Re: foundation application..

[Magdalen Berns <m berns thismagpie com>]

On 12 February 2015 at 13:42, Magdalen Berns <m berns thismagpie com> wrote:
>> One thing I thought of would be to change the direction of the process
>> to be an invitation rather than an application.
>> If you see someone helping, instead of pushing him to apply you could
>> fill in the form describing his contributions (and possibly the name
>> of someone else who can support it) and if accepted he would get an
>> invitation to join the foundation.
>
>
> That seems highly masonic.

I think it would be good in addition to the current process, not
replacing it, for the many people who will never feel they do great
things, even if they do (see Imposter Syndrome).

I don't have any problems with people suggesting to contributors that they should apply because this would may give a deserving contributor the confidence to go for it, but that does not seem to be what you are suggesting. What you seem to be suggesting is masonic. Perhaps you could clarify what you mean by this nomination system idea, in case I misunderstood what you mean in terms of its practical application.

> The bylaws state the following[1]
>
> "Any contributor to GNOME shall be eligible for member-ship.
>
> A "contributor" shall be defined as any individual who has contributed to a
> non-trivial improvement of the GNOME Project, such as code, documentation,
> trans-
> lations, maintenance of project-wide resources, or other non-trivial
> activities which
> benefit the GNOME Project. Large amounts of advocacy or bug reporting may
> qual-
> ify one as a contributor, provided that such contributions are significantly
> above the
> level expected of an ordinary user. Contributions made in the course of
> employment
> will be considered and will be ascribed to the individuals involved, rather
> than accruing
> to all employees of a "contributing" corporation."
>
>
>
> I suggest we just make the rules much clearer to people on the outreach
> pages by clarifying what "non-trivial" actually means. GSoC/OPW interns are
> told to make more contributions after their 3 month internship before
> applying. That suggests that the contributions they make over their 3 month
> internship of 40 hours per week are trivial. It's no wonder contributors
> find the process of making a membership application intimidating considering
> that, isn't it? How could a volunteer compete with an someone who is being
> paid to work on GNOME full time (even if it is just for 3 months)?
>
> [1] http://www.gnome.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/bylaws.pdf

Giving more examples would clearly help.
I believe the GSoC/OPW is special as they have incentive to contribute
which then finish and it's probably a matter to see if they continue
contributing. It doesn't mean that what they did was non-trivial.

In practical terms it does and it certainly is not likely to help anyone's imposter syndrome to be told their work is trivial if it isn't, either. Let's review the facts:

Bylaws state that all contributors (i.e. those who shall be defined as any individual who has contributed to a non-trivial improvement of the GNOME Project) are illegible for membership. 

Bylaws state "Contributions made in the course of employment will be considered and will be ascribed to the individuals involved, rather than accruing to all employees of a “contributing” corporation. 

Those are the rules. Therefore, if GNOME does not actually believe that all interns make trivial contributions, then GNOME effectively contradicts its own bylaws in stating that all interns should not apply for foundation membership on the strength of their contributions over 3 month period of 40 hours of work a week (i.e. internship) alone.

Magdalen