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

[Robin H. Johnson]

TL;DR: move comrel, infra, PR to Foundation. Have strict(er) application
of policies to them in line with their powers.

I've deliberately broken the thread, but also include some history in
the origins of the groups.

On Mon, Oct 10, 2016 at 11:05:39PM +0100, Roy Bamford wrote:
...
> Council have an annual mandate from the body of Gentoo devs.
> Devrel had a mandate from council but that's not been renewed since
> 2007, unless I missed a vote somewhere.
...
> On 2016.10.07 16:09, Rich Freeman wrote:
...
> > I think it makes far more sense to have Comrel vetted by the Council.
> > If you don't trust somebody to be wielding that power, you shouldn't
> > put them on the Council.
> That addresses lots of concerns all in one go.
>
> Comrel get their annual mandate. The community know that council
> are peeking into comrel to see if its still alive and that its still
> operating as intended.  Its more work for council to do the job
> properly.
>
> It also means that council members would see things that they
> don't usually see unless there was an appeal.  Thus council can
> provide a general assurance to the community about all the good
> things comrel do that are currently privileged.
To make a radical suggestion, I'm wondering if it might be considered to
put some organizational group responsibilities under the Foundation
instead, while to establish others formally of the Council.
In some parlance, they might be considered as appointed/'hired' staff or
committee members of the management bodies, while the bodies themselves
remain elected.

I've used 'contributors' as a descriptor below, because the CoC should
be applies to both developers & users & non-users alike: all
participants in any Gentoo-associated media, mailing lists, IRC
channels, message boards etc.

I've also tried to avoid using our existing term 'project', because some
of the group responsibilities do not fit well into the project structure
of GLEP39.

I joined Gentoo in 2003, and a lot of the groups were already in
existence, whilst only a few came later.
- PR, Devrel, Infra are some of the oldest groups inside Gentoo:
  they were listed in GLEP-4 as of 2003/06/30, as pre-existing entities
  within the distribution. GLEP-4 made the groups them into
  top-level-projects.
-- Recruiters were an offshoot from the original Devrel:Newdev sub-project
-- QA is also present in that document, but bears little resemblance to
   the original group.
- Foundation's origins (2004, 2007 all-new) are in ensuring that the
  distribution is organizationally (legally & financial) sound.
- Council's origins (2006, GLEP39) are in handling global issues and
  those that cross GLEP39-project boundaries, both to ensure that the
  distribution is technically sound.

The establishment of the Council & GLEP39 mostly placed all of the
existing groups as reporting to the Council, and therein problems have
ultimately arisen. As noted by the fact that Devrel's mandate wasn't
formally renewed.

The responsibilities of some of the older groups can & do cross the
technical/organizational boundaries, whilst others fall clearly into one
side.
- Infra gets sponsorship & Foundation funds to ensure hosting & services
  keep running for the distribution's needs. Legal compliance that what
  we run complies with laws.
- PR promotes the distribution (via the banners for conferences,
  merchandise), trademark usage questions often come here.
- QA is a technical function, and clearly belongs to the Council.
  However it's enforcement powers suggest that it might not be just a
  GLEP39-project.
- ComRel falls more into the side of organizational than technical:
-- CoC issues with contributors
- Recruiters have historically functioned mostly to ensure that new
  contributors seeking to become developers are technically sound, and
  to a lesser degree that they are a social fit for the distribution.

So how do we improve things? 
1. Move some of the groups, to the Foundation.
2. Clearly define&change their rules of group formation. 
3. By accepting roles/responsibilities in these groups, a contributor
   MUST agree to uphold strong principles (eg, rules for employees in an
   organization are stricter/more-binding than those of customers, and
   strongly derived from federal/state laws & regulations).

Anybody should be able to apply to join the groups, but their joining
should be vetted by some level: The council members (possibly in
collaboration with the Foundation trustees) might wish to appoint, for
limited terms, group leaders and/or members. It's also possible the
group leaders in themselves might have a role in suggesting new members
to Council or the Foundation for approval.

-- 
Robin Hugh Johnson
Gentoo Linux: Dev, Infra Lead, Foundation Trustee & Treasurer
E-Mail   : robbat2@g.o
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