Re: Costs of running a Debian foundation
On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 02:55:48AM -0400, Brian Gupta wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 1:37 AM Wouter Verhelst <wouter@grep.be> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 12:46:09PM +0800, Martin Michlmayr wrote:
> > > So I'm more satisfied with the rationale of creating a Debian
> > > foundation, although my concerns about the actual operations still
> > > apply (i.e. how are you going to make sure you'll do a better job than
> > > the TOs you're not happy with when there have been countless failures
> > > of running non-profits in the past).
> >
> > I have to say that I share those concerns.
> >
> > Specifically, I believe that SPI was meant to be our foundation. That it
> > grew into something more, and that it took several years for it to do
> > what we needed it to do is unfortunate; but there is no reason to
> > assume, from my point of view at least, that building another foundation
> > to do what SPI couldn't do, will bring us more success.
> >
> > Brian, what's your view on that?
>
> First off, I'd like to reiterate that I don't expect to end relationships with
> our current TOs, including SPI. (I stated this in my platform, but there was
> enough potential for misunderstanding that I want to reiterate.)
>
> I also agree that when looking back at history, that SPI was meant to be the
> Debian Foundation that I am advocating for now. However, the thought back then,
> was that since Debian was doing all the work to set up a non-profit, that it
> wouldn't be that much more work to provide the same services to other FLOSS
> projects. At one point this expansion of scope threatened to overwhelm SPI, they
> struggled for many years, but it appears they have found their stride now and
> are successfully servicing over 40 projects today. This makes them one of the
> largest homes for FLOSS projects today. It's a remarkable success story,
> especially looking at how far SPI has come in not that long a time.
>
> That said, when you are servicing over 40 projects, your priorities need to
> change, and you MUST look at what you can do for ALL your projects, not just
> your founding project.
>
> In hindsight, it was a happy accident that SPI was created the way it was, and
> grew into the multi-project home it did.
>
> However, we - as a project - need to adapt as well. We realize that SPI has
> grown into something great but cannot support the Debian project fully and to
> the extent we need. We are large enough and have enough requirements in legal
> and support services that it warrants founding our own foundations that will
> permanently be aligned with the ever evolving goals of the Debian project.
>
> What we do as a project isn't easy. We don't shy away from things because they
> are hard, and have risk. We try to do things that we are right and worth doing.
> In this case, I'll agree, it's not going to be easy. It will be a lot of work.
> However, there are reasons to be optimistic.
>
> 1) Experience: We have Project Members that have a lot of experience running
> many different entities and know what has worked and what hasn't.
> 2) Depth: We are a large and well-respected project. Many people want to help,
> especially if they know it's going to help Debian.
> 3) Options: We aren't taking away anything we currently have. Our current TOs
> will remain there to support us, giving us time to do it right.
>
> FreeBSD Foundation works, Postgres Foundation works, KDE e.V. works, Gnome
> Foundation works, so we can make Debian Foundations work, too.
I'm wondering to what extent this is a US-centric view.
Debian.ch and Debian France are Debian-specific TOs; SPI is not.
Your explanation above gives a bit more rationale as to why creating a
foundation as another TO might be a good idea, but it does not explain
how it will avoid the XKCD 927 problem; that is, you're saying we have
too many TOs to deal with, so you want to create another layer of TOs to
handle the other TOs and now we have even more TOs to deal with.
I can see that it might be a good idea to create another TO in the US to
be Debian-specific, but I remain unconvinced that it is a good idea in
general.
--
<Lo-lan-do> Home is where you have to wash the dishes.
-- #debian-devel, Freenode, 2004-09-22
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