Organization Structure
Pirate Praveen
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I propose we create a constitution for ourselves and define membership and responsibilities.
Also we can use Swathanthra Malayalam Computing (http://smc.org.in) as a legal custodian of our assets similar to how SPI handles assets and financial transactions for debian project.
Update (09/02/2017): We need to revisit this thread now and finish this task of defining a structure.
- Each sub team like poddery.com maintainers or git.fosscommunity.in should be able to take technical decisions independently. We can have them like special teams in debian (FTP masters, release team etc).
- We can create email accounts for official members
- Any time contribution to Free Software should be enough to get a membership (be it coding, design, support, publicity etc)
- Their contribution should be vouched by existing members (we can have initial members from this loomio group/riot group/mailing list).
- This structure can help us make official statements with everyone given a fair opportunity to comment.
- Ownership of assets like domains could be given to legal entities like SMC. Just like debian, we can have multiple organizations as trusted organizations to keep assets. We can ask other groups like DFF, SFLC, DAKF etc
Basically we need ensure we can sustain these services even if the current maintainers become inactive (I want to make myself redundant).
Further reading:
https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/DPL/TrustedOrganizationCriteria has criteria debian uses to select trusted organizations.
https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Auditor/Organizations has list of organizations trusted by debian.
https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution#item-9 is the section about trusted organizations.
Update (10/02/2017):
Preamble:
- Free Software Community of India is a collective of Free Software (sometimes also called as Open Source Software) users, advocates and developers.
- We maintain communication and collaboration infrastructure for everyone that respects their freedom and privacy.
- We depend on donations and community manpower to run the infrastructure.
- We maintain a list of Free Software communities and offer sub domains of fsug.in or fosscommunity.in
- We mentor Free Software enthusiasts to become Free Software contributors.
- We provide GNU/Linux installation and configuration support via online messaging groups.
Pirate Praveen Thu 9 Feb 2017 7:28AM
discussion with @jayaura on matrix/riot.
Aurabindo
Pirate Praveen: if FSMK and SMC are trusted orgs and they have a conflict, shouldnt FCI intervene and help resolve that ? How can it not affect FCI?
B
(assuming that FCI is legal and SMC FSMK are added as TOs)
Pirate Praveen
Aurabindo: the need for trusted organizations arise because we/FCI is not a legal entity
Aurabindo
well I didnt put it correctly. I know FCI is not legal at the moment. I was just asking the question in the hypothetical situation where FCI has become legal
Pirate Praveen
Aurabindo: having friends in both organizations, we can try an mediate in a conflict, but that should not affect us. Each of them will be holding a different asset.
Aurabindo: then we don't need any TO, we can handle our own assets
Aurabindo
Right, if the conflicts are over different assets, it should legally 'affect' FCI
But is there absolutely no chance of having such a conflict on assets that may be common? For instance, lets say an individual donates some infrastructure to FCI which both TO 'A' and 'B' would love to have. If the donor has not specifically mentioned whom the resource should be donated, then there could be an issue that FCI need to deal with, isnt it ?
or such cases are out of scope ?
Pirate Praveen
Aurabindo: there are bigger conflicts, even between countries? How do people solve it? People try to talk, have a mediator etc. This is a pure hypothetical situation, we are all people, we can think about a response when there is a conflict
Aurabindo: A or B don't have a say in decision making, FCI decides or the donor decides
FCI can tell the donor to give it to either A or B
Aurabindo
Right. So that the rule put forward by FCI. I think such cases needs to be well documented
if we are moving ahead with this idea
Pirate Praveen
Aurabindo: yes, we can use the debian't criteria as a starting point
Aurabindo
And for TO's to be interested in joining FCI, there needs to some perks they have with the membership
First one I can think of, is managing the legal aspects
Pirate Praveen
Aurabindo: no, the TO don't join FCI
Aurabindo
taxes etc ( if they apply)
I see
Pirate Praveen
both FCI and TO will see if the goals are aligned
Aurabindo
Okay
Pirate Praveen
in this case SMC or FSMK will see if supporting FCI helps Free Software, which is a goal of both those orgs
FCI will check the trackrecord of SMC and FSMK before approaching them and they will in turn check the track record of FCI
it helps when there are common members
B
many members are common between SMC and FCI so they can vouch for each other organizations
12:48
now if some members of FSMK or DFF or DAKF becomes a part of FCI, they can propose/vouch
@balasankarc
I know I am talking in future tenst, but still: My personal opinion for FCI is to not go legal. I love FCI to be always a community and not an "organization".
