Notice of resignation from the Inkscape PLC (AKA Inkscape Board)
Hey folks. Sorry to offer up two resignations in two days, but I've been losing sleep and realised there are some things which have been bothering me for quite a long time now.
I think it boils down to this: My visions for Inkscape simply are not in-line with most of the rest of the project, and this is why I'm offering up my resignation. I firmly believe that PLC seats should be reserved for people who can represent the project's interests, which are decided by those who do the lion's share of contribution.
I do not think it's appropriate for people to vote on funding for parts of the project they have no hand in, and as such, I can not bring myself to continue voting on funding things for development, as I'm not a developer. The truth is, that I believe the development team should have final say in the project on this matter, thus my vote would always be "yes" for anything the developers have collectively decided.
The same goes for the Vectors, Testers, and any other group within Inkscape - they decide they need funding for x-thing they handle and are responsible for in their part of the project. It's a 100% yes from me, always. I think that's what a truly representative PLC should look like and act like. I do not think that the Vectors should be able to downvote development funds, just as I don't think the developers should be able to downvote vectors funds for the oureach activities that they handle. If a group does not do a thing, considered important for the project, they simply should not vote on those things either.
Recently I've seen an increase in attempts to build some processes to ensure "fairness" in funding. While in principle, this sounds like a good idea, I believe it's achieving the opposite. I think it's incredibly unfair to punish those who have and do contribute constantly to inkscape, because of supposed "conflicts of interest". This was made crystal clear to me recently when I requested funding to make a video under the same terms as last year (not setting any precedent for next year). If it's a conflict of interest for me to request funds, and no one else steps up to request funds on behalf of my video project, I'm stuck in a catch 22 situation, and the video just doesn't get funding. Maybe that's just lack of interest in a video from the Vector's side, but then why should they be in charge of voting down something as essential to outreach as a release video?
Let me make it clear - I don't care if it's me or someone else who does the video. If there were someone else with the capability to do it in FOSS to a professional standard at this late hour for this release, I'd just hand it over to them, since me doing it is apparently so contentious within the project. What upsets me is people seem to be voting for what they think the bureaucracy should look like, and not for what would benefit the project most at this time, while organisational efforts are incomplete.
I fully understand wanting to put a fair process in place, but not a finger has been lifted all year to do that, and I'm tired of fighting endlessly with people's personal sense of morality, while the project's development and exposure suffers. People seem to want a rigid, inflexible (and entirely undeveloped) process for doing things, and are willing to toss important deliverables for the project under the bus to get their own way.
I've loved some of the progress we've made together in getting things funded, but I can't fight everyone on these things and still consider myself a good project representative.
I therefore resign, effective immediately.
Thanks for your support, friendship and understanding. Hope this isn't too much of a downer for folks. I'm honestly feeling better already. :)
For Inkscape, always. -C
Thanks Chris,
I'm sorry to see you go, you will be missed from our group. And thanks for your years of service to our community.
I should answer some of the claims, though I do so only to document not to argue for anything in particular.
There is a conflict in all charitable organisations between being able to make decisions about funding and being able to receive funding. This is normally resolve by employment, with a defined set of responsibilities and transparent structures. With a board who are usually not paid, who reviews actions and issues as they arise.
We are in a difficult position of not having any employees or a board that does not labour. That means we have a bunch of responsibilities and very few people who can lift a finger to organise them without occupying multiple seats.
To reduce the possibility of corruption, we require that there be an organiser person who puts together a paid project proposal who is not then going to be hired to do that work. This does require more work, and it strains us greatly to have to do it.
"You can not both organise for the work to be done, and be the only selectable bid to do the work"
Since there was no one to organise the video project proposal, it did not move. Chris and several other members of vectors who were contacted over the year (2022) all refused (politely) to do the necessary work of organising the proposal.
To resolve the issue more positively I'm going to be doing some mentoring with Jonathan. Lazur has volunteered to see if we can put together a work proposal for a video, since there is high demand for there to be one. But it's tentative as we're not sure of the timetable needed. But stay tuned for a possible future discussion.
