james wrote: > Gentoo, > > > > https://blogs.gentoo.org/mgorny/2020/08/25/is-an-umbrella-organization-a-good-choice-for-gentoo/ > > > > Surely some of the business/legal savvy folks want to "chime in" on > Sir Gorny's proposal? > > > I just read this on 'hacker news' > > It just sounds like mostly a lack of fund raising to operate? > > > James > >
There's several issues that lead to this. For ages, the financial books were not kept up to date. From what I recall, some paperwork was lost which made it difficult to impossible to do the needed IRS filings. Things on that part seemed to snowball from there. In the past few years or so, that has been dealt with and from what I've read, it is now up to date and they are trying to get back in good standing with the IRS and other Govt entities. I think I read where most of the hard work as already been done, just needs time to kick in. It isn't hard to get into that situation, it just takes one year with a mistake to trigger bad things. It takes a lot of work to get it cleared up tho. All of us should be grateful to the ones who put in the hard work to get that taken care of. I'm sure it took a lot of effort and time to get that done. I'm sure it was boring as heck to do as well. Some of us would likely have no hair left. Another issue, not many want to run the foundation. The devs mostly want to write code. They aren't to much interested in running the foundation part of it. A few do because it is needed and they do their best, some even go far beyond that, but they really want to write code. That's what developers came to Gentoo for after all. Since there is two different bodies that run Gentoo in different ways, it further reduces the number of people wanting to do the job. The foundation part is from my understanding, bureaucratic paperwork. Who wants to do that for free? There's not many. Basically, if you run for a position on the foundation, it's good odds you get it because usually just enough run to fill the open spots. I often wonder, do they draw straws to pick people to run just so things keep chugging along?? LOL Then there is the costs. It costs to deal with all the paperwork and filings. There's state filings as well as federal. Missing either of those can cause trouble for the other and also get expensive and time consuming to correct. Again, very few want to deal with it. The few that do likely do it because Gentoo needs it not because they are jumping up and down wanting to do it. It's what keeps Gentoo going. It's cheaper to join some other group like has been talked about for years and let them take a percentage of the money and them as professionals handle all that nasty paperwork and filings. My personal opinion. I'm still leaning to keep Gentoo as it is but I'm not the one doing all the boring work either. My concern, Gentoo joins some group and it ends badly for Gentoo. Maybe they screw up something and that puts Gentoo and maybe everyone else in the group in jeopardy with govt entities or lawsuits. On the other hand, if Gentoo doesn't have the right people, they could do the same thing to themselves. The people who do run for those seats do try their best even if something goes wrong. Thing is, it doesn't take much to run afoul of govt entities or trigger a lawsuit. Gentoo has been lucky in that regard. There is no easy answer to this. Either way has advantages. Same can be said for disadvantages as well. I'm sure there is more that isn't known to the public and I'm sure some things are escaping my mind at the moment. Either way, whatever keeps Gentoo going and successful, that is what needs to be done. Since I don't have a crystal ball, I'm not sure which is best long term. Now someone add more to this. ;-) Dale :-) :-)
