Re: [RFC] Restructuring of the Debian Project

[bruce@pixar.com (Bruce Perens)]

From: Dominik Kubla <dominik.kubla@uni-mainz.de>
> I would like to know what you regard as "open standards", if not POSIX
> and the XPG standards.  They are published, unlike the new I2O
> "standard" which you can only get if you are a company and sign a
> non-disclosure agreement, pay a yearly fee and only use proprietary
> Operating Systems.

My idea of the "Truly Open Standards":

1. They are available in digitial form (probably HTML) on the net, for free.
2. They come with GPL-ed validation suite software.
3. You self-certify by running the validation suite and posting results.
4. Any end-user can check you out for fraud by re-running validation.
5. No big expensive committees flying around and having meetings at
   posh resorts. Thus, no need to make money for the standard.
6. Absolutely no fees attached to compliance or certification.

Debian / Software in the Public Interest is the perfect organization to
serve as the seed for development of this. I was hoping it would be our
next project, and that Debian would not be our only project. However, it
is practical to do it as a separate organization as well.

> > This would adversely affect our tax status. The name of our
> > corporation should not be that of a product for technical reasons
> > having to do with getting tax-exempt status.
> 
> Would you please disclose the details on that particular company?
> Maybe put a description, where it is registered, who is on the board
> and such things on the web site.  We need transparency in these
> matters, at least in my opinion.

We are about to ask for donations to go through the legal process to
incorporate it in New York. It'll cost about $400 to incorporate, and
at least $200 for each trademark (that is only the filing fee, there
may be costs to prepare the paperwork). The Debian board of directors
you've been hearing about is the board of directors for this corporation.
I have a seat on the board, but I am not the chairman.

The problem with naming the corporation after the product is that if
the corporation is too closely connected to one product, the IRS will
consider that the goal of the corporation is to develop that one
product and nothing else, and since people sell that product and then
send us donations, the IRS will consider that we are simply selling a
commercial product and disguising ourselves as a non-profit. If we
incorporate as a corporation that has the primary goal of education,
research, etc., we can produce that product and still be a non-profit.

There is a real problem here in that people who sell commercial
operating systems (including Linux) can challenge our non-profit status
in that we are competing with their for-profit corporations. I am
trying to handle this carefully so that this won't happen.

> Then call it a donation, such things can be arranged.

It will really be a donation. I think I understand how to structure it now.
The "Official CD" will be an ISO image and copyrighted artwork, as
previously stated. There will be space on the label for the manufacturer
to print their logo and state if and/or how much they are donating back
to the project. They are free to donate to other causes such as FSF or
cancer care and print that if they wish.

> No, not a closed development model, but a cooperative. If you count
> the developers in the base system, you will get about that number.

Yes, but my contention is that the base system is a small part of
Debian, and it is not suffering from being developed as packages.
What is suffering is the rest of the system, from such afflictions as
improper dependencies and poor coordination on issues like
internationalization, and we are working on tools for helping with that
problem.

In fact, if you consider 1.2 and its problems, the base wasn't really
represented in the problem list so much as was X and other packages.
Unless you mean to put X in the base, which is of course the job of
the XFree86 team and not Debian.

> Right now we are so tangled up in out packaging
> interdependencies that we (at least not me) have no time for such
> creative work.

Are you sure it's packaging dependencies that are taking up all of your
time? Can you elaborate on the issue if this isn't really just a gross
overgeneralization?

> And if you look at the seperate proposal of a Quality Assurance Group
> isn't that what i am talking about?  Why form a second group to look
> after the first? Why not merge them and form a core group?

I think it's more important to QA the entire release than just the base.
The base is important, but it doesn't do anything on its own, just as a
kernel is useless without the user-mode programs. It's just there to
support the rest of the system. We have to arrive at a system to QA
1000 packages, not 30.

	Thanks

	Bruce
--
Bruce Perens K6BP   Bruce@Pixar.com   510-215-3502
Finger bruce@master.Debian.org for PGP public key.
PGP fingerprint = 88 6A 15 D0 65 D4 A3 A6  1F 89 6A 76 95 24 87 B3