Regards, Martin
On Sun, 2023-03-05 at 18:19 +0000, C R wrote:
Hey folks. Sorry to offer up two resignations in two days, but I've been losing sleep and realised there are some things which have been bothering me for quite a long time now.
I think it boils down to this: My visions for Inkscape simply are not in-line with most of the rest of the project, and this is why I'm offering up my resignation. I firmly believe that PLC seats should be reserved for people who can represent the project's interests, which are decided by those who do the lion's share of contribution.
I do not think it's appropriate for people to vote on funding for parts of the project they have no hand in, and as such, I can not bring myself to continue voting on funding things for development, as I'm not a developer. The truth is, that I believe the development team should have final say in the project on this matter, thus my vote would always be "yes" for anything the developers have collectively decided.
The same goes for the Vectors, Testers, and any other group within Inkscape - they decide they need funding for x-thing they handle and are responsible for in their part of the project. It's a 100% yes from me, always. I think that's what a truly representative PLC should look like and act like. I do not think that the Vectors should be able to downvote development funds, just as I don't think the developers should be able to downvote vectors funds for the oureach activities that they handle. If a group does not do a thing, considered important for the project, they simply should not vote on those things either.
Recently I've seen an increase in attempts to build some processes to ensure "fairness" in funding. While in principle, this sounds like a good idea, I believe it's achieving the opposite. I think it's incredibly unfair to punish those who have and do contribute constantly to inkscape, because of supposed "conflicts of interest". This was made crystal clear to me recently when I requested funding to make a video under the same terms as last year (not setting any precedent for next year). If it's a conflict of interest for me to request funds, and no one else steps up to request funds on behalf of my video project, I'm stuck in a catch 22 situation, and the video just doesn't get funding. Maybe that's just lack of interest in a video from the Vector's side, but then why should they be in charge of voting down something as essential to outreach as a release video?
Let me make it clear - I don't care if it's me or someone else who does the video. If there were someone else with the capability to do it in FOSS to a professional standard at this late hour for this release, I'd just hand it over to them, since me doing it is apparently so contentious within the project. What upsets me is people seem to be voting for what they think the bureaucracy should look like, and not for what would benefit the project most at this time, while organisational efforts are incomplete.
I fully understand wanting to put a fair process in place, but not a finger has been lifted all year to do that, and I'm tired of fighting endlessly with people's personal sense of morality, while the project's development and exposure suffers. People seem to want a rigid, inflexible (and entirely undeveloped) process for doing things, and are willing to toss important deliverables for the project under the bus to get their own way.
I've loved some of the progress we've made together in getting things funded, but I can't fight everyone on these things and still consider myself a good project representative.
I therefore resign, effective immediately.
Thanks for your support, friendship and understanding. Hope this isn't too much of a downer for folks. I'm honestly feeling better already. :)
For Inkscape, always. -C
Inkscape Board of Directors mailing list -- inkscape-board@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-board-leave@lists.inkscape.org
Thanks. I'd like to point out that according to the "You can not both organise for the work to be done, and be the only selectable bid to do the work", I was not actually able to do the requested work, and also offer it as a service. I was the only one driving the project.
As far as I'm concerned, the video project died due to a lack of interest from outreach (which I can't be part of due to conflict of interest). A video is clearly not considered an essential part of the release at this time.
-C
On Sun, Mar 5, 2023 at 6:57 PM doctormo@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks Chris,
I'm sorry to see you go, you will be missed from our group. And thanks for your years of service to our community.
I should answer some of the claims, though I do so only to document not to argue for anything in particular.
There is a conflict in all charitable organisations between being able to make decisions about funding and being able to receive funding. This is normally resolve by employment, with a defined set of responsibilities and transparent structures. With a board who are usually not paid, who reviews actions and issues as they arise.
We are in a difficult position of not having any employees or a board that does not labour. That means we have a bunch of responsibilities and very few people who can lift a finger to organise them without occupying multiple seats.
To reduce the possibility of corruption, we require that there be an organiser person who puts together a paid project proposal who is not then going to be hired to do that work. This does require more work, and it strains us greatly to have to do it.
