X.Org BoD meeting minutes 2020-02-27

[Lucas Stach]

On Fr, 2020-02-28 at 08:39 +0100, Daniel Vetter wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 28, 2020 at 1:37 AM Luc Verhaegen <libv at skynet.be> wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 27, 2020 at 03:49:07PM -0500, Lyude Paul wrote:
> > > ## Items discussed
> > > 
> > > ITEM: Cloud hosting for freedesktop.org
> > > X.org is running out of money, and at the current rate we're losing money we'd
> > > need to close CI by May or June this year in order to keep operating. Google
> > > offered to hire someone to admin fd.o so long as they get to pick who it is,
> > > board votes to approve. Board also votes to approve sending out announcement
> > > asking for sponsors onto the mailing lists ASAP.
> > > ACTIONS: Daniel Vetter to draft announcement asking for sponsors onto mailing
> > > lists.
> > > STATUS: Pending
> > 
> > So this was what it was all about then. Money.
> > 
> > I knew there was something fishy when the mighty few of fd.o wanted to
> > go down this path.
> > 
> > I had hoped that we would gain transparency and oversight on how fd.o
> > was run. To me, and the gitlab conversion of radeonhd was another
> > smashing example (one in a long row of sordid actions or... fortunate
> > inactions?), there was no increase in transparency or oversight in the
> > dealings of fd.o in the year or so that this change was decided.
> > 
> > How much was xorg burning through each year before fd.o?
> > 
> > When this fd.o merge thing was proposed to the xorg members, did we at
> > all get told about this extra cost now falling onto the x.org
> > foundation? Did we get told about the extent of these costs?
> > 
> > Pretty f-ing shameless stuff.
> 
> Seriously no.
> 
> The _entire_ growth here happened under the X.org's boards overwatch,
> roughly in the past year. fd.o had a budget of roughly zero (including
> when we started gitlab.fd.o) with quite considerable financial
> reserves.

The main problem here is the entire lack of transparency. How much did
the fd.o merger contribute to the X.Org foundation reserves? Where was
the decision made how to use those funds?

I'm totally on-board with the X.Org foundation sponsoring and thus
providing solid hosting for the projects on fd.o, it just seems to me
that there was no discussion about the amount of money X.Org is willing
to spend on this (at least I don't remember any board voting on this).
Currently it seems that the fd.o hosting is kind of a "whatever it
costs to keep things running" expense.

Regards,
Lucas