Nominations open for the 2007/08 Trustees

Since nobody else has sent this, I guess that I will do it.

The Trustees elections run in parallel with the Council
elections, so
now is the time for nominations there, too.

Respond to the gentoo-nfp list and *not* to gentoo-dev,
please.

As for anyone looking to nominate me, I'm pre-emptively
declining.  ;]

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams
Games Developer/Council Member/Foundation Trustee
Gentoo Foundation

Ned Ludd wrote: [Mon Jul 16 2007, 04:00:44PM CDT]
> Long term I worry about the foundation. No offense to
anybody. I'm sure 
> I don't know or understand the problems you/we have
encountered along
> the way. But I think we need to face it 99.9% of our
devs are not
> suited to run a foundation such as this. That's not a
bad thing in any
> such way. Most of us came to this project cuz we are
geeks doing geeky
> things is what we do best.. 
> I'm sure some of you get roped into doing the
foundation because
> you truly love Gentoo and want to see things be taken
care of. However
> to be frank. I don't think I've seen a single
substantial thing
> accomplished sense cshields left Gentoo. Please don't
take that the
> wrong way. I know we are all busy people. Perhaps you
guys have done
> shitloads and I/we just don't know about it. Perhaps
it's still the same
> old story.. We are waiting on ABC banks. We can't
re-incorp without 
> XYZ first.

Actually, we have a bank, paypal successfully talks to it,
and 
I believe that we're completely caught up w/ all of the
various funding
requests that we've received.  You're point is still a good
one, 
however.

> Anyway point I'm trying to make here is that I think we
might be 
> better off using a 3rd party as our foundation. IE
people who have 
> the experience/motivation and time to focus on such
things 
> that a foundation should be.
> 
> Anyway. I'd like to nominate nobody in-house.

Yeah, I tend to agree.  Not-so-coincidentally, Gentoo's been
invited to
join the Software Freedom Conservancy, which would provide
just the sort
of 3rd-party management that you're suggesting.  I put a
write-up on my
blog detailing what we know so far:

    http://www.grantgoodyear.org/g2blog/gentoo/20070717
-sflc.html

I'm cross-posting to -dev, and suggesting that comments be
sent 
there as well, since most people don't read -nfp.

If you think this is a good idea, a bad idea, or you just
want to know
more, now's the time to express your opinion.

-g2boojum-
-- 
Grant Goodyear	
Gentoo Developer
g2boojumgentoo.org
http://www.gentoo.org
/~g2boojum
GPG Fingerprint: D706 9802 1663 DEF5 81B0  9573 A6DC 7152
E0F6 5B76

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Grant Goodyear wrote:

> Not-so-coincidentally, Gentoo's been invited to
> join the Software Freedom Conservancy.

For those like me who don't already know who these people
are. As you can read
here [http://www.s
oftwarefreedom.org/services/] under Non-profit
Corporate
Assistance, they appear to be a spin-off of the Software
Freedom Law Center
(SFLC) which was was launched in February 2005 with Eben
Moglen, of GPLv3
fame, as Chairman:

"The SFLC helps FOSS projects develop and maintain
legal status to help ensure
their longevity. The SFLC assists its clients with all
stages of corporate
existence, including formation and tax exemption, and helps
projects with
their contracts and governance. The SFLC established and
continues to serve as
counsel to the Software Freedom Conservancy, which provides
an alternative to
independent corporate formation for FOSS projects. The SFLC
is also able to
represent its clients in negotiations."

Marijn
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-- 
gentoo-devgentoo.org mailing list

On Tue, 2007-07-17 at 10:08 -0500, Grant Goodyear wrote:
> Ned Ludd wrote: [Mon Jul 16 2007, 04:00:44PM CDT]
> > Long term I worry about the foundation. No offense
to anybody. I'm sure 
> > I don't know or understand the problems you/we
have encountered along
> > the way. But I think we need to face it 99.9% of
our devs are not
> > suited to run a foundation such as this. That's
not a bad thing in any
> > such way. Most of us came to this project cuz we
are geeks doing geeky
> > things is what we do best.. 
> > I'm sure some of you get roped into doing the
foundation because
> > you truly love Gentoo and want to see things be
taken care of. However
> > to be frank. I don't think I've seen a single
substantial thing
> > accomplished sense cshields left Gentoo. Please
don't take that the
> > wrong way. I know we are all busy people. Perhaps
you guys have done
> > shitloads and I/we just don't know about it.
Perhaps it's still the same
> > old story.. We are waiting on ABC banks. We can't
re-incorp without 
> > XYZ first.
> 
> Actually, we have a bank, paypal successfully talks to
it, 

Thats good to hear about paypal/banking. And it's good to
know 
that you guys are still there looking out for Gentoo. 