"You can not both organise for the work to be done, and be the only selectable bid to do the work"
Since there was no one to organise the video project proposal, it did not move. Chris and several other members of vectors who were contacted over the year (2022) all refused (politely) to do the necessary work of organising the proposal.
To resolve the issue more positively I'm going to be doing some mentoring with Jonathan. Lazur has volunteered to see if we can put together a work proposal for a video, since there is high demand for there to be one. But it's tentative as we're not sure of the timetable needed. But stay tuned for a possible future discussion.
Regards, Martin
On Sun, 2023-03-05 at 18:19 +0000, C R wrote:
Hey folks. Sorry to offer up two resignations in two days, but I've been losing sleep and realised there are some things which have been bothering me for quite a long time now.
I think it boils down to this: My visions for Inkscape simply are not in-line with most of the rest of the project, and this is why I'm offering up my resignation. I firmly believe that PLC seats should be reserved for people who can represent the project's interests, which are decided by those who do the lion's share of contribution.
I do not think it's appropriate for people to vote on funding for parts of the project they have no hand in, and as such, I can not bring myself to continue voting on funding things for development, as I'm not a developer. The truth is, that I believe the development team should have final say in the project on this matter, thus my vote would always be "yes" for anything the developers have collectively decided.
The same goes for the Vectors, Testers, and any other group within Inkscape - they decide they need funding for x-thing they handle and are responsible for in their part of the project. It's a 100% yes from me, always. I think that's what a truly representative PLC should look like and act like. I do not think that the Vectors should be able to downvote development funds, just as I don't think the developers should be able to downvote vectors funds for the oureach activities that they handle. If a group does not do a thing, considered important for the project, they simply should not vote on those things either.
Recently I've seen an increase in attempts to build some processes to ensure "fairness" in funding. While in principle, this sounds like a good idea, I believe it's achieving the opposite. I think it's incredibly unfair to punish those who have and do contribute constantly to inkscape, because of supposed "conflicts of interest". This was made crystal clear to me recently when I requested funding to make a video under the same terms as last year (not setting any precedent for next year). If it's a conflict of interest for me to request funds, and no one else steps up to request funds on behalf of my video project, I'm stuck in a catch 22 situation, and the video just doesn't get funding. Maybe that's just lack of interest in a video from the Vector's side, but then why should they be in charge of voting down something as essential to outreach as a release video?
Let me make it clear - I don't care if it's me or someone else who does the video. If there were someone else with the capability to do it in FOSS to a professional standard at this late hour for this release, I'd just hand it over to them, since me doing it is apparently so contentious within the project. What upsets me is people seem to be voting for what they think the bureaucracy should look like, and not for what would benefit the project most at this time, while organisational efforts are incomplete.
I fully understand wanting to put a fair process in place, but not a finger has been lifted all year to do that, and I'm tired of fighting endlessly with people's personal sense of morality, while the project's development and exposure suffers. People seem to want a rigid, inflexible (and entirely undeveloped) process for doing things, and are willing to toss important deliverables for the project under the bus to get their own way.
I've loved some of the progress we've made together in getting things funded, but I can't fight everyone on these things and still consider myself a good project representative.
I therefore resign, effective immediately.
Thanks for your support, friendship and understanding. Hope this isn't too much of a downer for folks. I'm honestly feeling better already. :)
For Inkscape, always. -C
Inkscape Board of Directors mailing list -- inkscape-board@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-board-leave@lists.inkscape.org
I'd also like to add that I'm not leaving the project, I'm only stepping down from the PLC. Thanks.
-C
On Sun, Mar 5, 2023 at 7:23 PM C R cajhne@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks. I'd like to point out that according to the "You can not both organise for the work to be done, and be the only selectable bid to do the work", I was not actually able to do the requested work, and also offer it as a service. I was the only one driving the project.
As far as I'm concerned, the video project died due to a lack of interest from outreach (which I can't be part of due to conflict of interest). A video is clearly not considered an essential part of the release at this time.
-C
On Sun, Mar 5, 2023 at 6:57 PM doctormo@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks Chris,
I'm sorry to see you go, you will be missed from our group. And thanks for your years of service to our community.
I should answer some of the claims, though I do so only to document not to argue for anything in particular.
