Re: "Private Foundation-List" Petition for referendum

[Jeff Waugh <jdub bethesignal org>]

<quote who="Behdad Esfahbod">

> [/me removes board hat]
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> I like to ask for your support in my petition for referendum to make
> foundation-list archives private and membership limited to actual
> Foundation members.  If we make that change we would be able to discuss
> matters freely without making lots of news that more often than not are
> harmful to our image to the world in general.
>
> Please sign here:  http://live.gnome.org/PrivateFoundationListPetition
>
> We would need 35 to 40 signatures to put this to vote.

Changing the existing foundation-list to private: I would hate to see the
GNOME community move towards non-transparency largely due to the efforts of
an ambulance-chasing "trollumnist", and no other credible media (because
they rightly don't regard any of this as "news"). Don't over-compensate
because an idiot with a platform got his latest non-story about Open Source
people and arguments onto Slashdot (of all places).

New private mailing list for Foundation members: Much like gnome-private of
yore, everyone will still chatter on the public list because it's easier and
more useful to post there, and practically impossible to move threads away
from the public list once they've started. By all means, rename the unused
gnome-private to foundation-private, but I'm sure it'll stay as dead as it
has for *years* now.


So a sensible discussion was run off the rails by argumentative boofheads --
happens all the time, and most of the adults in the GNOME community know who
the boofheads are (which is why practically the entire board didn't pay
attention to the thread until it went off the rails; unfortunate, but there
it is).

Everyone should be embarrassed by momentary lapses of sanity like this. But
it has happened before, it'll happen again, and it barely registers on the
radar compared to the great work being done towards GNOME's mission.


Remember your priorities and carry on. None of this is worth your time.

- Jeff

-- 
linux.conf.au 2010: Wellington, NZ                http://www.lca2010.org.nz/
 
   "The existence of 'someone' is a common myth in volunteer projects." -
                               Mary Gardiner