Re: foundation application..

[Andrea Veri <av gnome org>]

2015-02-12 21:34 GMT+01:00 Magdalen Berns <m berns thismagpie com>:

> > One of the main requirements of gaining
> > Foundation Membership is being active within the community for a
> > little while *after* the internship has ended to demonstrate the fact
> > there's a real interest staying around and contributing to the
> > Project.
>
>
> This is a practice which completely contradicts the bylaws definition a
> contributor who is eligible for membership.
>
>  * All contributors have made a significant contribution (BYLAW)
>
>  * All contributors are eligible for membership (BYLAW)
>
>  * Some interns have made a significant contribution over their internship
>
>  * No interns are eligible for membership
>
> This does not make sense.

As Germán correctly pointed out the Bylaws were written before any
internship program ever started within the GNOME Project. While the
Bylaws define what the main requirements for gaining Foundation
Membership are they also mention "Membership will be determined on a
case-by-case basis, at the sole discretion of the Board and
Membership Committee" (Article VI, section 6.1). So what we have here
is a set of requirements the Bylaws strictly require the applicant to
possess for the membership to be actually granted while leaving the
Membership Committee the required discretion to process a certain
application. This leaves me out with one main question: how far can
the Committee go when reviewing a certain application? can the
Committee introduce additional "requirements" (during one of its
meetings and with a regular vote) for a membership to be accepted in
absence of particular references on the Bylaws themselves (like in the
case of interns or GSoC students for example)?

It's clear the Bylaws probably need an update on this side and ideally
part of the "what to do in case the Bylaws do not mention how peculiar
cases (such as interns) should be handled" should be delegated to the
Committee that should come up with a set of policy and guidelines
widely accepted by the membership. I'll make sure the following item
will be discussed on the next or future Board meetings.

> > The rationale behind this decision is mainly related to the
> > fact a good number of interns stopped contributing right after their
> > internship ended and it was clear to us their intent wasn't sticking
> > around the community nor they probably were passionate about our
> > project to justify staying around some more. We found extending the
> > contributions period (usually one or two months) for interns the best
> > solution to build a membership base made of people who really love and
> > care deeply about the project and the values it promotes.
>
>
> The bylaws do not say anything about a contribution period (and I had not
> heard of it before myself either, to be honest). However, they do explicitly
> state that individuals who should get credit for their contributions (not
> the corporations who pay them), the same as ordinary volunteers might.
> Either sponsored contributions are as valuable as ones that aren't
> sponsored, or they aren't: The bylaws say that they are... If there is an
> exception being made in the case of some interns then that seems quite
> significant.
>
> The bylaws do not say anything about what might motivate contributors to
> contribute, nor their level of commitment to GNOME, when it defines a
> "contributor" in terms of foundation membership but it does fairly clearly
> describe about what a "contributor" is. The main thing that is unclear in
> the bylaws is what defines a "non-trivial contribution" really and this
> becomes even more confusing because the practice is to state that all
> interns who make contribution from 40 hour weeks over a period of 3 months
> are not eligible until they contribute more stuff.

Stating the fact interns contributions aren't enough for them to join
the GNOME Foundation is out of discussion here. It's clear their
contributions are non-trivial enough for the Membership Committee to
grant the membership right after checking all the references listed on
the application. When an internship comes to an end I can think of two
possible natural consequences: one being the person applying for
membership and the other being the intern leaving the project and
moving to something else. The rationale behind choosing any of the
above consequences is strictly subjective to the individual. There
might be interns who never heard of what a FOSS project aimed to and
what it was about before joining OPW and at the end of the journey the
values of freedom we pursue were shared by the intern itself. Or there
might be interns who weren't attracted by the FOSS movement, by GNOME
or its eco-system and decided to step back and leave the project.

The two months (seems there was some fuss between the six and the two
months period, I can confirm the period is two months as per [1])
extended contributions period we introduced was mainly there to find
out whether a previous intern really wanted to stick around the
project even by participating to IRC or mailing list discussions of
the project the person contributed to during the internship, for
example.

I'm honestly struggling to find out what kind of problem would be
delaying a membership application by two months. During this time the
intern can keep strengthening the relationship it has with the
community and its members. The only two reasons that come to my mind
in speeding up the acceptance of an intern within the membership would
be its participation to Planet GNOME (which is currently restricted to
GNOME Foundation members) and / or the need for a travel subsidy to be
approved. Both have been effectively dealt with by the Planet Editors
and the Travel Committee that have made sure exceptions were taken
into account when needed and in presence of particular and justified
rationales.


[1] https://wiki.gnome.org/MembershipCommittee/ProcessingAnApplication

-- 
Cheers,

Andrea

Debian Developer,
Fedora / EPEL packager,
GNOME Infrastructure Team Coordinator,
GNOME Foundation Board of Directors Secretary,
GNOME Foundation Membership & Elections Committee Chairman

Homepage: http://www.gnome.org/~av