Re: [gentoo-project] Groups under the Council or Foundation: the structure & processes thereof

[Daniel Campbell]

On 11/13/2016 07:05 AM, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 13, 2016 at 9:53 AM, M. J. Everitt <m.j.everitt@×××.org> wrote:
>>
>> Foundation
>> =======
>> Legal entity
>> Deals with finance
>> Deals with compliance
>> Provides Infra
>> Provides/oversees Staff
>>
>> Council
>> =====
>> Fulfils aim of Linux Distribution
>> Oversees projects
>> Innovates and develops
>>
>> Both are Foundation and Council are elected bodies from the staff
>> electorate.
>>
>> Anyone with any objections to this structure?
>>
>
> IMO it would make more sense to limit the Foundation to things that
> require a legal entity to provide, such as finance, IP, etc.  I don't
> think it should be running Infra or administering staff.  And I'm not
> entirely convinced that having an independent Foundation is even the
> best way of dealing with financial issues as most other distros seem
> to be moving away from this (if they're not run by a big corporation
> already).  If we joined SPI like Debian/Arch/Freedesktop/etc then we
> wouldn't need to have anybody dealing with most of the details
> finance/compliance/etc, we would just need to tell them when we need
> bills paid and so on.  That could be a special project but with a lot
> less manpower required than what the Trustees currently have to deal
> with.
>
> I'd also comment that innovation and development is the responsibility
> of all of our contributors.  I don't think that the role of a Council
> member should be seen as some kind of prize for being the most
> innovative/etc.  Sure, they should have the general respect of the
> community, but it is a role like any other with its own set of
> necessary skills/etc.
>
> Ultimately though I think it is helpful to have one group of people
> who cast votes and decide what we ought to be doing, and one set of
> representatives elected by this group of voters, so that we don't have
> debates between multiple governance bodies that all believe they have
> a mandate.
>

Outsourcing the foundation won't really solve any of the problems being
discussed here, and adds the point of contention that (I would bet) many
of us have to outsourcing Gentoo things, e.g. GitHub, et al. Outsourcing
things gives outside parties influence for zero concrete contribution.

I'm mostly fine with voting for Council, and your push for confirming or
endorsing Comrel members is a step in the right direction, though we
both know where we stand on that so I won't bother repeating myself. :)

-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
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