On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 5:36 PM, Jim Perrin<jperrin at gmail.com> wrote: > On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 6:47 PM, Johnny Hughes<johnny at centos.org> wrote: >> Why ... we are under no obligation to tell people how how we spend >> monies. There are costs that are incurred for any organization. We are >> probably going to disclose how monies are spent in the future because we >> choose to. If you run a private organization, must you tell me how you >> spend your money? You get an OS and can chose to donate monies or not. > > We're not under any obligation to tell people how the money gets > spent, but doing so certainly goes a long way building good will. In > my opinion, a simple 'We got X monies in donations which were used to > purchase dedicated hosting, bandwidth, and various novelties for booth > and show kit' once in a while would do worlds of good for showing > people how we use the money they choose to give us. > > I don't have any legal obligation to help old ladies cross the street, > or rescue cats from trees. It's what you do because you're a good > person. Doing this in a community sense is what makes you a good > neighbor, and what helps build community reputation. I have to agree with Jim here. It is not legal obligation or anything. IF I am running a project and ask the community for help and I receive donations (monetary or in the form of thousands of donated hours), I would feel obliged to return back to the community. And in doing so, I would want to disclose everything. Once again, this is not due to any legal requirements but because I would feel the project is no longer my private toy and I owe the community. >> We are hiding nothing ... why exactly does CentOS need to provide that >> information to you? > Thinking that this is entirely an internal manner is a bit > short-sighted. Keeping all the problems internal doesn't solve them. > Not to speak for Dag, but judging by his blog reaction to the news, > the finance issue and lack of openness is part of what drove his > departure. If we move to adopt a slightly more open approach and > include more community efforts, I believe that we'll see a great deal > of good from it. > > It's not that we OWE the community anything. It's that we should do it > because it's how we want to be treated, and how we SHOULD deal with > them while we participate in the project. I mostly agree with Jim. As I wrote above, if this was my project, I would feel I *owe* the community. But that is strictly my personal feelings. I cannot imagine how I can ever pay back if those who donated their time ask for refund. :) Akemi