> and 
> I believe that we're completely caught up w/ all of the
various funding
> requests that we've received.  You're point is still a
good one, 
> however.
> 
> > Anyway point I'm trying to make here is that I
think we might be 
> > better off using a 3rd party as our foundation. IE
people who have 
> > the experience/motivation and time to focus on
such things 
> > that a foundation should be.
> > 
> > Anyway. I'd like to nominate nobody in-house.
> 
> Yeah, I tend to agree.  Not-so-coincidentally, Gentoo's
been invited to
> join the Software Freedom Conservancy, which would
provide just the sort
> of 3rd-party management that you're suggesting.  I put
a write-up on my
> blog detailing what we know so far:
> 
>     http://www.grantgoodyear.org/g2blog/gentoo/20070717
-sflc.html
> 
> I'm cross-posting to -dev, and suggesting that comments
be sent 
> there as well, since most people don't read -nfp.
> 
> If you think this is a good idea, a bad idea, or you
just want to know
> more, now's the time to express your opinion.
> 
> -g2boojum-

We're happy to discuss methods that have worked for other
projects with
you to help you select the solution that is right for you.

I defiantly think this makes the most sense for Gentoo at
this time.
One area that seems a tad fuzzy in details is how Gentoo
would handle 
dealing with Paragraph 6 - Representation of the Project in
the
Conservancy. If we went to FSC route. Should we bother in
even having a
foundation? If so what role shall it play other than to be
the liaison
between internal funding requests? I think clearly it would
not be the
best of ideas to allow all our devs unilateral spending
abilities.
Would you mind inquiring about the "methods that have
worked for other
projects" ? 

We are a 501(c)6 right now if I remember correctly and that
has been a
limiting factor in us receiving donations in this past. By
teaming up
with them we gain the 501(c)3 status. That seems like a good
thing in
and of itself as it allows our sponsors to write off
donations to 
the project. Which in turn could lead to a lot more
donations, which 
then turns into Gentoo being able to offer bigger and better
things 
at the end of the day.

Thanks for taking the time to work with them, and informing
us that 
the foundation is still active (it's somewhat hard to tell
sometimes).

-- 
Ned Ludd <solargentoo.org>
Gentoo Linux

-- 
gentoo-devgentoo.org mailing list

On Tue, 17 Jul 2007 10:08:23 -0500
Grant Goodyear <g2boojumgentoo.org> wrote:

> Ned Ludd wrote: [Mon Jul 16 2007, 04:00:44PM CDT]
> > Anyway point I'm trying to make here is that I
think we might be 
> > better off using a 3rd party as our foundation. IE
people who have 
> > the experience/motivation and time to focus on
such things 
> > that a foundation should be.
> > 
> > Anyway. I'd like to nominate nobody in-house.
> 
> Yeah, I tend to agree.  Not-so-coincidentally, Gentoo's
been invited
> to join the Software Freedom Conservancy, which would
provide just
> the sort of 3rd-party management that you're
suggesting.  I put a
> write-up on my blog detailing what we know so far:
> 
>     http://www.grantgoodyear.org/g2blog/gentoo/20070717
-sflc.html

While I think this would be an excellent move, there are a
few topics
that concern me a bit:
1) just to be sure, did someone check the transfer agreement
between the
Foundation and the old Gentoo, Inc for potential problems?
2) what would this mean for our copyright situation? In
detail:
a) who would (legally) own the copyright?
b) what would (in theory) be involved if we'd want to
enforce/change
the license?
c) if the copyright were owned by the Conservancy, would we
have to
change our copyright headers (in existing and/or new
files)?
3) the time it takes to process a funding request worries me
a little
bit as well, but then I've never had to deal with that so
I'll trust
people who have more experience with that.

2c) is the thing that concernes me the most, changing all of
our
copyright notices would be a huge pain.

Btw, you should probably make a new topic for that so people
actually
notice it.

Marius
-- 
gentoo-devgentoo.org mailing list

<snip>
> Yeah, I tend to agree.  Not-so-coincidentally, Gentoo's
been invited to
> join the Software Freedom Conservancy, which would
provide just the sort
> of 3rd-party management that you're suggesting.  I put
a write-up on my
> blog detailing what we know so far:
> 
>     http://www.grantgoodyear.org/g2blog/gentoo/20070717
-sflc.html
> 
> I'm cross-posting to -dev, and suggesting that comments
be sent 
> there as well, since most people don't read -nfp.
> 
> If you think this is a good idea, a bad idea, or you
just want to know
> more, now's the time to express your opinion.
<snip>

Just went trough this with another project I belong to and I
think it
would be a GREAT idea. granted would have to be accepted by
the
developer population but I for one know that when I was a
trustee I was
rather paralyzed by fear doing anything with the NFP entity.
Please
please pleasey please do this!

a topic for the gentoo-nfp list since it'd be the trustees
making the decision
-mike

On Sun, Jul 22, 2007 at 12:49:33PM -0600, Ryan Hill wrote:
> It might be worth noting that it appears that Gentoo
would be the first
> distribution to join.  I'd be interested in knowing if
the SFC considers
> distributing closed-source or proprietary software
(nero, ati/nvidia
> drivers, vmware) to be "producing non-free
software (as per the
> Conservancy's charitable purpose)" as mentioned in
section 2(b) of their
> notes.  Paragraph 2(a) seems to prohibit it.
> 
> > a. The Project Will Be Free Software.  The
Conservancy and the Project agree that 
> >    any software distributed by the Project will be
distributed solely as Free Software.
> 
> If that's not a problem I think this is a great idea.
> 

It's not a problem  - what we actually produce as a product,
the ebuilds, etc.,
are free to distribute. 