There is a conflict in all charitable organisations between being able to make decisions about funding and being able to receive funding. This is normally resolve by employment, with a defined set of responsibilities and transparent structures. With a board who are usually not paid, who reviews actions and issues as they arise.
We are in a difficult position of not having any employees or a board that does not labour. That means we have a bunch of responsibilities and very few people who can lift a finger to organise them without occupying multiple seats.
To reduce the possibility of corruption, we require that there be an organiser person who puts together a paid project proposal who is not then going to be hired to do that work. This does require more work, and it strains us greatly to have to do it.
"You can not both organise for the work to be done, and be the only selectable bid to do the work"
Since there was no one to organise the video project proposal, it did not move. Chris and several other members of vectors who were contacted over the year (2022) all refused (politely) to do the necessary work of organising the proposal.
To resolve the issue more positively I'm going to be doing some mentoring with Jonathan. Lazur has volunteered to see if we can put together a work proposal for a video, since there is high demand for there to be one. But it's tentative as we're not sure of the timetable needed. But stay tuned for a possible future discussion.
Regards, Martin
On Sun, 2023-03-05 at 18:19 +0000, C R wrote:
Hey folks. Sorry to offer up two resignations in two days, but I've been losing sleep and realised there are some things which have been bothering me for quite a long time now.
I think it boils down to this: My visions for Inkscape simply are not in-line with most of the rest of the project, and this is why I'm offering up my resignation. I firmly believe that PLC seats should be reserved for people who can represent the project's interests, which are decided by those who do the lion's share of contribution.
I do not think it's appropriate for people to vote on funding for parts of the project they have no hand in, and as such, I can not bring myself to continue voting on funding things for development, as I'm not a developer. The truth is, that I believe the development team should have final say in the project on this matter, thus my vote would always be "yes" for anything the developers have collectively decided.
The same goes for the Vectors, Testers, and any other group within Inkscape - they decide they need funding for x-thing they handle and are responsible for in their part of the project. It's a 100% yes from me, always. I think that's what a truly representative PLC should look like and act like. I do not think that the Vectors should be able to downvote development funds, just as I don't think the developers should be able to downvote vectors funds for the oureach activities that they handle. If a group does not do a thing, considered important for the project, they simply should not vote on those things either.
Recently I've seen an increase in attempts to build some processes to ensure "fairness" in funding. While in principle, this sounds like a good idea, I believe it's achieving the opposite. I think it's incredibly unfair to punish those who have and do contribute constantly to inkscape, because of supposed "conflicts of interest". This was made crystal clear to me recently when I requested funding to make a video under the same terms as last year (not setting any precedent for next year). If it's a conflict of interest for me to request funds, and no one else steps up to request funds on behalf of my video project, I'm stuck in a catch 22 situation, and the video just doesn't get funding. Maybe that's just lack of interest in a video from the Vector's side, but then why should they be in charge of voting down something as essential to outreach as a release video?
Let me make it clear - I don't care if it's me or someone else who does the video. If there were someone else with the capability to do it in FOSS to a professional standard at this late hour for this release, I'd just hand it over to them, since me doing it is apparently so contentious within the project. What upsets me is people seem to be voting for what they think the bureaucracy should look like, and not for what would benefit the project most at this time, while organisational efforts are incomplete.
I fully understand wanting to put a fair process in place, but not a finger has been lifted all year to do that, and I'm tired of fighting endlessly with people's personal sense of morality, while the project's development and exposure suffers. People seem to want a rigid, inflexible (and entirely undeveloped) process for doing things, and are willing to toss important deliverables for the project under the bus to get their own way.
I've loved some of the progress we've made together in getting things funded, but I can't fight everyone on these things and still consider myself a good project representative.
I therefore resign, effective immediately.
Thanks for your support, friendship and understanding. Hope this isn't too much of a downer for folks. I'm honestly feeling better already. :)
For Inkscape, always. -C
Inkscape Board of Directors mailing list -- inkscape-board@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-board-leave@lists.inkscape.org
Hello Chris,
Thanks so much for the time and energy that you've put into the PLC. We have maybe not have agreed always, but I do think that we shared a passion for Inkscape and a desire to do what's best for it. I'm sorry for any stress that I personally may have caused. I hope that you'll continue to contribute your talents to Inkscape for a long time to come. Ted On Mar 5 2023, at 12:19 pm, C R cajhne@gmail.com wrote:
Hey folks. Sorry to offer up two resignations in two days, but I've been losing sleep and realised there are some things which have been bothering me for quite a long time now.
