Just some thoughts and clarifications on language from me (sorry for the lateness, I've been traveling and am at another conference right now ><).
On Sat, Mar 25, 2023 at 09:18:45PM -0400, doctormo@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks for organising this Maren,
I've added my answers below, if others contribute better answers, please replace as fits best.
Q1 Vectors: Hi! First of all, let's get the acronyms out of the way: what do FSA, PLC and SFC mean and how do they relate to the project?
The SFC is short for the Software Freedom Conservancy, Fiscal Sponsorship and other legal support infrastructure. Helping us hire people, pay for conferences, stickers, t-shirts, contracts and other things we might need like the trademark registration and infrastructure costs.
The SFC is short for the Software Freedom Conservancy. They are a US based 501c3 charity focused on software freedom and ethical technology; they act as the fiscal sponsor and legal home for the Inkscape project. Helping us hire people, pay for conferences, stickers, t-shirts, contracts and other things we might need like the trademark registration and spending project funds on infrastructure services and similar.
The PLC is the terms for the Inkscape Project Leadership Committee, a kind of 'board of directors' (but not an actual board!) who oversee the project's organisation and coordinate with the conservancy on behalf of the project.
The FSA is the Fiscal Sponsorship Agreement, the legal document which defines the relationship between the Inkscape project, the Leadership Committee and the Software Conservancy.
The FSA is the Fiscal Sponsorship Agreement, the legal document which defines the relationship between the Inkscape project, the Project Leadership Committee and the Software Freedom Conservancy. Defining governance, the fiscal controls policy, commitment to remaining free software and furthering the goals and missions of both Software Freedom Conservancy and the Inkscape project.
Q2 Vectors: Okay, now we understand what they are, can you tell us why the FSA was changed?
The FSA has evolved over time and the latest version moves the project from representing a project of programmers, to representing a project of contributors. It does this by widening participation in the election process for the Leadership Committee by specifying a more complete list of people who participate in the project which used to be defined as people who held copyright in the code via the AUTHORS list.
The FSA only covers how the membership elect committee members, it doesn't cover how membership is gained and managed. For that the project adopted a non-legal policy document which can be found here: https://inkscape.org/gallery/item/29445/plc-policy-membership-4.pdf
This is an internal policy document which defines how people get into the membership list and what the rules are.
Q3 Vectors: Were there any other updates to the FSA?
Some other changes were made, such as removing a previous PLC member's address and cleaning up some of the language to standardise it with other projects.
Q4 Vectors: Can you tell us a little about the process of updating the FSA?
The FSA was updated by conducting a number of meetings with both PLC members and various people from the community who were existing members and those who were contributing a lot, but not able to be members yet.
The FSA was updated by conducting a number of meetings with the SFC, PLC members and various people from the community who were existing members and those who were contributing a lot, but not able to be members yet.
The consultation processes lasted a couple of months and resulted in a first draft of the needed changes in the FSA as well as organising the membership policy to support it. Further changes were needed by both the PLC discussions internally and the SFC who has their own list of things to adjust.
The consultation processes lasted a couple of months and resulted in a first draft of the needed changes in the FSA as well as organising the membership policy to support it. Further changes were needed by both the PLC discussions internally and the SFC who has their own list of things to adjust (changing the address for the project, general updates to the FSA language and reviewing the membership change).
Q5 Vectors: What do the changes to the FSA mean for the contributors?
The changes should allow the membership of the project to expand from being just programmers who hold copyright in the codebase itself. To being anyone who has contributed to the project in a way that is materially agreeable to other members.
The technical changes also allow for people to apply and invite memberships directly on the website and approve of others becoming members. Everything is recorded for transparency and copied into git repositories for safe keeping.
+1
Q6 Vectors: What requirements do people need to meet to be/become a member? Do memberships expire?
We wanted to give the project the greatest amount of flexibility to decide for itself what counted as a contribution. For the developer team, the existing policy of two commits into the code base was deemed sufficient. Other teams can set their own policies for when they will approve members who contribute through them.
The bare bones requirement is for three other existing members to approve their membership request. Members from the related team would be expected to recognise each other's contributions and approve as needed. Approving people who you don't know or haven't worked with is strongly discouraged and could end up with you having your own membership revoked (see 2. below). So don't do that!
Memberships can not expire, but it is possible to be removed by a vote of the PLC. The three reasons are: 1. A code of conduct violation which can't be resolved, 2. Approving non-contributors to the membership list 3. Not being or having been a contributor in the first place.
These are safety valves to make sure that abuse can be dealt with in a structured way. The intention is that no one would ever need to be removed or expired but this sets out how that would happen.
But you can leave if you want. Removing your membership from the team will remove your membership of Inkscape too.
+1
Q7 Vectors: Is there anything that contributors need to do now, to become an official member?
A contributor to the project should go to the inkscape website, navigate to the membership team page and click on the "Request Membership" button on the right side. They will need a website account in order to do this. A contributor may also be invited by other member that knows the email address they used to register on the website.
Other members will then be able to approve of them joining. Once enough people have, they are added to the members list automatically and can vote in future leadership elections.
+1
Thanks Martin and Maren!
Thanks for the questions.
Best Regards, Martin Owens _______________________________________________ Inkscape Board of Directors mailing list -- inkscape-board@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-board-leave@lists.inkscape.org