-- 

-----o()o----------------------------------------------
Michael Cummings   |    #gentoo-dev, #gentoo-perl
Gentoo Perl Dev    |    on irc.freenode.net 
Gentoo/SPARC
Gentoo/AMD64
GPG: 0543 6FA3 5F82 3A76 3BF7  8323 AB5C ED4E 9E7F 4E2E
-----o()o----------------------------------------------

Hi, I'm a .signature virus! Please copy me in your
~/.signature.

CHRIS GIANELLONI WROTE:
> WELL, WE'D BE THE SECOND DISTRIBUTION, AS DEBIAN USES
THE SFC.  ALSO,
> REALIZE THAT WE'VE ALREADY GONE THROUGH ALL OF THIS
WITH THE SFC AND
> WOULDN'T EVEN BE BRINGING IT UP AS AN OPTION IF THE SFC
HADN'T ALREADY
> APPROVED US.  THEY ARE AWARE OF THE STATE OF OUR TREE
AND THAT WE DO
> SHIP *EBUILDS* FOR PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE.  REMEMBER THAT
WE DON'T
> DISTRIBUTE CLOSED-SOURCE SOFTWARE, WE DISTRIBUTE
*EBUILDS* FOR SAID
> SOFTWARE.

ARE YOU SURE WE DON'T MIRROR ANY BINARY SOFTWARE OR NON-FREE
SOFTWARE? I
WOULD BE SHOCKED IF OUR MIRRORS CONTAINED NOTHING VIOLATING
THE
OPEN-SOURCE DEFINITION.

THANKS,
DONNIE

On Sun, 2007-07-22 at 17:28 -0700, Josh Saddler wrote:
> Ryan Hill wrote:
> > Marius Mauch wrote:
> >> While I think this would be an excellent move,
there are a few topics
> >> that concern me a bit:
> >> 1) just to be sure, did someone check the
transfer agreement between the
> >> Foundation and the old Gentoo, Inc for
potential problems?
> >> 2) what would this mean for our copyright
situation? In detail:
> >> a) who would (legally) own the copyright?
> >> b) what would (in theory) be involved if we'd
want to enforce/change
> >> the license?
> >> c) if the copyright were owned by the
Conservancy, would we have to
> >> change our copyright headers (in existing
and/or new files)?
> > 
> > It might be worth noting that it appears that
Gentoo would be the first
> > distribution to join.  I'd be interested in
knowing if the SFC considers
> > distributing closed-source or proprietary software
(nero, ati/nvidia
> > drivers, vmware) to be "producing non-free
software (as per the
> > Conservancy's charitable purpose)" as
mentioned in section 2(b) of their
> > notes.  Paragraph 2(a) seems to prohibit it.
> > 
> >> a. The Project Will Be Free Software.  The
Conservancy and the Project agree that 
> >>    any software distributed by the Project
will be distributed solely as Free Software.
> > 
> > If that's not a problem I think this is a great
idea.
> 
> We don't "distribute" those, do we? A look at
their ebuilds shows that
> those are just downloaded from upstream, not from
Gentoo mirrors. Well,
> except for Nero.
> 
> At least we aren't the creators of it!
> 
> Does that document you mention define what "Free
Software" is? nvidia
> drivers are free to download, install, use, in the
sense that they don't
> cost anything. Bah, legal hassle!

It doesn't matter, since the SFC has already said they would
welcome us.
I think Grant did a quick "informal" LICENSE scan
and determined that
like 95% of the tree was GPL-licensed.  That high of a
percentage was
enough for the SFC, along with our informal policy of
preferring OSS
over proprietary.  After all, we could still be offering
XFree86, but
chose to go with the more "open" of the two and
focus all of our
energies there.  We've also seen quite a few external
drivers get
removed over the years after the open replacements got good
enough to
replace the proprietary drivers.  I'm sure many of you can
come up with
your own examples of this.  The point was that we *do* push
free
software, and our products are free software and not
proprietary.  The
only real problem that I have here is it limits our ability
to ever have
a non-free fork, such as an enterprise fork, run by us,
without leaving
the SFC.  Of course, we're nowhere near that point now, so
it shouldn't
be a primary concern, especially considering that we can
leave the SFC
of our own volition at any time, and the SFC will even help
us set up
ourselves when/if that times comes.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams
Games Developer/Council Member/Foundation Trustee
Gentoo Foundation