I think it boils down to this: My visions for Inkscape simply are not in-line with most of the rest of the project, and this is why I'm offering up my resignation. I firmly believe that PLC seats should be reserved for people who can represent the project's interests, which are decided by those who do the lion's share of contribution.
I do not think it's appropriate for people to vote on funding for parts of the project they have no hand in, and as such, I can not bring myself to continue voting on funding things for development, as I'm not a developer. The truth is, that I believe the development team should have final say in the project on this matter, thus my vote would always be "yes" for anything the developers have collectively decided.
The same goes for the Vectors, Testers, and any other group within Inkscape - they decide they need funding for x-thing they handle and are responsible for in their part of the project. It's a 100% yes from me, always. I think that's what a truly representative PLC should look like and act like. I do not think that the Vectors should be able to downvote development funds, just as I don't think the developers should be able to downvote vectors funds for the oureach activities that they handle. If a group does not do a thing, considered important for the project, they simply should not vote on those things either.
Recently I've seen an increase in attempts to build some processes to ensure "fairness" in funding. While in principle, this sounds like a good idea, I believe it's achieving the opposite. I think it's incredibly unfair to punish those who have and do contribute constantly to inkscape, because of supposed "conflicts of interest". This was made crystal clear to me recently when I requested funding to make a video under the same terms as last year (not setting any precedent for next year). If it's a conflict of interest for me to request funds, and no one else steps up to request funds on behalf of my video project, I'm stuck in a catch 22 situation, and the video just doesn't get funding. Maybe that's just lack of interest in a video from the Vector's side, but then why should they be in charge of voting down something as essential to outreach as a release video?
Let me make it clear - I don't care if it's me or someone else who does the video. If there were someone else with the capability to do it in FOSS to a professional standard at this late hour for this release, I'd just hand it over to them, since me doing it is apparently so contentious within the project. What upsets me is people seem to be voting for what they think the bureaucracy should look like, and not for what would benefit the project most at this time, while organisational efforts are incomplete.
I fully understand wanting to put a fair process in place, but not a finger has been lifted all year to do that, and I'm tired of fighting endlessly with people's personal sense of morality, while the project's development and exposure suffers. People seem to want a rigid, inflexible (and entirely undeveloped) process for doing things, and are willing to toss important deliverables for the project under the bus to get their own way.
I've loved some of the progress we've made together in getting things funded, but I can't fight everyone on these things and still consider myself a good project representative.
I therefore resign, effective immediately.
Thanks for your support, friendship and understanding. Hope this isn't too much of a downer for folks. I'm honestly feeling better already. :)
For Inkscape, always. -C
Inkscape Board of Directors mailing list -- inkscape-board@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-board-leave@lists.inkscape.org
Chris,
We're so sorry to hear that you'll be leaving the PLC. Your work and dedication to the project is appreciated by us all and will forever be felt in this community.
I think a lot of the issues you touch on in your letter address concerns around how we can better address governance and policy in Inkscape. The representational issue you speak of is certainly a frustrating one, as we don't all have time to participate in every subgroup, but are in some sense responsible for representing them and providing space for the to make their own decisions. I think we should follow up with Allison's message and try to get some coaching and training for communication and collaboration to make this kind of dialogue more practiced. If we are able to acquire and practice better communication during low stakes periods, we will be more equipped to handle harder situations. Hopefully during the Hackfest we can set aside some time to talk about these things and start a dialogue about how we all see the future of Inkscape taking shape and how each of us can support that.
The budget ideas you've brought up are really important and I think the project has been learning how to handle those better (re: the Import contractor and bugfix program). No one wants more meetings, but I think in some of the cases you refer to being hard to fund, having more active channels of communication between groups will be really important. As not all groups will be thinking about logistics and impact and not all groups will be thinking policy.
