I'm nominated as a trustee... or am I?
It looks like someone nominated me for the upcoming Gentoo trustee election:
I know drobbins is fairly controversial, and may notBefore I know how to reply to this nomination, I need to know if it is even valid. You see, it wasn't long before Chris Gianelloni - one of the trustees who recently resigned - posted this in response:
even accept a nomination as suggested on his most recent
blog post, but I want to add his name to the mix.
Andrew Zane - Forum user drewgrange
I'm pretty sure he's not eligible, sinceHowever, this contradicts the news item that announced the trustee election in the first place:
he has never voted in any Foundation election,
nor was he a developer the past 365 days.
--
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Games Developer
There is an open call for nominees; any votingNow, it appears that I've identified the source of the confusion - on the trustee election page, it states:
members of the Gentoo Foundation may be nominated.
That means any Gentoo developer, past or present,
who has at least one year of experience in Gentoo is
eligible.
People who are eligible to vote in this election are:
- Everybody who ever voted in a trustee election
- Everybody who was a Gentoo Developer during last 365 days dated from the close of election poll.
Every person who is eligible to vote in the upcoming elections may be nominated by any Gentoo user as a candidate.
So it looks like Chris is in fact correct and the news item on gentoo.org is wrong. Despite the fact that I'm listed as a nominee on the trustee election page, I am actually not qualified to run as a trustee, nor am I qualified to vote.
According to Łukasz Damentko, one of the election officials, the issue is that since the Foundation's inception, the trustees have failed to pass Bylaws that defined clear rules for them to follow in elections, so they are left to follow precedent. And in the past, this is how voters and nominees have been selected.
Ironically, I'm listening to the soundtrack of Fiddler on the Roof through my headphones right now - "Tradition!"
So, for those who are interested in whether I am a nominee or not, it appears that I am not a valid nominee and I also have no official vote in the upcoming election.
20 comments:
If by any chance you can be a nominee, I hope you will accept to take part in this election
I'm not a valid nominee according to the election rules.
Invoke your back door clause, you know, the one that says former leaders are allowed to assume leadership in event of a vacuum in leadership. That will set a precedent they can't argue against.
You see the whole game is to keep you from finding out what a wreck they've made of things. Their current decisions are ego driven.
Put a stick in their spokes, write the state and tell them as the original founder your are amending the charter, period! It was only through gross negligence that this situation even came to this. The state might immediately rule in your favor. Then it's done, it's yours again and anything the current trustees do is considered a fork.
I'm writing this as a user because they aren't going to let users vote either. Because they know what would happen.
Well you managed to toss a stone, yet I'm not sure if I'd really like to see you in any lead position. Though trustee would work for me
Even if you qualified, per the election rules, to be a nominee, would you have accepted anyway? From your last couple of blog posts, it sounds like you aren't really interested in becoming Just Another Trustee(TM).
This is crazy, like that pepsi guy who got rid of Jobs. None of these clowns could have conceived anything remotely to Gentoo in a million years. Hope you can find a way to put your creativity to good use in another project.
"Every person who is eligible to vote in the upcoming elections may be nominated by any Gentoo user as a candidate."
But it does not say those who are not eligible to vote cannot be nominated, does it?
er - it looks to me like the rules you reproduced say: if you are eligible to vote, then you are eligible to be nominated. They do not appear to say: if you are not eligible to vote you are not eligible to be nominated. So I would say that the second quote if anything expands the set of nominatable people from the first announcement, rather than limiting it.
Dan,
I guess the position I am in now is that I don't even know if I need to decline or not.
-Daniel
Daniel:
I am a Gentoo user and I like it a lot, but so many politics got me quite disappointed.
If you want to do something worthful for the community and if you want to do something for Gentoo, fork it; there are a lot of Gentoo users that will follow you.
Altough I think democracy is the best thing for political stuff, I MHO you should be Gentoo's BDFL.
I liked it *much* more when you were in charge of most of the things.
Chief Architect would be ok too, though. :)
Just found out: drobbins is shortlisted as eligible here[nominations page @ gentoo.org]
Cheers, drobbins!
Better start thinking it seems.
See http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/elections/foundation-200802.xml:
"We have prepared lists of all eligible current Gentoo Developers and all eligible Gentoo Foundation members."
And the link "eligible Gentoo Foundation members" at http://dev.gentoo.org/~jmbsvicetto/trustees-election/gentoo-foundation-members includes your name.
Its all irrelevant really. The devs and trustees can change the rules to suit themselves as much as they like - at the end of the day the result will be the same whatever they do. The disconnect between the folk that 'run' Gentoo and the ordinary users is becoming greater every day that this farce continues. The attitude of those with 'power' in the organization is alienating the vast majority of ordinary users.
It's time for a new source distro, please reconsider it, your're our best chance of that happening.
Daniel,
Gentoo is YOUR baby regardless what the current board thinks. Legally you have no say in the matter anymore but you know what??... I know you love Gentoo and deep inside you want it back otherwise you wouldn't be so concerned about the mess it's currently found itself in.
I think it's time you took control of the situation and started legal action to regain the rights of Gentoo.
Set up a legal foundation where us the USERS can help you fight the case by helping with your legal fees. I would gladly contribute to see these fools removed. They have already lost the battle and they know it.
Do us ALL (the ones who believe in you) a favour, either fight hard and dirty if necessary to regain Gentoo or as previously stated, fork it or start up another distro!...
The USERS are behind YOU!!!!!
Wait, you are eligable though, your going to be nominated and voted on by people that qualify right? you don't have to meet those pre-requisites?
Fork Fork Fork Fork the whole project and make it your own again. Let those that follow you, follow you. You made gentoo what it was. Peace out..
Daniel,
this looks like an ugly little game to me now. It's fine to point out the inconsistency in the rules but if you don't want to be elected (which I also read from your previous posts) and if you want to be constructive then you should point out the inconsistency but then add an "Besides I wouldn't want the job anyway." or something like that. This you could do even if you don't know if you _have to_ decline or not.
Please don't descend to the level of unnecessary provocation.
Morris
Thank for clearing this a bit up Daniel. The first thought when reading www.gentoo.org was that your name would pop up in this too.
If you wanted to join this election an exception from these rules could probably be worked out somehow, you are after all a bit of a special case when it comes to Gentoo, but it will probably take some negotiation.
Anyhow if you decide not to get involved in this you still have a good platform from "outside Gentoo's inner circles" and will always have some kind of influence on Gentoo whether you want it or not.
So you've never voted in a trustee election either, even though you were the founder and president for that long?
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