Gentoo Archives: gentoo-project

From: Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o>
To: gentoo-project@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-project] Groups under the Council or Foundation: the structure & processes thereof
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2016 15:05:56
Message-Id: CAGfcS_nN3UfVUEv8kRNvSA_tiio9h9y27cgP2a-DdhqjXXGkrQ@mail.gmail.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-project] Groups under the Council or Foundation: the structure & processes thereof by "M. J. Everitt"
1 On Sun, Nov 13, 2016 at 9:53 AM, M. J. Everitt <m.j.everitt@×××.org> wrote:
2 >
3 > Foundation
4 > =======
5 > Legal entity
6 > Deals with finance
7 > Deals with compliance
8 > Provides Infra
9 > Provides/oversees Staff
10 >
11 > Council
12 > =====
13 > Fulfils aim of Linux Distribution
14 > Oversees projects
15 > Innovates and develops
16 >
17 > Both are Foundation and Council are elected bodies from the staff
18 > electorate.
19 >
20 > Anyone with any objections to this structure?
21 >
22
23 IMO it would make more sense to limit the Foundation to things that
24 require a legal entity to provide, such as finance, IP, etc. I don't
25 think it should be running Infra or administering staff. And I'm not
26 entirely convinced that having an independent Foundation is even the
27 best way of dealing with financial issues as most other distros seem
28 to be moving away from this (if they're not run by a big corporation
29 already). If we joined SPI like Debian/Arch/Freedesktop/etc then we
30 wouldn't need to have anybody dealing with most of the details
31 finance/compliance/etc, we would just need to tell them when we need
32 bills paid and so on. That could be a special project but with a lot
33 less manpower required than what the Trustees currently have to deal
34 with.
35
36 I'd also comment that innovation and development is the responsibility
37 of all of our contributors. I don't think that the role of a Council
38 member should be seen as some kind of prize for being the most
39 innovative/etc. Sure, they should have the general respect of the
40 community, but it is a role like any other with its own set of
41 necessary skills/etc.
42
43 Ultimately though I think it is helpful to have one group of people
44 who cast votes and decide what we ought to be doing, and one set of
45 representatives elected by this group of voters, so that we don't have
46 debates between multiple governance bodies that all believe they have
47 a mandate.
48
49 --
50 Rich

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