also sprach Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> [2014-04-17 21:35 +0200]:
> - The Debian name belongs to the Debian Project, and not to
> anyone else (legally, the marks are held by the Debian TOs in
> various jurisdictions, on behalf of Debian). Using the Debian
> name, including for fundraising, can only be done with the
> approval of the project and its duly-elected officials (i.e., the
> DPL).
>
> - A precondition for Debian assets being transferred to an
> organization should be that the organization has a fiduciary duty
> to spend those funds according to the direction of the Debian
> Project. This includes donations given directly to an
> organization that's fundraising using Debian's name.
I agree with you up to this point.
> Put differently: if someone needs a local non-profit for
> DebConf, this non-profit must conform to the rules for a Debian
> TO.
I've argued against this in my previous mail. I have since learnt
that the TO guidelines are just guidelines and could probably be
amended to be useful in the context of temporary DC legal entities.
However, I still struggle to understand how, having just been
selected to organise DebConf, which requires a whole lot of trust,
we should now prove that we are trustworthy?
> - The consequence is that the board of the TO does *not* have the
> final say on decisions of how to spend Debian's money, because in
> all transactions involving Debian assets they are acting as
> agents of Debian, answerable to its normal decision-making
> processes. They *also* have a responsibility to make sure the
> uses are legal and responsible ones according to their own
> charter, but that means they have veto power, not autonomy.
I vehemently disagree with this. The normal decision-making
processes of Debian do not work for real-time, real-life, real-money
decisions. This does not mean that we should try to make use of e.g.
consensus-based decision making as we know it from Debian whenever
possible. It just means that there will be situations when this
won't work.
Obviously, the board of the TO^W^W^W^W local team (however they
chose to organise themselves, which might well depend very much on
the country) is answerable to Debian. However, once their budget
plan is approved, they are now in the front seat, and it would be
a nightmare if they couldn't make executive decisions within the
limit of their budget.
What I am basically saying is that one could look at the DC local
team as the CEO team of an enterprise, and the DC global team would
be the board of directors. In any enterprise, there's a clear set of
rules between those two parties, namely a set of decisions that the
CEO team may make without consulting the directors (usually e.g.
"investments of value up to X", or "acting within the limits of the
budget agreed"). Only those decisions that are not covered will have
to be escalated to the board.
The list of decisions defines the autonomy of the CEO team, or the
local team in our case.
And in the case of DebConf, where the local team knows the venue and
has been talking to the people on site, it should be empowered to
make decisions as required, if they are in accordance with a budget
that's been signed off.
> I don't know if this concept of DC15 being a fiduciary of Debian
> is captured accurately in its setup (bylaws or otherwise), but if
> it's not, that should be fixed.
I disagree. We serve to organise DebConf. We have not come together
to form a fiduciary of Debian, at least not in the legal/financial
meaning of the word.
Obviously, organising DebConf means staying true to the spirit of
Debian (and DebConf), and every single one on our team will bow to
that.
But it does not mean that we're willing to stand out there,
negotiate with the real world without knowing that we have (a) the
powers to make decisions that are necessary to be made for the
conference we are organising, and (b) the entire team behind us,
because after all, you selected us to organise this conference,
which requires a level of trust.
--
.''`. martin f. krafft <madduck@debconf.org>
: :' : DebConf orga team
`. `'`
`- DebConf14: Portland, OR, USA: http://debconf14.debconf.org
DebConf15: Heidelberg, Germany
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