There also seems to be some confusion around the processes to enable work, so we should dedicate some time to go over those. Given that we need to evaluate the priorities and needs of different groups within the project, and particularly because we have limited resources, this is a subject that will cause friction and we need to be mindful going into those conversations on how to collectively allocate resources. Also as you brought up, representations from non-developer contributors are critical! So we mustn't partition our community, but learn from each other so decisions can be made with a complete picture.
As we move into a new period of the PLC with an upcoming election, we want to help oversee and collaboratively work with you all. Since there have been some tense conversations between us, we want to be supportive. We are bumping up the priority for the collaborative sessions and in the meantime we should have a call to clarify the restrictions on procedures that were alluded to (I think that was an SFC policy you were referring too but not quite sure as it's not quite what the FSA nor Conflict of Interest Policy [0] says in spirit or letter).
Again, I'd like to reiterate that your work has been so very appreciated and received and Inkscape is lucky to have a contributing member as wonderful as you Chris.
-Pono on behalf of Software Freedom Conservancy
[0] https://sfconservancy.org/projects/policies/conflict-of-interest-policy.html...
On Sun, Mar 05, 2023 at 06:19:12PM +0000, C R wrote:
Hey folks. Sorry to offer up two resignations in two days, but I've been losing sleep and realised there are some things which have been bothering me for quite a long time now.
I think it boils down to this: My visions for Inkscape simply are not in-line with most of the rest of the project, and this is why I'm offering up my resignation. I firmly believe that PLC seats should be reserved for people who can represent the project's interests, which are decided by those who do the lion's share of contribution.
I do not think it's appropriate for people to vote on funding for parts of the project they have no hand in, and as such, I can not bring myself to continue voting on funding things for development, as I'm not a developer. The truth is, that I believe the development team should have final say in the project on this matter, thus my vote would always be "yes" for anything the developers have collectively decided.
The same goes for the Vectors, Testers, and any other group within Inkscape
- they decide they need funding for x-thing they handle and are responsible
for in their part of the project. It's a 100% yes from me, always. I think that's what a truly representative PLC should look like and act like. I do not think that the Vectors should be able to downvote development funds, just as I don't think the developers should be able to downvote vectors funds for the oureach activities that they handle. If a group does not do a thing, considered important for the project, they simply should not vote on those things either.
Recently I've seen an increase in attempts to build some processes to ensure "fairness" in funding. While in principle, this sounds like a good idea, I believe it's achieving the opposite. I think it's incredibly unfair to punish those who have and do contribute constantly to inkscape, because of supposed "conflicts of interest". This was made crystal clear to me recently when I requested funding to make a video under the same terms as last year (not setting any precedent for next year). If it's a conflict of interest for me to request funds, and no one else steps up to request funds on behalf of my video project, I'm stuck in a catch 22 situation, and the video just doesn't get funding. Maybe that's just lack of interest in a video from the Vector's side, but then why should they be in charge of voting down something as essential to outreach as a release video?
Let me make it clear - I don't care if it's me or someone else who does the video. If there were someone else with the capability to do it in FOSS to a professional standard at this late hour for this release, I'd just hand it over to them, since me doing it is apparently so contentious within the project. What upsets me is people seem to be voting for what they think the bureaucracy should look like, and not for what would benefit the project most at this time, while organisational efforts are incomplete.
I fully understand wanting to put a fair process in place, but not a finger has been lifted all year to do that, and I'm tired of fighting endlessly with people's personal sense of morality, while the project's development and exposure suffers. People seem to want a rigid, inflexible (and entirely undeveloped) process for doing things, and are willing to toss important deliverables for the project under the bus to get their own way.
I've loved some of the progress we've made together in getting things funded, but I can't fight everyone on these things and still consider myself a good project representative.
I therefore resign, effective immediately.
Thanks for your support, friendship and understanding. Hope this isn't too much of a downer for folks. I'm honestly feeling better already. :)
For Inkscape, always. -C
Inkscape Board of Directors mailing list -- inkscape-board@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-board-leave@lists.inkscape.org
participants (4)
-
C R -
Daniel Pono Takamori -
doctormo＠gmail.com -
Ted Gould