[Gambas-user] Gambas Foundation?

[Tobias Boege]

On Tue, 30 Nov 2021, martin p cristia wrote:
> Great idea. But as this is voluntary and everyone has a little time.... Also
> Gb got big, not all have the big picture or the required skills of it, but
> if we can make some "departments", say:
> 
> -Gb/Ide
> 
> -Gb/Qt
> 
> -Gb/GTK
> 
> -Gb/distros
> 
> etc
> 
> People can make small teams that take up specific tasks to it. Then, beside
> using it, we can maintain/improove our part while the boss directs the
> orchestra.
> 
> Just a morning idea...
> 

People can already do all of these things. Is a foundation that forms official
teams really what users have been waiting for to start contributing to Gambas,
reading code, fixing bugs, writing documentation and implementing features?

I am allergic to artificial and unnecessary bureaucracy, so I will ask:
What is the problem with Gambas that a foundation solves and how? Is it a
legal (trademark, copyright, representation) or administrative (resource
management) problem? Or what?

If the problem is that there are no contributors and no group of people which
excludes Benoît can maintain Gambas, then the solution is training people,
not necessarily making a foundation. Nobody starts tinkering on Gambas internals
because we have a foundation now. This is why I ask for clarification about
what you imagine the foundation should **do**.

What I can imagine:

  - We do have some resources that are managed by individuals:
    domain names, web servers, mailing lists, IRC channels. Perhaps it
    would be beneficial to have a legal entity comprised of multiple
    individuals which have the keys to all of these resources.
    (Of course, this comes with organizational overhead. There are
    programming language foundations which regularly elect a board,
    so I imagine they change all of their passwords at least with
    the same regularity.)

  - The Perl Foundation, for example, sponsors grants. These are
    sourced from donation money and distributed to applicants on a
    competitive basis. The applicants have to write a proposal for
    what they want to do with their "salary" and regular reports
    about their progress. (Of course, you need donations for that.)

But still, I want you to consider that you are in the Gambas foundation TODAY
with four other people and Benoît declares that he will become a wine-growing
hermit in SIX MONTHS. Why is Gambas better off next year with the foundation
than without it?

Best,
Tobias

-- 
"There's an old saying: Don't change anything... ever!" -- Mr. Monk