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On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 6:53 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@××××××.org> wrote: |
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> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 4:42 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o> wrote: |
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>> |
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>> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 6:24 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@××××××.org> |
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>> wrote: |
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>> > On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 4:22 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o> wrote: |
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>> >> |
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>> >> |
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>> >> You didn't propose soliciting feedback from users. You proposed |
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>> >> giving non-contributing users the power to vote for members of the |
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>> >> board of directors. |
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>> > |
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>> > No I did not. I did not propose any changes to the current policies for |
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>> > membership in the Foundation. |
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>> |
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>> As I quoted in that email, you proposed: Encourage Gentoo users to |
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>> become members of the Foundation through outreach and other |
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>> initiatives. |
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> |
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> |
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> Well then I'm glad we found the source of our confusion. In this context, I |
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> use the word "user" to refer to non-Gentoo-developer members, and potential |
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> members, if they meet the criteria for membership. You perform outreach to |
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> the user community and those who qualify for membership can become members, |
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> and those that don't qualify would not. |
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> |
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So, this has been debated before, so I won't elaborate on it |
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extensively, but I think it would be healthier to have these sorts of |
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users become developers and vote for both the Council and the |
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Trustees, than to have two different constituencies, because this only |
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increases the opportunity for conflict between these bodies. Such a |
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conflict might be unresolvable if it is rooted in genuine |
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representation of these two different constituencies, and this would |
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be harmful to the community as a whole. |
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Perhaps the issue is with the term "developer." Gentoo does not have |
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any requirements of software development expertise to become a |
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"developer." A contributor who is a forum moderator, or a |
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documentation author, or even a Foundation accountant would be |
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eligible to become a "developer." Once upon a time we had a class of |
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contributors called "staff" but this was merged with the developers |
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precisely because we did not want to suggest that we had some kind of |
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lower tier of contribution. |
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My intent here is not to be exclusionary, but if anything to be more |
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inclusive by not having a separate tier of non-developer Foundation |
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members. To be fair, this also means that Foundation members would be |
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accountable to the code of conduct as well as developers, but IMO this |
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is just part of having a stake in the organization beyond being able |
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to cast a vote. |
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All that said I will acknowledge that many consider the developer |
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recruitment process burdensome even for non-committers. I'd rather |
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see that fixed than having separate constituencies as a workaround, |
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and if somebody wanted to lead some kind of task force on this topic I |
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personally would consider it a good idea (not that I get a vote in any |
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of that). |
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I'm not really sure I'm a big fan of your particular proposal for how |
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to go about giving users more of a voice, but at the same time I doubt |
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many would have objection to trying to be more proactive about getting |
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feedback and trying to incorporate it. Honestly, on that front I |
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don't think anybody should wait for a "user representative" to be |
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appointed - just do it, and if you have an idea and want help, ask. |
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The concept of learning from our users' experiences certainly isn't |
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what I'm objecting to here. |
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-- |
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Rich |
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