B
Pirate Praveen
@balasankarc: that is my preference too
there will be many compulsions when going legal, when there are already many legal entities that share the same goal of promoting Free Software, we don't need yet another one wanting to do the same
that why I like the way debian did it
B
its not just just debian many other projects gets affiliated with SPI or SFLC
Aurabindo
Pirate Praveen: I was not clear regarding the proposed relationship b/w FCI and SMC. Reading the debian constitution now
Pirate Praveen
https://sfconservancy.org/projects/current/
Current Projects - Software Freedom Conservancy
The Software Freedom Conservancy provides a non-profit home and services to Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects.
Prasanth Sugathan: do SFLC.in offer a simialr service for communities in India?
Aurabindo
Pirate Praveen: @balasankarc Has there been any discussions on the pros and cons of going official ?
Pirate Praveen
http://www.spi-inc.org/projects/
projects
SPI / projects Home Contact Corporate Donations Meetings Membership Projects SPI Associated Projects We are proud to be able to list the following 46 free and open source projects as being associated with SPI.
12:57
Aurabindo: https://www.loomio.org/d/1Z3oWqR7/proposal/9vBfM8VT
Loomio - Loomio
Pirate Praveen Fri 10 Feb 2017 7:31AM
Discussion with Arun M ([email protected])
[11:44:42 IST] arunm: Hi Praveen real problem is not organisation but we lack people doing real work
[11:44:49 IST] arunm: Discuss politics
[11:45:06 IST] arunm: Create next generation actisits
[11:54:05 IST] praveen: arunm, I agree we need people who are motivated by politics, above thread is just an attempt to document the existing community, to sustain services like poddery.com and git.fosscommunity.in
[11:55:57 IST] praveen: documenting processes helps new people to understand how how community works
[11:56:08 IST] praveen: it is required to sustain a community
[11:57:27 IST] praveen: we want a new member to know they can question the "seniors" and don't have to just follow
[11:58:24 IST] praveen: this is mostly relevant for community ownership of infrastructure like the diaspora pod we run
[11:58:58 IST] praveen: arunm, it is not a substitute for building activists
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[12:04:54 IST] arunm: Praveen, I don't know. We need community it infrastructure like diaspora but the challenge is not one of Debian but that of autistici
[12:05:12 IST] arunm: Debian model is not the best to me
[12:05:56 IST] arunm: For debian community infrastructure is something to support its core community function of developing a free distro
[12:06:47 IST] arunm: Here objective is to build shared it infrastructure for members use like email, data storage, messaging etc
[12:07:24 IST] praveen: I'm looking at debian as "how a community work together"
[12:08:15 IST] praveen: while autistici structure is good if we look at the output, but how do one join autistici?
[12:08:59 IST] arunm: It may not work if they adopt debian model
[12:09:13 IST] praveen: I'm more interrsted in growing the number of people who steps up to do the work
[12:09:39 IST] praveen: hense looking at the debian structure
[12:09:48 IST] arunm: Only way is work with them talk to them
[12:10:05 IST] arunm: Discuss politics
[12:10:24 IST] praveen: autistici/riseup is a closed group, though really committed and passionate people
[12:11:08 IST] arunm: The spirit of rebellion and comradeship
[12:13:16 IST] praveen: but that usually ends up as small number of people in the front and large number following
[12:14:14 IST] praveen: which I don't see as suatainable, as many times the people at the front get burned out or have to move out, the community dies with it
Bady Fri 10 Feb 2017 8:26PM
i'd like to question the necessity of having a constitution. doesn't it make things look more complicated than simply allowing people to associate freely? also one of the main reasons for not registering FCI as a legal entity is to avoid the complications that come with it, right? so my suggestion is to keep things simple by providing general guidelines instead of forming a constitution.
on the other hand it's fine if there are any solid reasons for creating a constitution. what all are the advantages of having a constitution (assuming that a constitution is no more valid than a set of guidelines when the organization isn't a registered one)?
