RFC: Adding some management structure, particularly for decisions about our donation account

[Tim M]

I haven't been around here long, but I'll throw in a couple thoughts
since there hasn't been much commentary:

First, I like the mission statement as Geert suggested and is
currently written on the Charter page.  It isn't too long or too
short, I think if you start discussing all of the goals (community,
promotions, etc) then you are confusing Mission Statement with Goals
which are similar but not quite the same.  It is OK to have a separate
list of primary goals, IMO, but the Mission Statement should remain
short, sweet, and to the point.  Hence I think that GnuCash was well
summarized in the proposed statement.

On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Geert Janssens
<janssens-geert at telenet.be> wrote:
> On donderdag 9 juni 2011, Christian Stimming wrote:
>> Am Montag, 30. Mai 2011 schrieb Christian Stimming:
>> > Derek replied:
>> > > I agree completely that we need more structure in how to handle money
>> > > flowing into the project.
>> > >
>> > > I'm still willing to maintain the paypal account, and I promise to be
>> > > more responsive if we decide to stick with what we have.
>> >
>> > IMHO this means we can probably leave the account as-is, but start to
>> > work out a new and durable decision structure for the management of the
>> > gnucash donation account. I am thinking of something like a charter with
>> > a similar structure as a usual non-profit organization: We should
>> > appoint a board (or committee, or similarly named group of people) of
>> > 2-5 people who will then have the mandate to decide and take action.
>>
>> Judging from the very little reaction on this message here, it seems that
>> almost nobody really cares about the existence of the donation money and/or
>> what is being done with it. In that case we have to continue to live with
>> the unclear decision process about the donation account.
>>
>> In particular, if I have some idea about a potential use of the account
>> money (such as starting our own bounty program), I guess I'll just discuss
>> possible uses of this money privately with Derek, then announce those here
>> and go ahead with the proposals unless there are strong objections from
>> core developers. Does that sound reasonable? Other proposals? Comments?
>>
> I may not have yelled loud enough, but I'm for a more formal decision
> structure ;)
>
> So far 3 people spoke in favor of it (Derek, Christian and me) and one stated
> no interest (John) via a private conversation.
>
> I count the silent voices to agree with whatever gets decided, otherwise they
> could have spoken up.
>
> Do you think 3 people is too few to get a decision structure set up ?
>

I live in a condominium building of 13 units and have been a board
member for 2 1/2 years now and I have found it is very important to
have at _least_ 3 people involved in any decision structure to ensure
multiple different viewpoints are represented and that there is always
at least 1 person to break a tie where people disagree.  Given the
size and nature of the GnuCash project, 3 people is probably
appropriate and more are not needed unless it suddenly becomes a
hugely popular, widely used application with significant income being
received by the project.

> Also, perhaps many people have no interest in helping to create a decision
> structure, but don't oppose to having one.
>
> Geert
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