the need for the GNOMe Foundation

[Andy Tai <atai ece ucsd edu>]

Hi, I don't know if it is already too late to raise this argument, but 
the original motivation of the GNOME Foundation was to manage the funds of the 
GNOME Project.  But another mechanism already existed that GNOME can take
advangage of.  I remembered one mission of the Software in the Public Interest
(SPI, parent of Debian GNU/Linux) was to hold in trust and to help manage 
financial resources on behalf of free software projects.  We know Debian
is a great democratic free software project and has strong relation with 
GNU.  GNOME is also treated by the SPI as one (GNU) project it supports.
Why not make use of the SPI for GNOME?

Of course there may be other valid reasons for going ahead with the GNOME 
Foundation, and people like Jim Gettys (Compaq) may find SPI boring  
to big corporations, but for GNOME hackers SPI may be the useful vehicle to
handle the paperwork stuff.

Given that the competition (KDE) is still a large threat, maybe an argument
can be formed that at this stage people shall spend most effort on writing 
software rather than on the bureaucratic stuff? The GNOME Foundation can 
always come later....

(This does not mean I oppose the GNOME Foundation.  This just is an
argument I throw out for the GNOME leadership to consider. After all, 
it is just my two cents)

-- 
Li-Cheng Tai (Andy Tai)                       e-mail: atai@atai.org

Free Software:  the software by the people, of the people and for the people.
Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!