[haiku-development] Re: Haiku Inc. powers (was [VOTE] Haiku flier funding)
- From: "Jorge G. Mare" <koki@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:42:09 -0800
Hi Niels,
Moved this to a more appropriate thread.
Niels Reedijk wrote:
I disagree that voting contributors should be able to decide where the
funds of Haiku Inc. go.
As I understand the consensus is that Haiku Inc. should be there to
support the Haiku Project. There is a very specific understanding that
Haiku Inc. will not meddle with the code base or development decisions
in any way.
Haiku Inc. has never had any strategic or direction setting function,
and it has always been just a legal means to receiving the funds for the
project. This peculiarity of the Haiku non-profit is not something that
I came up with, but has rather been stated repeatedly by former admins
and some core devs.
Being that the case, and since the specifics of how you spend your
budget needs to reflect your strategic goals (a budget that doesn't
would be a bad budget), Haiku Inc. cannot, by definition, be where
decisions are made for the specific use of funds. Haiku can
facilitate/moderate the discussion and the voting process and execute
the resulting action items (when applicable); but the decision of how to
use funding should be in the group of people that set the direction of
the project in all other aspects, and that's the voting contributors.
From another perspective, giving people the chance to participate in
funding-related decision-making is empowering, and this can have a
positive effect from a community building POV. For a contributor-to-be,
knowing that becoming a full-fledged contributor gives that sort of
influence could be a good source of motivation to become more active.
Now if the codebase (and as such the community) is autonomous from
Haiku Inc., then it is logical to accept that this autonomy goes both
ways. I think that Axel put it best when he said that "It acts on
behalf of the contributors." People that donate to Haiku Inc. have an
understanding that it will distribute the funds in a way that will
benefit the project most. They, with their money, vote on whether
Haiku Inc. did its job correctly.
Adding another layer of forced 'official' community input will not
stimulate the Haiku Inc. board to take a more proactive approach
towards making decisions. (If everybody is responsible, nobody is).
Reciprocity is not a good reason to empower someone. Plus, there is no
such thing as Haiku Inc. and the rest of us; it's all same people that
just happen to perform different functions in different areas of the
same project.
The non-profit is just a tool to support the project needs, and what the
project needs has always been discussed and decided in the open by the
voting contributors. That's how it is done for development related
stuff, and I don't see why it should be different for funding or any
other aspect of the project for that matter.
Having said that, Haiku Inc. has no reason to exist without the Haiku
project, and that's your 'guarantee' that Haiku Inc. will be in
service of this project, and that it will be open to suggestions from
the development group. (That and the fact that the board members are
all involved with the project).
I am not asking for a guarantee; it's not that I don't trust Axel, Matt,
Urias, BGA and Ryan after all. I just feel very strongly that there is
no reason to single out funding as something that has to be discussed or
voted upon behind closed doors by a subset of individuals. All voting
contributors -- not just those handpicked to be in the closed Haiku Inc.
mailing list -- should have the same chance to influence all aspects of
the project -- not just development -- and all discussions and votes
should be held in the open. That's how the project will achieve true
openness, transparency and accountability.
Cheers,
Jorge/aka Koki
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