1:17 a.m.
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 07:07:45PM -0500, Tony Sebro wrote:
On 02/11/2015 06:57 PM, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 05:31:08PM -0500, Tony Sebro wrote:
>> Inkscape's PLC is already bound by Conservancy's conflict of interest
>> policy [1].
> Fwiw, this is the first I've seen of that.
Hmm. I'm fairly certain we sent the policy around to the
project-reps@...41... address. If we didn't, I apologize.
Either way, we need to do a better job of making sure that projects are
aware of our organization's policy.
I don't recall receiving anything to or from a
'project-reps@...41...' address. Perhaps I got excluded?
http://lists.sfconservancy.org shows no such list name.
>> The goal here is to prevent a corporation from taking
>> control over the project by hiring PLC members and/or otherwise
>> dominating the PLC, so that they could exploit Conservancy's nonprofit
>> structure to handle activities that really should fall under their
>> for-profit structure. It's not my intent to make this section onerous;
>> we can discuss ways to make it fit Inkscape's community standards.
> For much of the life of the project, Ted, Tim, and I all worked for
> Canonical, and served on the board as the project founders. Canonical
> could have cared less about Inkscape and had zero influence on board
> matters.
>
> Presently Jon and I both work for Samsung, having both just recently
> joined there. Samsung cares even less about Inkscape than Canonical
> did. Yet if this provision goes into effect, one or the other of us
> will have to step down.
>
Understood. For what it's worth, I've never received anyone complain or
insinuate that Inkscape is controlled or influenced by any one
corporation. Still: if an issue were to come up in the future, the
Inkscape Committee may benefit from avoiding even the optics of influence.
What if we moved from "more than one member employed" to "more than
1/3"
or "more than 40%"? Would that give the Committee enough wiggle room
going forward?
Probably should speak in fractions of sevenths, otherwise rounding is
ambiguous. A hard limit of 3/7th would avoid majority control by any
one employer while being flexible with membership.
Bryce
1:46 a.m.
New subject: draft Inkscape FSA
> What if we moved from "more than one member employed"
to "more than 1/3"
> or "more than 40%"? Would that give the Committee enough wiggle room
> going forward?
Probably should speak in fractions of sevenths, otherwise rounding is
ambiguous. A hard limit of 3/7th would avoid majority control by any
one employer while being flexible with membership.
Shouldn't it only really count if there are activities being performed
on behalf of the company involved? Canonical and I doubt samsung
probably never paid any time to inkscape development or management for
any of their hires. And in that way Bryce et al are not hired by those
companies on this project, but are self-hired.
For example I work for BasisTech on inkscape, a handful of hours a
year as a contractor. Two BasisTech people on the board could be a
problem. But I also have done work for the FSF, RedHat and a ton of
others who never asked me to work on inkscape. For us contractors, we
could quite quickly hit any number of limits if /any/ employment
relationship counted. Some sort of declaration for board members about
who they work on inkscape for (if any) in their board profiles would
make that information transparent too.
Best Regards, Martin Owens
2:40 a.m.
New subject: draft Inkscape FSA
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 08:46:31PM -0500, Martin Owens wrote:
>> What if we moved from "more than one member
employed" to "more than 1/3"
>> or "more than 40%"? Would that give the Committee enough wiggle room
>> going forward?
>
> Probably should speak in fractions of sevenths, otherwise rounding is
> ambiguous. A hard limit of 3/7th would avoid majority control by any
> one employer while being flexible with membership.
Shouldn't it only really count if there are activities being performed
on behalf of the company involved? Canonical and I doubt samsung
probably never paid any time to inkscape development or management for
any of their hires. And in that way Bryce et al are not hired by those
companies on this project, but are self-hired.
I thought about that too, but I could imagine a case where if your
employer had a commercial interest in $badthing, as an employee you
might feel compelled to support it in voting, regardless of whether you
were directly working on it or not, perhaps even regardless of your own
personal opinion. After all, there do exist companies where publically
expressing views counter to the company's position can be
career-limiting or at least awkward...
For example I work for BasisTech on inkscape, a handful of hours a
year as a contractor. Two BasisTech people on the board could be a
problem. But I also have done work for the FSF, RedHat and a ton of
others who never asked me to work on inkscape. For us contractors, we
could quite quickly hit any number of limits if /any/ employment
relationship counted. Some sort of declaration for board members about
who they work on inkscape for (if any) in their board profiles would
make that information transparent too.
Right, frankly for most of us, our Inkscape involvement is going to span
multiple employers. I really doubt there's going to be much chance at
all of any of us pushing corporate agendas. I trust that for the
existing board members, even if all seven of us shared an employer I
doubt it'd make much difference in our votes or activities.
But it's entirely possible that several dark horse candidates with
employer loyalty conflicts of interests get nominated for board
elections. I would like to trust the community would suss that out. I
doubt the community would accidentally put bad actors onto the board.
But if they do, having a hard limit could prove a useful check.
