Re: Election Boycott

[Etienne Grossmann <etienne cs uky edu>]

  Hi All,

I just would like to add the 2c point of view of a Gnome user and
would-be financial contributor. I am just a Gnome user, but I voted in
early Foundation elections because I was maintaining a little Gnome
program. 

  For me, not knowing the usage of contributions is a very strong
deterent to financially contributing to a project. I believe a
"contributions page" must clearly link to a "financial page" with
e.g. the information listed below by Adrian.

  In practice, I contribute to Octave (.org) only last year. It took
me so long before doing so in part bacause I did not know what the
usage of my contribution would be. I have not contributed yet to the
Debian project precisely that reason. Maybe all the information is
available, I just have not seen it within a few-click radius of the
Debian "donations" page.

  This is just my 2c. I am of course very grateful to those who make
all the free software and data that I use and greatly appreciate.

  Cheers,

  Etienne


On Thu, Nov 25, 2004 at 01:58:45PM -0500, Adrian Custer wrote:
# Hello Everyone,
# 
# It seems that I should explain again why financial disclosure is
# important to me and why I believe that we are not doing our job as
# members if we are not evaluating and discussing foundation finances. The
# issue is important enough to me, that I consider my membership in the
# foundation useless without this information. If this seems silly to you,
# great, simply ignore me and go code or document or use free software,
# all of which are infinately more fun.
# 
# The two reasons I think financial disclosure is important:
#         
#         First, I believe that this issue is central to the purpose of
#         the foundation. The foundation was formed *because* the one
#         thing that the GNOME project could not do, without the
#         foundation, was raise and spend funds to further the goals of
#         the project. Since the managing of finances to effect positive
#         change is *the (or a primary) reason* for the existance of the
#         foundation, it seems obvious to me that access to the financial
#         data is the way to evaluate the direction and effectiveness of
#         the foundation and thereby to justify its continued existence. 
#         
#         Second, I suspect that increased transparency of the GNOME
#         foundation to GNOME users could potentially make the GNOME
#         desktop more relevant. The world of non-profits should be a
#         *major* target of GNOME so developing a way to eat our own
#         dogfood in financial oversight of the foundation might help make
#         our desktop more relvant to others in that sector of the world
#         economy.
# 
# 
# 
# Steps towards a more transparent foundation:
# -------------------------------------------
# 
# 
# Zero-effort steps:
# -----------------
# 
# 1) Post all the completed documents in a directory on the web site. This
# would include regulatory filings, accountants statements, periodic
# reports, or documents presented to the board.
# 
# 2) Take whatever is in GUIDESTAR and post it on the web site.
# 
# 3) Place a link on the web site to the above directory.
# 
# 
# 
# Medium-effort steps:
# -------------------
# 
# 1) Write an email (or several status reports) about the foundation status:
# 
#         # of full time/part time employees
# 
#         what provisions are being made for unemployment/retirement
#         benefits of these employees (i.e. what *real* (not accoutant)
#         long term liabilities we are undertaking.
#         
#         who are the accountants/who does the audits
#         
#         who are the donors and how much they give, how much they have
#         changed over time. If I remember correctly we suggested charging
#         a flat fee for commercial groups above a certain head count. Is
#         this effective? are there any groups that would like to be part
#         and can't afford to? are new groups coming on board all the
#         time? 
#         
#         How is the membership? Are new people joining every year? 
# 
# 
# Larger steps: 
# ------------
# 
# 1) Develop a coherent policy of financial disclosure (what will be
# disclosed, how, when).
# 
# 2) Develop a systematic link between the accounts and the web site.
# 
# 3) Promote the development of GNOME software tools to help the process
# of transparency and oversight. This would require defining the data
# available and allowing users access to such data.
# 
# 4) Develop a system of regular reporting to the membership, in english,
# in accoutantese, and in goverment speak, as is felt appropriate.
# 
# 5) Get reports from the committees on their experience of the board and
# finanacial responsiveness to committee needs.
# 
# These are not *demands* but rather invented suggestions for the work
# that will lead the membership to have information to be able to evaluate
# the foundation's work.
# 
# 
# 
# Please recognize that the aim for transparency is a multi-year
# endevour. It is not obvious how to make it happen with a minimum of
# work. I suspect that no one really knows how to make foundations
# transparent so the board will be forced to work on this a little every
# year. The foundation has existed for a number of years now and ought to
# get started figuring out how to regularly increase the transparency of
# its actions.
# 
# Finally, a note to each of you on the foundation. The work of the
# foundation has now matured from its glamourous beginnings into the hard
# sustained work of a multi-year process. It would be nice as you all
# voted if you had a vision of what you wanted the foundation to be and
# become. Do you want your foundation to be:
# 	a coordinating place for companies related to GNOME?
# 	an organizing committee for yearly meetings?
# 	a dispenser of funds help GNOME developers?
# 	...(left as an exercise for the reader)...?
# Please don't simply vote for eleven people because there are eleven
# slots open. That's passive democracy. Vote (or don't vote) to bring
# about whatever vision you have.
# 
# good luck,
# adrian custer
# 
# _______________________________________________
# foundation-list mailing list
# foundation-list gnome org
# http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list

-- 
Etienne Grossmann ------ http://www.cs.uky.edu/~etienne