Hello,
call me mad, but I still have concerns about 4.6.2, Salaries,
Remunerations and Expenses. Yes, it always gets weird when talking about
money and positions, and I don't think we will hire hundreds of people
in the next months, but anyways, wanted to share my concerns.
The bylaws in their current form give lots of powers to external
contributing companies. The Foundation itself can hire officers and
other people, but they are excluded from being in the board of
directors, which actually has the most powers and sets strategies for
the foundation.
Our current rules forbid any hired officer to be part of the BoD, ESC or
AB. While I can understand that for the latter one (the AB consists of
sponsors), it does not make sense for the former ones at all. Yes, I see
the issues with people having too much influence, sitting on their
seats, running into conflicts of interest - but the current rules mean
that anyone who has a say in the foundation by being in the BoD, must do
it either totally on his own, or be hired or paid for by one sponsor.
Please don't say that you can also participate without being in the BoD.
If that's the case, let's leave out all the BoD, because then anyone can
do what they do. (You see the proposal doesn't work :-)
Don't you think this creates too much influence? We were talking about
being independent foundation, but effectively the currenty bylaws mean
that nobody will - no matter how much money we have - be solely part of
the foundation with no ties to external companies, when being in the
boards. Anyone who wants to engage himself in the BoD or other body,
shaping the strategie of the foundation, will have to be as rich that he
can do it in his free time, or be hired by an external contributor.
I think this is the wrong direction. I guess that our concerns can be
solved otherwise. If we have money, good people with good intent - why
are they forced to look for an external company to hire them? We're
making things much more complicated than they have to be.
The current rule also has another drawback, that I've already shown: If
we have let's say a great paid developer, he surely wants to be in the
ESC. But then, he's not allowed to work as officer for his area. Does
this really make sense? Does he really have to decide which body he
belongs to?
Believe me, I see the concerns that we then have nine people running the
board and all other important roles with no chance for fresh blood to
step in, and we clearly should avoid that and any conflict of interest.
However, why do we as foundation try to raise money, and then require
externals to pay all the people who are in a board?
I see it's a bit of a hot topic, and talking about money is always bad,
so now feel free to grab your stones and throw them at me. :-) I've been
with the community for a long time, and I've seen the different chances
corporate-hired people have compared to those non-hired. I clearly want
to avoid that distinction for the foundation, making us independent from
corporate sponsors in first place. If we have money, let's spend it
wisely, get the good people, and let's not put ourselves into too strict
rules.
That being sad - have a happy and warm second advent :)
Florian
--
Florian Effenberger <flo...@documentfoundation.org>
Steering Committee and Founding Member of The Document Foundation
Tel: +49 8341 99660880 | Mobile: +49 151 14424108
Skype: floeff | Twitter/Identi.ca: @floeff
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