Re: Boost Governance?

From: Niall Douglas (s_sourceforge_at_[hidden])
Date: 2021-05-07 13:12:55

On 06/05/2021 17:25, René Ferdinand Rivera Morell via Boost wrote:

> It's now been at least a year since Boost switched from the Software
> Freedom Conservancy to the Boost Foundation for its governance
> organization. But have people noticed any difference?

No

> Did you know that
> switch happened?

Yes. I think I was the very first person to propose it, in fact.

> Did you know that they held an election for the Board of
> Directors and for the Officers?

Yes

> Do you know when that election happened?

Roughly

> Do
> you know who got elected?

Yes

> Do you know how they were selected?

Yes

> Do you know
> what their responsibilities are?

Yes

> Do you know what their bylaws are?

Yes

> Do you
> know their financials?

Not in recent years, but I would be surprised if much has changed (Boost
is still very wealthy and getting ever wealthier)

> As a library author, I can say I definitely answered no to many of those
> questions. This is a problem. As authors, without asking, we should know
> those answers from the organization that governs our work. We should have
> input into how that organization governs. In other words, we deserve open
> and transparent governance; not the closed and opaque status quo.

It's not that any of this is hidden, it's just not loudly advertised.
Back when I noticed the changes I sent a quick email to Jon who answered
all the above questions. I think he also fixed some errata I had found
on the new website.

If you ask, you will be told. Very few here are interested nor care.
There is certainly nothing being hidden here. Boost development has been
divorced from Boost financing and governance for a very long time now,
but you may have noticed that in recent years there has been a proactive
attempt to bring more currently active Boost library maintainers onto
the governance board to try and close that gap. I agree things could
flow better in the direction of this mailing list specifically, but in
terms of governance regularly meeting with a good cross section of
currently active Boost library maintainers, that's been annual or better
since the beginning. Said maintainers just don't post here, or even read
here, much any more, and in some ways this mailing list is off doing its
own thing increasingly far away from Boost library maintenance.

Niall