Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo Council vs Umbrella Corp ?

[Dale]

james wrote:
> Gentoo,
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> https://blogs.gentoo.org/mgorny/2020/08/25/is-an-umbrella-organization-a-good-choice-for-gentoo/
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> Surely some of the business/legal savvy folks want to "chime in" on
> Sir Gorny's proposal?
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> I just read this on 'hacker news'
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> It just sounds like mostly a lack of fund raising to operate?
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> James
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>


There's several issues that lead to this.  For ages, the financial books
were not kept up to date.  From what I recall, some paperwork was lost
which made it difficult to impossible to do the needed IRS filings. 
Things on that part seemed to snowball from there.  In the past few
years or so, that has been dealt with and from what I've read, it is now
up to date and they are trying to get back in good standing with the IRS
and other Govt entities.  I think I read where most of the hard work as
already been done, just needs time to kick in.  It isn't hard to get
into that situation, it just takes one year with a mistake to trigger
bad things.  It takes a lot of work to get it cleared up tho.  All of us
should be grateful to the ones who put in the hard work to get that
taken care of.  I'm sure it took a lot of effort and time to get that
done.  I'm sure it was boring as heck to do as well.  Some of us would
likely have no hair left. 

Another issue, not many want to run the foundation.  The devs mostly
want to write code.  They aren't to much interested in running the
foundation part of it.  A few do because it is needed and they do their
best, some even go far beyond that, but they really want to write code. 
That's what developers came to Gentoo for after all.  Since there is two
different bodies that run Gentoo in different ways, it further reduces
the number of people wanting to do the job.  The foundation part is from
my understanding, bureaucratic paperwork.  Who wants to do that for
free?  There's not many.  Basically, if you run for a position on the
foundation, it's good odds you get it because usually just enough run to
fill the open spots.  I often wonder, do they draw straws to pick people
to run just so things keep chugging along??  LOL 

Then there is the costs.  It costs to deal with all the paperwork and
filings.  There's state filings as well as federal.  Missing either of
those can cause trouble for the other and also get expensive and time
consuming to correct.  Again, very few want to deal with it.  The few
that do likely do it because Gentoo needs it not because they are
jumping up and down wanting to do it.  It's what keeps Gentoo going. 
It's cheaper to join some other group like has been talked about for
years and let them take a percentage of the money and them as
professionals handle all that nasty paperwork and filings. 

My personal opinion.  I'm still leaning to keep Gentoo as it is but I'm
not the one doing all the boring work either.  My concern, Gentoo joins
some group and it ends badly for Gentoo.  Maybe they screw up something
and that puts Gentoo and maybe everyone else in the group in jeopardy
with govt entities or lawsuits.  On the other hand, if Gentoo doesn't
have the right people, they could do the same thing to themselves.  The
people who do run for those seats do try their best even if something
goes wrong.  Thing is, it doesn't take much to run afoul of govt
entities or trigger a lawsuit.  Gentoo has been lucky in that regard. 
There is no easy answer to this.  Either way has advantages.  Same can
be said for disadvantages as well. 

I'm sure there is more that isn't known to the public and I'm sure some
things are escaping my mind at the moment.  Either way, whatever keeps
Gentoo going and successful, that is what needs to be done.  Since I
don't have a crystal ball, I'm not sure which is best long term. 

Now someone add more to this.  ;-)

Dale

:-)  :-)