Re: Some comments

["Almer S. Tigelaar" <almer1 dds nl>]

Hello,

> "Almer S. Tigelaar" <almer1@dds.nl> writes:
> > I am wondering what you mean hear with 'confidential'? I get the nasty
> > feeling this is more or less a loophole to make decisions behind other
> > people's back or something which is not a good thing.
> > Maybe someone could give a concrete example and more clearly define
> > 'certain occasions'?
> 
> Some examples:
> 
>  - Eazel wants to talk to the board about how to approach the
>    GNOME community, and wants help from the board planning their
>    GNOME announcement
>
>  - A GNOME member wants to discuss some personal issue (I can't think
>    of what this might be, but it seems possible)

Ok, I can agree with these examples.
 
> The fact is that if the board can't do anything confidential, then
> people who want confidentiality will approach someone other than the
> board, probably companies for the most part. There is no way to force
> confidential information to be revealed; if the board can't keep
> secrets then it simply won't find out any secrets.

Not sure what you mean by this exacly. The board should not consist
of 007 kind of types if that is what you mean :-) 
(It should not be the boards task to 'find out' secrets I think)

> Allowing the board to keep things confidential means that a
> democratically elected body can represent the community in sensitive
> discussions. Right now, confidential issues are just handled by the
> small group a company happens to talk to. For example, Eazel talked to
> Red Hat and Miguel mostly.

True, but even if there is a gnome foundation, companies will still
'be able' to do this. It is just not very smart if a company does this.

> To define "certain occasions," ultimately the board is going to have
> to use its best judgment here; so we need to elect people we trust to
> have good judgment.

Even though I agree with you partially, I do think we need to define
these occasions more clearly in the final document. (Put some border
as to what is considered to be allowed when it comes to confidentiality
and what is not). Everyone's view on what "certain ocassions" are
differ.
 
> Anyway, I think a board that can keep secrets ends up being much more
> democratic, because then the board can know about secrets, and that
> lets democratically-elected persons deal with secrets, instead of
> people at companies.

I do not question the reason for making a foundation, I am personally
convinced this is very much needed. Companies can't represent the
GNOME community as a whole.

Almer S. Tigelaar