Bryce
2:39 p.m.
New subject: draft Inkscape FSA
On Wed, 2015-02-11 at 17:17 -0800, Bryce Harrington wrote:
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 07:07:45PM -0500, Tony Sebro wrote:
> On 02/11/2015 06:57 PM, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> > On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 05:31:08PM -0500, Tony Sebro wrote:
> >> The goal here is to prevent a corporation from taking
> >> control over the project by hiring PLC members and/or otherwise
> >> dominating the PLC, so that they could exploit Conservancy's nonprofit
> >> structure to handle activities that really should fall under their
> >> for-profit structure. It's not my intent to make this section
onerous;
> >> we can discuss ways to make it fit Inkscape's community standards.
> > For much of the life of the project, Ted, Tim, and I all worked for
> > Canonical, and served on the board as the project founders. Canonical
> > could have cared less about Inkscape and had zero influence on board
> > matters.
> >
> > Presently Jon and I both work for Samsung, having both just recently
> > joined there. Samsung cares even less about Inkscape than Canonical
> > did. Yet if this provision goes into effect, one or the other of us
> > will have to step down.
> >
> Understood. For what it's worth, I've never received anyone complain or
> insinuate that Inkscape is controlled or influenced by any one
> corporation. Still: if an issue were to come up in the future, the
> Inkscape Committee may benefit from avoiding even the optics of influence.
>
> What if we moved from "more than one member employed" to "more than
1/3"
> or "more than 40%"? Would that give the Committee enough wiggle room
> going forward?
Probably should speak in fractions of sevenths, otherwise rounding is
ambiguous. A hard limit of 3/7th would avoid majority control by any
one employer while being flexible with membership.
I'm curious if there isn't a way for a company to specifically declare
non-interest in the project. While it would seem extreme, and probably
difficult to get at larger companies, it might be a way handle the
situation if it does become needed.
That being said, I wish we had a problem with too many companies being
interested in Inkscape and fighting over board seats :-P
Ted
7:32 p.m.
New subject: draft Inkscape FSA
On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 08:39:32AM -0600, Ted Gould wrote:
On Wed, 2015-02-11 at 17:17 -0800, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 07:07:45PM -0500, Tony Sebro wrote:
> > On 02/11/2015 06:57 PM, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> > > On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 05:31:08PM -0500, Tony Sebro wrote:
> > >> The goal here is to prevent a corporation from taking
> > >> control over the project by hiring PLC members and/or otherwise
> > >> dominating the PLC, so that they could exploit Conservancy's
nonprofit
> > >> structure to handle activities that really should fall under their
> > >> for-profit structure. It's not my intent to make this section
onerous;
> > >> we can discuss ways to make it fit Inkscape's community
standards.
> > > For much of the life of the project, Ted, Tim, and I all worked for
> > > Canonical, and served on the board as the project founders. Canonical
> > > could have cared less about Inkscape and had zero influence on board
> > > matters.
> > >
> > > Presently Jon and I both work for Samsung, having both just recently
> > > joined there. Samsung cares even less about Inkscape than Canonical
> > > did. Yet if this provision goes into effect, one or the other of us
> > > will have to step down.
> > >
> > Understood. For what it's worth, I've never received anyone complain
or
> > insinuate that Inkscape is controlled or influenced by any one
> > corporation. Still: if an issue were to come up in the future, the
> > Inkscape Committee may benefit from avoiding even the optics of influence.
> >
> > What if we moved from "more than one member employed" to "more
than 1/3"
> > or "more than 40%"? Would that give the Committee enough wiggle
room
> > going forward?
>
> Probably should speak in fractions of sevenths, otherwise rounding is
> ambiguous. A hard limit of 3/7th would avoid majority control by any
> one employer while being flexible with membership.
I'm curious if there isn't a way for a company to specifically declare
non-interest in the project. While it would seem extreme, and probably
difficult to get at larger companies, it might be a way handle the
situation if it does become needed.
If it were a small company, then having an appreciable number of the
board be employees of that company might be risky for other reasons.
Unless the company was specifically in an Inkscape-related business, in
which case the conflict of interest issue crops up.
If it's not a small company, then getting them to declare non-interest
might be as hard as getting them to declare interest. Imagine if the 7
of us were employed as Walmart greeters; I suspect if we asked for some
non-interest declaration they'd just dock our foodstamps and tell us to
stop with these organizing activities. ;-)
That being said, I wish we had a problem with too many companies
being
interested in Inkscape and fighting over board seats :-P
Totally. I'm struggling just trying to get personal time off to attend
the hackfest, let alone sponsorship or anything. "Don't take your
personal time off for that, the connection to your work is loose and
we'd rather want you at Linux Foundation events." Sigh.
Bryce
3220
days inactive
3220
days old
inkscape-board@lists.inkscape.org
4 comments
3 participants
participants (3)
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Bryce Harrington -
Martin Owens -
Ted Gould