Re: Draft Charter Review Comments

[Bart Decrem <bart eazel com>]

Hi Linas,

Thanks for joining us for the PR conference call yesterday.

I have worked my way through your last set of notes, assuming that those
incorporate your earlier comments.  My comments are below...

linas@linas.org wrote:

> The question of 'why is a gnome foundation needed?' isn't ever clearly
> asked, and is answered only indirectly in the section 'tasks of the
> foundation' section.  I think you need to ask and answer this question
> first, in writing, as the preface to the charter.

Yes.  I just made a draft of that.  Will be included in tomorrow's version
of the Charter.


> -- "write access to CVS": is this really appropriate to mention here?
>    GnuCash has always been nominally a Gnome project, and it has never
>    had open, public write access to CVS, and is not likely to in the
>    near future.  (Do I need to defend why we do things this way?
>    Becasue we think it results in better code.  Is that wrong?  Well,
>    the FSF, the Linux Kernel, and Perl follow this model, so I don't
>    feel like I'm committing a sin by maintaing tight control.)

I do think write access to CVS is an important part of the core components
of Gnome, but this does not mean that *every* piece of software included in
Gnome has write access to CVS.  For example, Sawfish is not in Gnome CVS.
I totally understand your desire to maintain control over Gnumatic's source
tree, and I don't think this prevents you from being part of GNOME.  So,
unless there's consensus on the list to change this, I'm going to leave it
as-is.


>    I am hoping that my company, Gnumatic Incorporated, can be one of
>    the founding members of the Gnome Foundation. (We are enhancing
>    and marketing GnuCash, we hope to turn it into a world-class
>    financial accounting package for the Linux desktop.)  Its all
>    GPL'ed and its an FSF/Gnu project, but implying "write access
>    to CVS to all comers" is farther than I want  to go.

No problem for me!


> -- "smoke-filled rooms". This is an anachronistic remark on 19th
>    century American decision making processes.  Surely there must
>    be a better way of saying this, especially in light of the next
>    sentance:

Yes.  I deleted this sentence (which is followed by a platitude btw: "Gnome
is about people")

> -- "On certain occasions, converstations within the Gnome foundation
>    will be confidential."  Sounds pretty damned smoke-filled to me.
>    Which side of the mouth are we speaking out of, again?
>
>    This paragraph is entirely inapporpriate for the "principles".
>    Although the gnome foundation *might* have confidential meetings,
>    the protocol for this should be dealt with in some later section
>    covering the operations and protocols, and *not* in the "principles".

Yes.  I have moved this to a later section.



>    Furthermore, its not at all obvious why the gnome foundation
>    should have *any* secret meetings whatsoever.  I agree that some
>    corporations may wish to petition certain members of the gnome
>    foundation privately, to "feel things out", "test the ropes",
>    as it were, and that's OK.   But this should be done privately,
>    and not by the gnome foundation.  Hey, if Micheal Dell wants to
>    call Nat Freidman bout joining the gnome foundation, and talk about
>    it in private, that's OK.  However, it would be highly inappropriate
>    to call a secret meeting of the board of directors to discuss the
>    situation.

Here, a lot of people would disagree with you.  One of the main reasons we
wanted to created the Gnome Foundation is to provide more transparency.  In
other words, when Michael Dell wants to engage in conversations with the
Gnome Foundation, we absolutely wanted to have a way for him to do so.
When Eazel joined GNOME, we had "back alley" discussions with a small
number of people and we hope that won't need to happen in the future,
because new companies will be able to coordinate their entry into the GNOME
community with the Foundation's Board of Directors.


> -- "Gnome will include only Free Software, as determined by the
>    Board of Directors".
>
>    Lets erase the "as determined by the board" part of this sentance.
>    Why? Again, its a proceedural issue, and would be better covered
>    in the proceedures section.  It may happen that the board of
>    directors will delegate this decision to some other body or comittee,
>    etc.  The board may not have control over that body (e.g. if
>    there is a standards committee subgroup of the gnome foundation,
>    it must have absolute technical authority, which even the board
>    of directors cannot veto; see below).

Yes.  Done.


