Re: please participate in GNOME Foundation discussions

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

[ please follow up to foundation-list only ]

Justin Maurer <justin@helixcode.com> writes: 
> i need more information, and i need it aggregated.
> 

OK, Bart wrote a summary here:
 http://mail.gnome.org/pipermail/foundation-list/2000-July/000374.html

Let me try to summarize more briefly.

The foundation will have three major components:

 - the membership, available to pretty much anyone that's 
   done anything for GNOME or participates in any way, 
   even a small way; you just have to ask and say "I work 
   on docs" or whatever.

   The membership's main power is to elect the board, and 
   to recall the board if they decide the board sucks.

 - the board, which is 9-15 people elected as a slate by 
   the membership. You vote on a slate, so you can favor 
   a well-balanced group. In addition, the board can't 
   have a majority of members from any company or organization.

   The board will be sort of an executive branch of the GNOME
   community; it will try to distill our long flamefests^H^H^H^H^H
   discussions into some kind of statement of what we decided to 
   do. It will also make decisions like "we should spend $1000
   on a new RAID for *.gnome.org."

 - the "organization advisory board" which is just a group 
   of representatives from companies and groups like Debian
   that can talk among themselves and offer input to the board
   or to the community. This group makes no decisions.

Some of the motivations for the foundation:

 - receive and spend money, on things like servers and machines for 
   cash-strapped hackers running 486s.
 
 - give companies a group to talk to that represents the community. 
   Right now they talk to other companies; we'd rather they talk to
   the board

 - allow us to make statements or press releases

 - create a small group that's responsible for trying to keep 
   things organized, for example by posting updated roadmaps

 - give companies a way to say "I support GNOME" by joining the 
   advisory group

One of the most important facts is that the board is supposed to help
build and act on the group consensus; they aren't going to be able to
make anyone do anything (obviously, we're talking about a foundation,
not a government).

At LWE, we are going to announce our general intentions to form the
foundation, and the general structure (membership, board, advisory
group). Also, by LWE we may have done the legal incorporation
paperwork.

After LWE, we'll be holding elections for the board, and establishing
the final bylaws.

That is the current plan, anyway, as I remember it.

Havoc

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