Theodore Ts'o <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > When you get a checking account for any non-profit organization, the > bank wants one or two people to be authorized signatories [...]
True but largely irrelevant, which is why I didn't comment on this analogy last time it was posted. I apologise for the detail here, but in short, I think it ignores who resolves what when a group opens a bank account and that the named signatories are not necessarily the account holder. The detailed banking/signatory resolutions I've signed are made by the group, not the bank. We already have a group "resolution" here: the Debian project constitution. I know most banking resolutions use a suggested wording from the bank and the bank sometimes insists on particular features, but those are usually set by general policy, not on a per-account basis. Per-account offers would leave a bank open to all sorts of accusations of favouritism and inconsistency, as well as being a non-scaling nightmare to manage. SPI has already approved a general policy: the associated project framework. Included in that is a promise not to interfere in project decision-making. If the SPI "bank" now insists on features like no recognition of non-"signatory" decision-making (if it exists - AFAIK it doesn't for most SPI projects), SPI should change its policy and then ask each affected group for new mandates or exits. I think it's improper to unilaterally impose it, especially given that SPI was asked to comment on updating that mandate only a few months ago and didn't! (At least, I found no reply on debian-vote or spi-general.) No bank that I've seen refuses to respect all properly-made decisions of the account holder, even if there are named signatories. In fact, I'm not sure it's valid to do so: if the group wants to close its account but the signatories don't, the account holder (group) wins. A DPL-only/constitution-free resolution would make the debian project account into the DPL account, wouldn't it? Is SPI sure that it can redesignate donations to the debian project as donations to the debian project leader? At least the debian project would know more clearly what "account" it had, instead of the conflicting arguments from board members about whether non-DPL decisions can use SPI-held property. > This is a simple API, but it does not involve "rewriting the project > constitution". Claiming that the project constitution requires SPI or > a bank to be intimately involved with the project internal politics is > completely bogus and makes no sense. Which is why no-one seems to be doing that besides strawman-building, presumably. Just nominating one individual seems incomplete and would mean that 1/ SPI would have to re-resolve if the debian project took certain decisions about its relationship with SPI; and/or 2/ SPI would not recognise some debian project decisions without another SPI resolution; and/or 3/ the funds would be DPL funds rather than debian project funds (which will usually mean the same, but maybe not always). Neither 1 or 2 scale, and I believe 3 would be interfering in project internal decision-making and possibly other problems. 2007-02-28.iwj.1 included both individuals as recognition of the current situation and ultimate authority of the project's constitution, while emphasising that project members should alert SPI to any relevant things not mentioned by the individual. I think that was a sound approach and answered most tell-me-who-to-listen-to requests. I'm disappointed the current DPL objected to it. I'm not going to comment on the 85% approval rating guff here, except to lament the continuing rise of confrontation politics over my preferred cooperation and consensus: it'd be better to react to honest "this is the line I'll not cross" statements by meeting on common ground instead of opening battle-fronts at those lines. Hope that explains, -- MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Webmaster/web developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop maker, developer of koha, debian, gobo, gnustep, various mail and web s/w. Workers co-op @ Weston-super-Mare, Somerset http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ _______________________________________________ Spi-general mailing list Spi-general@lists.spi-inc.org http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general
