Re: [gentoo-project] Merging Trustees and Council / Developers and Foundation - 1.0 reply

[Matthew Thode]

On 01/25/2017 02:40 PM, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 25, 2017 at 3:32 PM, Matthew Thode
> <prometheanfire@g.o> wrote:
>>
>> The way I see it is that Gentoo would basically remain as the status
>> quo, with some slight differences in reporting structure.
>>
>
> Keep in mind that the changes in reporting structure make it NOT the status quo.
>
> Today you need to elect people you trust to deal with dispute
> resolution to the Council, and people who you trust to file taxes to
> the Trustees.
>
> Under the new proposal you basically need to elect people you trust to
> deal with dispute resolution and taxes to the Trustees.  Honestly I'm
> not sure why we'd even have the Council since we already have QA and
> if somebody doesn't like a Council decision it will end up with the
> Trustees anyway, if only for them to decide whether or not they want
> to deal with it.
>
> People who would otherwise be interested in Council can just run for
> the Trustees and override all the Council decisions, and ignore the
> finances if it bores them.  :)
>
> My main concern is finding people who are both the most trusted people
> where it comes to disputes and who are trusted to handle the finances
> is going to be difficult.  For things that don't involve disputes you
> don't need any kind of escalation body since regular projects can deal
> with that stuff already.  Dealing with disputes is inevitably going to
> fall on whoever has the final decision, because it is the nature of
> people in disputes to appeal anything less than that.
>

That's a good point.  What may be better is to have the Trustees create
a project for finances and/or tax stuff.  The same could be done for
legal needs.  At that point the Trustees would just be there for dispute
resolution, though I do think that a financial / legal perspective is
important for dispute resolution.

As far as what happens with council, I half imagine that down the line,
especially if sub-groups are formed, both council and trustees would be
one group.

The problem I am trying to solve is one of who has ultimate
legal/financial authority in Gentoo.  This would mean a change.  At the
moment I can't think of a way that doesn't involve the Foundation (or an
umbrella) being that ultimate legal/financial authority.

-- 
Matthew Thode (prometheanfire)