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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dive into the World of Parallel Programming. The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/ _______________________________________________ Inkscape-board mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-board
