Re: [Debconf-team] DebConf governance (Re: About the DC15 entity and authority (was: DebConf 15 Legal Entity)
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 10:31 AM, Gaudenz Steinlin <gaudenz@debian.org> wrote:
>
> Hi
>
> Holger Levsen <holger@layer-acht.org> writes:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> [mostly madduck and aba were discussing some details about german association
>> law and power structures...]
>>
>> which reminds me of a problem / contradiction we had at DebConf13...:
>>
>> - there is a legal entity, which claims to be responsible to be dealing with
>> all the money and expensives and holding the conference... said association.
>>
>> - and there is, "a Debian entity", these DPL delegated chairs which according
>> to the delegation are responsible how Debian assets are handled.
>>
>> These two can contradict each other, up to the point were I felt useless as
>> chair as I was told (by a dc13 board member none the less) that the dc13 board
>> had the final say anyway.
>>
>> _Not_ just saying... this heavily (de)motivated and (de)motivates my
>> motivation to be a DebConf chair... when I'm not demotivated about this I
>> rather think like in http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-
>> meetings/2013/debconf13/high/1089_debconf_governance.ogv - the slides of that
>> bof are attached here.
>>
>
> What would you propose instead of founding a legal entity to organize
> DebConf then? At least in my view organizing an event of this size
> without the legal security of a separate legal body seems insane. At
> least in Swiss legislation (and German's is quite similar in the main
> points). Not having a legal body makes members of the local team
> personally liabale for almost everything. That's not a risk I would be
> willing to take.
>
> I agree that these legal setups proved to be difficult in the past. But
> I also think that much of the frustration (at least for DC13) was also
> based on misunderstandings. If you read our bylaws the DC13 association
> board member was just wrong (at least if this was such a general
> statement).
>
> I just dont see how an alternative setup without a legal entity to
> organize DebConf could work and would really like to have some
> suggestions from those that oppose this setup.
(Adding auditor@)
Quick two^H^H^Hten cents. Although this doesn't solve the big picture
question of "DebConf decision making", I do feel that if we want to
continue to occasionally utilize these temporary purpose-built legal
entities to help facilitate future DebConfs, we should consider them
as formal "Debian Trusted Organizations", and have them follow the
newly documented process that the DPL recently put forth [1].
The list of criteria is summarized in the DPL section of the wiki[2]
and are basically an "implementation" of the goals set forth in the
constitution[3].
Although, I am fairly certain no one has yet put serious thought into
the concept of "temporary" TOs, I do believe that it is likely the
best way to handle these temporary organizations, since they are being
trusted with a huge amount of fiscal responsibility.
I believe this would also address (some of) the concerns that Holger
raised, and would also bring us closer to realizing the desired state
that DebConf = Debian.
Cheers,
Brian
[1] - https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2014/03/msg00012.html
[1] - https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/DPL/TrustedOrganizationCriteria
[2] - https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution#item-9
> Gaudenz
>
> --
> Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter.
> Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
> ~ Samuel Beckett ~
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