Re: Fwd: Draft of Proposal for the GNOME Foundation.

[Derek Simkowiak <dereks kd-dev com>]

-> > It was not closed, it was just not publicized. However now it's
-> > publicized, so subscriptions are moderated.
-> 
-> They should not be.  This is not the XFree86-devel "hidden" special
-> project.  

	From reading Nat's proposal, it seems the purpose of the Gnome
Foundation is to provide an interface for corporations and organizations
to communicate with "Gnome", and vice versa.

	Historically, things like Gnome have been "products", with a
Company as the only interface.  If you want to use the Mac trademark, call
Apple.  If you want to know when the new NeXtStep/OpenStep release is
coming out, call NeXt.  Who do you call to have your product get the Gnome
stamp of approval?  Until now, nobody.

	I see the other main task for the Gnome Foundation as being
communication within Gnome's "heavy hitters", so that Red Hat can choose
to postpone Red Hat 7.0 if they know a new release of Gnome is just around
the corner.  (Or so the Gnome Foundation can politely ask Red Hat to not
ship with ORBit using TCP/IP sockets :)  I think this is why the list has
been restricted.

	Endusers are asking what the difference between "Gnome that came
with Red Hat", Helix Gnome, Nautilus, etc. are.  There should only be one
Gnome, and it seems Foundation will try to make that true.  Also,
companies may soon start releasing crappy-ass, low-quality products (using
Motif, etc.) and putting a Gnome foot on them with "Gnome Compliant!" just
to sell more copies.  That should not happen.

	So The Gnome Foundation has clear purpose and fairly clear goals.

	The question is: Can the Gnome Foundation meet its goals if the
list is open to anyone?

	Imagine this: Gnome Foundation is open to all.  It has 400
developers subscribed.

	Company X wants to release its old, buggy, Motif-based product
with a Gnome-compliant sticker.  So it orders each of its 5000 workers to
subscribe to the list and vote "YES" for giving this product a stamp of
approval.  (Or perhaps more realistic: for having donated money pumped
into ITS development projects).  Or even more nightmarish: Microsoft
orders all its 18000 workers to subscribe to the list and vote to use DCOM
instead of CORBA for inter-process communication.  Reading Nat's section
on referendums, I can see this as a theoretical (if highly unlikely)
possibility.


	On the other end of the spectrum is a limited general membership.  
This opens all the possibilities of bad, beaurocratic decision making that
have ran so many cool products into the ground (Amiga, NeXt, Atari, and
almost the Mac).  Just look at the Emacs split that happened when RMS
pulled this stunt with the FSF.


	Somewhere in the middle of this spectrum is a large, public group
of developers (documentors, reviewers, etc.) who have a vested (yet
diverse) interest in Gnome.  This is something like the "you must be a
contributor" rule in Nat's document, and Havoc's approval of most anyone
who claims to be a developer.

	So it makes sense to me to have a lightly-moderated general
membership, as per Nat's document.


-> I do not remember being asked `should we have a semi-public list'  and
-> accepting that.  This obviously is of relevance to the entire GNOME
-> community. 

	Of relevance, yes, but I do not think the issues that the Gnome
Foundation should address are best-solved by the general public.  Some
trademark/funds/scheduling leadership seems to be needed, and it the Gnome
project has out-grown the leadership one person (you, the founder) can
provide.


--Derek Simkowiak

P.S.> (Another $.02:I think creating the Gnome Foundation may be premature
at this point)