[RFC] Allow fd.o to join forces with X.Org

[Peter Hutterer]

On Wed, Oct 17, 2018 at 02:37:25PM +0200, Daniel Vetter wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 17, 2018 at 2:05 PM Daniel Stone <daniel at fooishbar.org> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 16 Oct 2018 at 08:17, Peter Hutterer <peter.hutterer at who-t.net> wrote:
> > > On Mon, Oct 15, 2018 at 10:49:24AM -0400, Harry Wentland wrote:
> > > > +     \item Support free and open source projects through the freedesktop.org
> > > > +     infrastructure. For projects outside the scope of item (\ref{1}) support
> > > > +     extends to project hosting only.
> > > > +
> > >
> > > Yes to the idea but given that the remaining 11 pages cover all the legalese
> > > for xorg I think we need to add at least a section of what "project hosting"
> > > means. Even if it's just a "includes but is not limited to blah".  And some
> > > addition to 4.1 Powers is needed to spell out what the BoD can do in regards
> > > to fdo.
> >
> > Yeah, I think it makes sense. Some things we do:
> >   - provide hosted network services for collaborative development,
> > testing, and discussion, of open-source projects
> >   - administer, improve, and extend this suite of services as necessary
> >   - assist open-source projects in their use of these services
> >   - purchase, lease, or subscribe to, computing and networking
> > infrastructure allowing these services to be run
> 
> I fully agree that we should document all this. I don't think the
> bylaws are the right place though, much better to put that into
> policies that the board approves and which can be adapted as needed.
> Imo bylaws should cover the high-level mission and procedural details,
> as our "constitution", with the really high acceptance criteria of
> 2/3rd of all members approving any changes. Some of the early
> discussions tried to spell out a lot of the fd.o policies in bylaw
> changes, but then we realized it's all there already. All the details
> are much better served in policies enacted by the board, like we do
> with everything else.
> 
> As an example, let's look at XDC. Definitely one of the biggest things
> the foundation does, with handling finances, travel sponsoring grants,
> papers committee, and acquiring lots of sponsors. None of this is
> spelled out in the bylaws, it's all in policies that the board
> deliberates and approves. I think this same approach will also work
> well for fd.o.
> 
> And if members are unhappy with what the board does, they can fix in
> the next election by throwing out the unwanted directors.

yeah, fair call. though IMO in that case we can just reduce to

   \item Support free and open source projects through the freedesktop.org
   infrastructure.

because my gripe is less with the fdo bit but more with defining what
"project hosting" means, given that we use that term to exclude fdo projects
from getting anything else. I think just dropping that bit is sufficient.

Cheers,
   Peter