Pirate Praveen Sat 11 Feb 2017 6:58AM
doesn't it make things look more complicated than simply allowing people to associate freely? also one of the main reasons for not registering FCI as a legal entity is to avoid the complications that come with it, right? so my suggestion is to keep things simple by providing general guidelines instead of forming a constitution.
If there is no defined structure, the community will end up being controlled by a small group. Even with defined constitutions, countries become dictatorships. Power has a corrupting influence and we have systematically restrict it. Constitution alone will not be sufficient, but it is necessary to define and restrict small group of people dominating others. It is not about complications, but limitations imposed by a hierarchical structure as required by law. When we are not registered, we are flexible about our structure and decision making. For a registered organization, we will have to follow the structure mandated by law. Without a constitution, do you think debian would have sustained this long?
Constitution is just a name that people understand, naming it guidelines would be okay too. It is something we show to new people. How do someone new to fosscommunity.in know who we are, what we do, why we are doing it, how can they become a part, do they get the same rights etc. Without a defined structure and process for accepting new members, growth will not be sustainable as a small group will only feel the ownership and when they become inactive, the groups dies too.
Fayad Fami Sat 11 Feb 2017 6:21AM
I think it is a fact fci needs better organization. Constitution alone may not be enough for that. We will need to receive financial support, advices and backing in situations that needs backing.
As far as I understand we have members who've been part of smc and people who still work with smc. So the benefits overweights anything else. Besides organizations like smc are designed to support movements.
But only if more people from smc will step up and comment about this.
The measures outlined to organize fci will help to make it more official. Things will be streamlined, and new people will understand its worthiness and the need to contribute. Continue to have people from everywhere plus under one group with some structure.
Pirate Praveen Sat 11 Feb 2017 7:06AM
I think it is a fact fci needs better organization. Constitution alone may not be enough for that. We will need to receive financial support, advices and backing in situations that needs backing.
Like I said above, constitution alone is not sufficient, but it is necessary to sustain the community. It is more of a documentation, a declaration of intent and purpose. We can associate with many existing registered organizations that share our values and goals to take care of financial and legal needs. It is a common practice for many Free Software communities to isolate legal structure from community decision making. Software in the Public Interest, Software Freedom Conservancy, our own SMC, all have a goal of supporting the Free Software communities in their goals and many projects use these services. If we are unable to get that support from existing organizations, we can think about creating our own.
But only if more people from smc will step up and comment about this.
SMC has already agreed to support us. https://www.loomio.org/d/1Z3oWqR7/comment/56345 I reopened this thread to complete writing a constitution that details our goals and a membership process so we become sustainable.
Pirate Praveen Sat 11 Feb 2017 7:13AM
I have added a preamble section in this thread's description. Please comment.
Aurabindo J Sat 11 Feb 2017 7:23AM
Regarding the second point of the preamble We maintain communication and collaboration infrastructure for everyone, like a diaspora pod with xmpp chat support at poddery.com and a gitlab instance at git.fosscommunity.in, I suggest that specific services not be mentioned in there. Preamble should be the introduction. Further sections should mention in detail what services are hosted, what domains are registered, and who are the present admins, etc.
Aurabindo J Sat 11 Feb 2017 7:26AM
Suggestion on point 2: How about changing from We maintain communication and collaboration infrastructure for everyone to We maintain communication and collaboration infrastructure for everyone that respects their freedom and privacy and depend on donations and community manpower to run the infrastructure
Pirate Praveen · Thu 9 Feb 2017 6:57AM
Sharing the discussion points in #fci:matrix.org