Re: [tdf-discuss] [SC] How to define "Membership" within TDF?

Le Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:39:29 +0200,
Gianluca Turconi <ml@letturefantastiche.com> a écrit :

> Il 19/10/2010 17.19, Charles-H. Schulz ha scritto:
>
> [...]
>
> > So, if I understand you well, you do indeed raise a good question,
> > but one which, to me, adds more gray zones. Let me rephrase how I
> > understand your position: you are afraid that we're mixing the
> > membership of the Foundation and the membership of the community,
> > and that by mixing the two we would be putting the foundation
> > itself (the legal object, the kernel as you called it) in
> > jeopardy . Basically, every contributor could come around and harm
> > the foundation. (Did I get this right?)
>
> Yes, that's the point. :)
>
> [...]
>
> > This being said, I believe it's necessary to focus on the question
> > of the membership, and separate it from the question of the
> > foundation structure and its governance. Obviously, these questions
> > are all related, but if we handle more specific ones, we'll be able
> > to generate some valuable input I think.
>
> Really, *how* can you separate the membership from the governance?
>
> You know: one head, one vote. ;-)

Yes. But here we're only trying to define what one head means, and then
we decide what the head can vote for :-)
> There are Foundations that have different classes of members (like 
> stockholders), but I see really difficult to apply such method to a
> free software organization.

yes indeed.

> In addition to this, I still feel I'm still missing something in your 
> argument.
>
> In fact, you seem considering the Foundation as a part of a larger 
> egalitarian group rather than the leading association that primarily 
> acts for the sake of LibreOffice.
>
> I see: The Document Foundation (members: Charles-H. Schulz, Google, 
> whoever-you-want) with its steering committee/council;
>
> While it seem you and others see: The Document Foundation + Google + 
> Whoever-you-want that collaborate with each other and have a common 
> council for the most important decisions.
>
> Frankly, if it's so, it isn't what I hoped when I heard about TDF for 
> the first time. :'(

Well, I think that the split between these two visions is somewhat
articifical. To be frank I don't think I ever had thought about this
that way. And in fact I don't see why the two models you defined are so
stringently different, but let's proceed according to your lines: why
the model you see (let's put aside the model you think we see for a
minute ;-)) is better than the other one. (I have no religion here, I'm
trying to understand, and it's good because we're having a really
important discussion which is not even an argument :-) )

As a side note, here's what I think should always lead our actions.
Some call it meritocracy, but if we stop focusing on big names, here's
how it is supposed to work: contributor A contribute x amount of work
(code, qa tests, documentation, administrative tasks, localization,
icon designs, etc.)At some point it's fair if he gets a say in what we
do. Now there's the (valid) objection: but anyone with a sufficient
force can come up, align contributors contributing stuff, and bing,
they are in charge of the foundation. 

I don't think it's that simple. First of all, it takes time and
meaningful contributions to become a member, and remember, memberships
have to be accepted (see the lower administrative section on the wiki
page) and contributions can be rejected on various reasons (the patch
is not correct, the logo looks shady, etc.) So I think that this might
not be the chaos that some here might fear imho... please advise.

Best,
-- 
Charles-H. Schulz
Membre du Comité exécutif
The Document Foundation.

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