[gentoo-project] Formally have Foundation oversee top level projects 1.1

[Matthew Thode]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oR8JUEJG7KriCdpueChWreR8Qe47GhiVvibXxyi2TiI/edit?usp=sharing

Formally have Foundation oversee top level projects

When the Foundation and subsequently the council were set up, both
bodies had common members despite their declared different purposes.

Over the years the common members have vanished.  Indeed, since 2008,
the Foundation bylaws have forbidden a single individual to serve on
council and as a trustee concurrently.  Thus the split in
responsibilities identified when the foundation was created became more
absolute.

This split is suboptimal for Gentoo (all of it).  There is a reason why
normal corporations are structured the way they are and Gentoo has not
been like that since 2004.

This proposal sets out a plan to revert to the normal corporate
structure that Gentoo enjoyed before the Foundation and Council were
created.

Right now this is a general plan for discussion, if we wish to go this
way details need to be hammered out.

Issues with the status quo:

Foundation/Trustees exist to take away the burden of running Gentoo
financially, infrastructure and legally.  There is some crossover with
projects run under the Council though.  PR, Recruitment, Comrel and
Infrastructure exist under the Council, not Foundation.

Each of those have implications for Legal reasons (mainly due to how
their  actions may expose Gentoo to legal conflict) and monetary reasons
(Infrastructure particularly).

What it means to ‘be’ Gentoo.  There’s the legal definition, meaning
only the Foundation members ‘are’ Gentoo (non-EU, ‘Gentoo eV’ exists
there).  There is also the reality of the developers actually being
Gentoo, as they do the work.  Problems occur when the membership of one
does something the other doesn’t like or thinks needs to stop (for
example, the Foundation forcibly removing all non-GPL software from the
tree would probably not go over well).

Split in the voting pool.  Currently the people voting for one body can
vote for something that’s against the views of the people in the other
body.  This can cause conflict.

Possible Solution:

    Voting body:

In order to solve this Gentoo needs to have a combined electorate,
meaning those that would vote for Council would also vote for Trustees
and visa-versa.  This would ensure that everyone’s needs are represented.

The combined voting body would be able to opt out of voting, however,
opting out of voting means opting out of voting globally.  The reasoning
behind this is so that you can’t opt out of voting for one body but not
the other, as doing so would cause a split in the voting pool.

Bodies being voted for:

We should have a single overarching governing body, let’s call it ‘The
Board’.  This is so that conflicts between Council and Trustees (as they
exist now) would have a straightforward resolution.

This new ‘Board’ would be able to use the existing project metastructure
to delegate roles to various groups (Comrel, Infra, etc would still
exist, but under this new Board).  Technical leadership would continue
as a sub-project of this board.

Sub-projects of the board can be voted for by the same electorate that
votes for the board.  This does not need to be the case for all
sub-projects.

It may look something like this:

Some of the subprojects are for example and may not reflect reality or
be complete, however, the top-level sub-projects should be as is:



        |--Council--(various projects)
        |
        |          |--Recruiting
Board --+--Comrel--|
        |          |--Something else
        |
        |--PR
        |         |--Releng (if recognized)
        |--Infra--|
                  |--Portage (possibly)

Other:

The Board’s responsibilities should be limited to running to Gentoo as a
global project.  This means they’d effectively be trustees.  Technical
matters should be limited to the council and its associated
sub-projects.  HR type issues should change from appealing up through
the Council (as it is a technical body) to appealing through to the
Board.  PR and Infra would be directly managed under the Board.

This draft of the proposal has nothing to say about the detail of the
formation of the ‘Board’, how many members it would have, nor how they
will be selected.

Suggestions by shentino:

Council is elected by (whatever you call people with commit access, used
to be deveopers)



-- 
Matthew Thode (prometheanfire)