> - "Participation in the foundation should only be available to
>    those people who ..."
>    This sentance should state something like "participation is
>    intended only for those people who...".  Again, lets not make
>    policy/proceedural declamations in the "principles" section.

Yes.  Done.

> -- "Money cannot buy influence..."  I applaud this remark.  However,
>    this is far from obvious in the actual structuring of the foundation.
>    Care will need to be taken in "operations and protocol" section
>    to ensure that this is will indeed be true.

I hope we've found a middle ground on that.

> -- Emperor Maximilian? Huh? This is a historical reference that is
>    too obscure for me.  Just because you know the story doesn't mean
>    that others will.  Think Shiite vs. Sunni.  (don't get it? think
>    "fork".)

Yes.  I removed this.

> ===============================================================
>
> Section 'Tasks of the Foundation', I'd suggest listing 'Releasing Gnome'
> and 'disbursing cash' last instead of first.   This ordering would be a
> a bit more normal and customary, and makes infintely more sense to me.
> If I understand other comments on the mailing list, "most" folks feel
> the same way.

I moved Disbursing cash to the last place.  See my comments below about
Releasing Gnome.


> 'We need a mission statement'.  May I dutifully point out that
> the sections labelled 'public image', 'point of contact', 'direction
> and vision'  already pretty much state what a mission statement would
> say.  I dutifully submit that the section currently labelled
> "Tasks of the Foundation" be simply re-titled "Mission Statement."

Working on a mission statement.  I agree that Tasks captures a lot of it,
but it's too long to be a mission statement.


> ===============================================================
>
> Section I. Goals of the Gnome Founcation.
> "The tasks are the letter of the law; the principles are the spirit."
> This sentance is just plain wrong.  The "letter of the law" is spelled
> out in sections II, II, IV etc.  The "letter of the law is *not*
> spelled out in the section called "Tasks".

Yes, you are right.  I have dropped that introductory paragraph and renamed
it, like this:
I.  Principles of the Foundation
II. Tasks of the Foundation.



> ===============================================================
>
> Section IV. "The board of directors will be responsible for authorizing
> the release of a new version of gnome."  Hogwash.
>
> The board of directors should be responsible for preparing quarterly
> financial statements for the dues-paying members.  The board of
> directors will be responsible for promoting Gnome through press
> releases, trade shows, etc.  The board of directors will deal with
> trademark issues,  patent issues, legal issues.  The board of directors
> will organize the advisory board, and the standards subcomittee.
>
> The board of directors would be insane to also try to get involved
> in technical matters or release schedules.  Not the least of which
> are the severe conflict-of-interest issues already raised on the
> mailing list.  The board of directors should maintain an arms-length
> relationship with the body that is steering the actual code.
>
> For example:  If the board does not like a standard that the
> standards comittee has created, it does not have the power to veto
> that standard.  It may have the power to dissolve the committee.
> Similarly, it cannot veto a release schedule, although it can dissolve
> the release-schedule subcomittee.
>
> In practical terms, this protects the foundation from various forms
> of corruption & ensures far more public oversight  (can you imagine
> the fuss that will happen when a committee is dissolved when the
> board doesn't like it?  This will be a strong incentive for the
> board to be honest and fair in its dealings).

Unless there's a movement on foundation-list in this direction, I'm going
to leave that as-is.  My understanding has always been that coordinating
releases of GNOME is the most important tasks that the foundation is taking
on.  From day 1, people stated that release coordination will be overseen
by the foundation.  My reading of the threads about this is that we do have
consensus on that.

Your example of the standards committee is a different issue.



> ============================================================
>
> The remainder of this note is commentary about the standards
> process.  However, a disclaimer: what I describe below only works
> for highly structured boards.  I no longer think that this would
> work for the Gnome foundation.  I think that Jim Gettys is right
> and that a more IETF-style of proceedure is far more appropriate
> for Gnome.

I agree that Jim's proposal sounds good.  I think the Foundation needs to
start thinking about standards definition pretty hard, but it'll probably
take a while before GNOME gets serious about that.

Linas, thank you so much for your comments.  I hope you'll see that I've
taken the bulk of your suggestion to heart!

Bart