KDE e.V. transparency (was: Re: Voting rights - the GNOME way)

[Andreas Pour]

Rob Kaper wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 05:49:45AM -0600, Andreas Pour wrote:
> > No, they have a private mailing list but nobody else is permitted to join.
> > But don't get me started on this again :-).
> 
> I don't object to private conversations per se, as long as the results are
> transcribed periodically, for all members to see.

Well I have no hope that will happen.  In any event in the current situation I
also do not have much faith in KDE eV.  If it's not transparent to its members
it's failed its mission IMO.

> In case the e.V. board doesn't realize it: being a bit more out in the open
> would efinitely help KDE. The one reason I've never donated anything (and
> wouldn't even recommend it) is because there isn't a single bit of published
> data on the budget and its allocation.

The crux of the problem IMO is that the decision was made to make the Board of
limited size and secret.  Certainly that has alienated me from KDE eV.  The lack
of activity from the Board confirms my belief that the Board is too small to
handle its responsibilities, such as communicating with the world.  Lack of
communication has also plagued the KDE League.

> > I think anyone who agrees to confidentiality and does not interfere with
> > its operations or act counter-productively should be able to join the
> > Board's private mailing list.  I feel disenfranchised.
> 
> Nah, let them keep their private meetings but require publications on the
> goals and outcomes of meetings and activities of the e.V.

While I would be more comfortable with such an approach (though not comfortable
enough), I think there is a very low chance this will happen.
 
> > > Request a member meeting. Most statutes have a rule where a certain
> > > amount of signatures (albeit it digital GPG ones) are sufficient that
> > > the board *must* hold a general member meeting. At which the present
> > > members can place a vote of non-confidence in the board and have it
> > > replaced with new elections.
> >
> > Well don't ask me to fly to Germany again, thank you very much.
> 
> If the statutes of the e.V. place high emphasis on physical presence, I'd
> say it is not very suitable for a world-wide Internet project. C'mon, we are
> the innovative folks, if we can't find a proper way to do all that on-line,
> who can?

An effort was made to fix this but it was botched.  The essential problem is
some severe restrictions placed on what an eV can do.  When I suggested a
Delaware corp. or similar, which is much more flexible (e.g., all decisions
could be made by email), I got a brush-off.
 
> > In any event KDE eV is a membership-based organization and we don't need
> > for the Board to do anything - they are not our servants.  OTOH, I find it
> > distressing that I have absolutely no idea what they are up to, despite
> > having repeatedly shown a strong interest in knowing.
> 
> They *are* the only ones who can make real decisions within the
> organization, though. 

Well, the other alternative is to have an in-person meeting in Germany.  An
effort was made at the Hamburg meeting to permit decisions (other than certain
onces which German law requires to occur in person) to be made via Internet
voting, but that effort was botched.

> And since they own the trademarks, domain names and
> get the donations, I'd say it is very important to know what they are up to
> indeed. But http://www.kde.org/kde-ev/ doesn't offer anything concrete.

I don't KDE eV yet owns any domain names.
 
> > The situation currently is bad b/c the statutes were not validly approved.
> > I will not be caught off guard at the next meeting :-).
> 
> So the ones that are up on-line are not even the currently active ones? I
> suppose I could play with cvs to get the old ones.. hrmph.

The ones that were updated recently are not the statutes, not sure why they were
put there.

Ciao,

Dre