X.Org BoD meeting minutes 2016-08-18

[Luc Verhaegen]

Peter,

I think you are one of the better board directors that we have had over 
the years, and it pains me to do this. I do not know why you decided to 
write this email like that, but you have given me no other option now 
but to reply.

On Thu, Sep 01, 2016 at 12:16:26PM +1000, Peter Hutterer wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 12:13:49PM +0200, Luc Verhaegen wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 24, 2016 at 07:31:40PM +0200, Luc Verhaegen wrote:
> > > 
> > > I'm sorry, but I thought we were finally, slowly, moving away from the 
> > > rampant nepotism that is the post-xfree86 fork X.org.
> 
> I'm pretty sure that of the current board 5 out of 8 were never involved
> with xfree86... you're living in the past whenever you bring up xfree86.

As you know, i am quite well aware that 5 out of 8 were not around when 
the fork happened, i actually was the first to nominate 2 of those 5, 
and i have been pretty busy with nominating fresh blood over the years. 
But the fact that these people were not around then is not relevant, 
part of the mindset still seems to linger on and that is exactly what i 
wanted to point out here.

Plus, as far as living in the past goes, you guys are still deciding on 
money that was donated in the past, you are still trying to fix the 
domain issue, and i thought that you guys generally had started working 
on making the X.org foundation not be a relic from the past. Reminding 
the directors of the X.org foundation that they are doing something that 
would've been common in the past, something that i expected that they 
would be doing different in the present, that kind of deserves a 
different answer, don't you think?

> > > and who of the board knows 
> > > exactly what type of coverage he would've given this event? Whereas we 
> > > know that LWN will only cover 4-5 talks, at best.
> 
> The links you yourself posted above are coverage of 6 talks...

I count 20 talks in XDC2015 shedule, and I counted 6 which was labelled 
by the X.org board of directors (which consists of 8 individuals) as 
"essentially the XDC proceeedings". I think i am tad closer numerically, 
even though i am just a lone person with no mandated responsibility in 
this matter.

Plus, whether this a typo, an oversight, or exaggeration is not really 
relevant, the message stays the same.

But if you really want to talk numbers, then let's talk numbers:
How many articles do you expect Sebastian to write so that the board 
will support them like the board is supporting other online and linux 
media?

I do not know about you, but the fact that i felt compelled to ask the 
above question, to further clarify the insanity of this situation to 
you, tells me that there is something fundamentally wrong here. Is the 
board really paying LWN so that it posts some articles about an X event 
are posted there? If so, is there a correlation between the amount paid 
and the articles written? This is an extremely slippery slope, and 
always has been, and i am glad that Sebastian exposed this.

> > Another topic of this board meeting was that donations are now possible. 
> > How on earth is the board going to convince anyone that the money 
> > donated to the X.org Foundation is going to be used fiarly and 
> > effectively, when favouritism and nepotism still are this prevalent?
> 
> Throwing words like this around is easy. How about do you something
> productive and define what you would consider "fairly and effectively".
> Define what "comprehensive" coverage would mean in the context of XDC. You
> can always complain if we don't follow your definitions/recommendations but
> until then we would have something useful to work with.

I have not been mandated to deal with this, i already am going out of my 
way to point out the abundantly clear issues with this press situation. 
I am also a single person, I am speaking for myself, and I am not 
speaking for an organization with a greater purpose. Similarly, I am not 
deciding on donations made by a few big corporations in the past, and i 
am not about to sollicite for new donations.

What i expect the X.org Foundation directors to do is to discuss what i 
brought up, and to come up with a fair solution and a satisfactory 
response. All i see from you now is trivial deflections.

Let me have a stab at this, just as a suggestion, as something the board 
might actually consider to resolve this rather awkward press situation. 
I know that the board members will go out of their way to provide a 
completely different solution that was not at all related to what libv, 
aka, the prince of darkness, stated. But i have seen time and time again 
how that worked out, not only with the board.

Here goes, regardless:
* The board will not go back on its previous agreed support for LWN and 
Jake Edge for XDC2016, but it will require that XDC2016 articles are not 
behind the subscription wall.
* The board will support Sebastian as well, and kindly ask to make the 
coverage broad. Sebastian lives in germany, so his flight should be 
relatively cheap (even though it might have become more expensive due 
to this nonsense already).
* The board might or might not recommend that Sebastian his talk is 
accepted for XDC2016, even though i think that this should not be forced 
or required. (I personally think that we all would like to learn a bit 
more about getting more and broader coverage for our software projects).
* The board either comes up with a solid set of requirements for press 
funding using money donated to the X.org foundation, in such a way that 
competition is possible, or, decides to stop funding the press 
altogether for the future.

Luc Verhaegen.