SPI invited X.Org to join as Associated Project

[Peter Hutterer]

On Fri, Jan 09, 2015 at 04:58:10PM +0000, Daniel Stone wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Friday, January 9, 2015, Pat Kane <pekane52 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > I also am not sure what SPI is.   Could someone on the Board provide an
> > URL for more info.
> >
> 
> I should add that the SPI work has been extensively documented in the
> board's meeting minutes, as well as the (much) more infrequent reports.
> Those are usually pretty mundane, but quick enough to read that it should
> be worth your while in any case.

I've been including a summary in the meeting minutes for the last 2-ish
years and that should be about 30s every two weeks to keep up with what
we're doing. It's hidden in the minutes which most ppl probably ignore, but
if you have an idea on how to make this more digestable/accessible let me
know.

> SPI, as noted, is an umbrella organisation founded from Debian originally,
> that handles administrative tasks for independent organisations such as
> Debian, Postgres, freedesktop.org, etc. Given how much of a nightmare we've
> had being our own 501(c)3, I can only see this as a good thing.
> 
> Personally I have a great deal of faith in the SPI and its history of
> independence and commitment to FLOSS, but also in that of the board and its
> decision-making - this process has been going a long time, not just a
> kneejerk reaction - as well as the advice of the SFLC, which we seem to
> have benefited from here.

yeah, for a rough timeline: grep says the first time SPI is mentioned in the
IRC logs was 2013-08-23 and we talked about it at the 2013 XDC.
http://www.x.org/wiki/Events/XDC2013/XDC2013XorgBoardStateFoundation/
start at 02:30 for an outline

> Still though, it seems like it'd be useful to have some kind of summary
> including Jeremy's concerns: what concrete/legal form does the foundation
> assume from here on in? What assets (including marks, domain names, etc)
> does the foundation currently hold? What is the timeline for transitioning
> to SPI and what practical effect will this have on mundane matters such as
> reimbursing people for travel expenses? What concrete instantiation of our
> relationship to SPI is there - a written agreement, representation within
> SPI, other?

We'll get a summary sent out asap, in the meantime a few incomplete answers
from the back of the head:
- timeline: we have 90 days to accept the invitation, rest TBA
- asset list still needs to be compiled, assets will be transferred to SPI.
  we have 3 years after joining to do this. assets include domain names, a
  bit of hardware (that's mostly outdated/unused) and other IP dating back
  to the X Consortium that we're chasing up
- the xorg treasurer (legal status) will be replaced by the spi treasurer.
  all money including travel expenses will be reimbursed directly from SPI.
  since we're already a 501c3, the rules of what we're allowed to spend
  money on remain the same.

Note that this is an incomplete list, just what I can remember right now.
However, if you want to send us a list of more questions on top of those
that'd be appreciated, the more Q we have ahead of time, the easier they can
be answered in the proposal.