Gentoo Archives: gentoo-project

From: William Hubbs <williamh@g.o>
To: gentoo-project@l.g.o
Cc: rich0@g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-project] William Hubbs council manifesto 2018-2019
Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2018 01:42:37
Message-Id: 20180617014233.GA1567@linux1.home
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-project] William Hubbs council manifesto 2018-2019 by Rich Freeman
1 On Sat, Jun 16, 2018 at 08:17:44PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
2 > On Sat, Jun 16, 2018 at 7:29 PM William Hubbs <williamh@g.o> wrote:
3 > >
4 > > I read the proposal by prometheanfire a year ago also and do not quite
5 > > see why it was so offensive to some. The way I read it it was
6 > > basically making the council a committee in the foundation. The
7 > > council would have still been elected by the developers, and it wasn't
8 > > set up so the Trustees could remove people etc, so there wasn't really
9 > > a way the trustees could control it any more than they control the
10 > > council as it is. If I missed something, tell me.
11 > >
12 >
13 > As I recall the proposal was to have the Council be subordinate to the
14 > Trustees. That basically means they can do whatever they want. To
15 > the degree that the policy said that they wouldn't remove people from
16 > Council they could amend that with a simple majority vote, just as
17 > they can change the Bylaws/etc.
18 >
19 > Keep in mind that in a corporation the directors are basically at the
20 > very top legally. Any policy of the corporation can be changed at
21 > their discretion.
22 >
23 > This doesn't really seem like a separation of powers. This is simply
24 > putting the Trustees in charge of everything. They could of course
25 > choose to not intervene in decisions, but any decision would
26 > effectively be appealable to the Trustees (even if the Trustees vote
27 > to not hear any particular appeal).
28
29 Keep in mind that this is already basically the case. All the trustees
30 have to do is stop paying for infra and revoke our permission to use the
31 Gentoo logo, name etc.
32
33 >
34 > If protmetheanfire disagrees that he was proposing to make the Council
35 > subordinate to the Trustees he can of course chime in.
36 >
37 > If the Foundation were in better shape I think a structure like that
38 > could work. You'd simply vote the Council members in to the Trustee
39 > slots, and the Trustees could choose to work as Officers. Then the
40 > new Trustees would disband the Council so that the technical body is
41 > back on top, and also holds the legal authority. However, right now
42 > with the mess the Foundation is in I suspect you'd find it difficult
43 > to find volunteers for the Trustee positions that people would be
44 > comfortable having also run the Council.
45
46 My impression is that we are just waiting for robbat2 to catch up the
47 accounting/tax issues, so the foundation isn't in as big of a mess as
48 has been spread. Again, correct me if I'm wrong.
49
50 > > Regarding comrel, given that more than one person who has been removed
51 > > from Gentoo has threatened the foundation with law suits, I can
52 > > understand the trustees wanting to be in that loop.
53 >
54 > Just another good reason to not have a foundation to sue...
55
56 Would you rather have the council and comrel members be open to being
57 sued individually?
58
59 I'm no expert, but it seems like the legal entity protects us from this.
60
61 William

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