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

[Matthew Thode]

On 01/11/2017 06:24 AM, Matthias Maier wrote:
> Hi Matthew,
>
> On Wed, Jan 11, 2017, at 04:59 CST, Matthew Thode <prometheanfire@g.o> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> I think I'm leaning towards
>> the 'board' being what is currently trustees + hr(comrel) + pr + infra.
>> Under that would go what is currently being done by council.
>
> I am a bit astonished by the sudden proposal to centralize more power
> under the Gentoo Foundation, A US based non-profit. As was laid out by
> ulm and dilfridge, there are a number of severe legal uncertainties for
> non-US citizens participating in such a construct and frankly speaking I
> do not see the need for it. On the contrary.
>

I don't necessarily see this as a centralization of power.  I think a
lot of the debate has been over "Who should 'control' Gentoo"

    I think that should be the Foundation as the foundation is what
currently controls the name of Gentoo and Gentoo's infrastructure and
finances.  The foundation also has the most legal exposure.  Further I'd
make the claim that because of the Foundations current status
(maintaining legal / financial control of Gentoo), that the Foundation
already does, even if the Foundation is very hands off now.

    As far as the legal uncertainties go, my proposal (the new 1.1 one)
makes Foundation membership optional, but it would be opt-out to
encourage participation.  If there's blowback on the opt-out part then
it could be made opt-in, but I'd like to keep participation high if
possible.

>  - It is my firm believe that it is *vital* for an open source project
>    that essentially consists of volunteers from around the world to be
>    organized as a community and not as a legal entity under some
>    jurisdiction.

The problem is that we NEED to exist as a legal entity as well.
Partially for copyright reasons, but also for tax reasons.  If we don't
then anyone could register the trademark of 'Gentoo Linux' and then sue
us. (not that they can't file frivolous lawsuits anyway).

My goal is to move the areas that expose Gentoo legally and financially
to be directly under the foundation while keeping the technical matters
controlled through Council.  This does not preclude having council have
things run through them and then to the Foundation, but the foundation
should be the final stop in escalations involving legal or financial
matters.

The way I see it is that Gentoo would basically remain as the status
quo, with some slight differences in reporting structure.

>
>    Therefore the status quo makes a lot of sense:
>
>      - the developer community organizing itself
>
>      - the Foundation taking care of legal matters (finances and
>        infrastructure) that need a legal entity in some jurisdiction
>
>    The vital bit is the fact that the developer community is
>    self-organizing and this includes the power to decide who is a member
>    and who is not.
>

The Foundation has already had to be consulted in one instance about a
potential dev from a country for which the US had sanctions against at
the time.  To me that means that you currently don't have 'ultimate'
power to decide who is a dev.  No mater where Gentoo is organized I see
this being an issue.

>  - Now, all you essentially propose is to shift the "hr(comrel)" part to
>    the Foundation - all the rest (trustees, pr, and infra) it is already
>    in charge of.
>
>    So, why is it important to give the Foundation the power to decide
>    over the "hr" part of the Gentoo developer community?
>
>    If it is just about comrel, well, we can easily reorganize comrel
>    into an elected body (by the Gentoo developer community) similarly to
>    the council.
>

Being elected is a good decision, but not one my proposal is looking to
make.  The reason I'd like comrel to operate under the Foundation is
legal exposure.  I'd suspect that we'd be largely hands off.  They could
even still escalate to the Council and from Council to the Foundation.

>    I do not see any necessity for the Foundation to be involved in the
>    self organization of the developer community. On the contrary, there
>    is the danger that a strengthened Foundation will severely undermine
>    the authority of our developer community procedures, with
>
>      - trustees being able to overrule the council on technical and
>        community decisions
>

I think/hope this can be prevented with a bylaw prohibiting making
technical decisions that don't have impact in legal or financial ways.
(prohibiting an ebuild for licensing issues is something we would be
able to do, but not prohibiting version a in favor of version b of
something like ansible vs chef because we prefer one).

>      - trustees being able to overrule our (developer) recruiting
>        process
>

As I said above, we have already been consulted at least once (it was a
while ago) and because of legal exposure I think we have to be.

In practice I don't see us doing much other than accepting new devs as
they come.  Only in extreme circumstances do I see us exercise that power.

> So, as  a trustee (and the one proposing this move), why do you want to
> have this power presiding over the developer community?
>

Personally, I don't.  It's a lot of work and bikeshedding.  But I think
this will make us better able to handle conflict within the distro
(whatever the source or reason).

> Best,
> Matthias
>

-- 
Matthew Thode (prometheanfire)