-- 
William L. Thomson Jr.