[FAmSCo] One more example of how broken the premier events budget management is

[Christoph Wickert]

Am Mittwoch, den 02.01.2013, 21:46 +0100 schrieb Joerg Simon:
>
> I think that contributors deserve a fast reimbursement - independent
> from this premier event discussion

I fully agree - and that's exactly why I am so worried about premier
events. Reimbursements have become faster for everything we can handle
but not for premier events.

> > Where did this approval take place? In private mail between Robyn and
> > Jörg? Is this somehow documented other than "as agreed with Robyn"? I
> > mean, I do trust both of you,
> 
> It is good that you trust me and the FPL ;) but again - it does not
> really matter in this case (it matters to me personally)
> 
> i refer again to Johns very good explanation [1]
> "I have explained to FAmSCo in the past, or at least tried to, that the
> existing Community Credit Card holders entered into an agreement with
> Red Hat Finance governing the use of those cards. That agreement is what
> binds me in making determinations about its use. The bottom line is that
> anything FAmSCo says about it is irrelevant as it isn't their credit
> card to control and I have no agreement with them about its use one way
> or the other...
> .... Our fundamental task is to help Red Hat pay legitimate Fedora
> expenses and Red Hat has trust in us to decide what makes an expense
> legitimate. In almost every case in my experience my judgment is formed
> by accepting the legitimacy of FAmSCo, FAmNA, the FPL, and potentially
> other established decision making points that have prior to the expense
> being made authorized or approved it..."
> (please read the whole explanation before responding to this statement
> to have the full context)

I think John's mail is worth a separate discussion, so I am making this
short:

Neither FAmSCo nor the whole Fedora Project are legal entities. They
cannot make or sign contracts, they don't exist from a legal point of
view.

The only legal entity we have is Red Hat. Therefor the contract has to
be between Red Hat and the credit card holders. This certainly means
that the credit card holder is bound to Red Hat and not to Fedora or
FAmSCo from a legal perspective.

But it does not mean credit card holders are not bound to FAmSco or
Fedora governance from the 'moral' point of view. Having a legal
obligation to Red Hat does not imply that there is no obligation to
Fedora's governance. And this is why it's too easy to claim "anything
FAmSCo says is irrelevant".

Sure, it's not "our" credit card, Fedora or FAmSCo cannot issue credit
cards. But these credit cards were issued *on behalf* and *for the sake*
of the project. The contract with Red Hat is a legal requirement, not a
blessing to bypass Fedora governance.

I am not aware there ever were attempts to bypass governance, neither
you nor John or any other credit card holder tried it. That's why I
wonder why we are discussing this at great length. Why do the two of you
insist on having the right to bypass a process when you have no
intentions to do this?

> If the FPL and i agree on a pending reimbursements, no matter from/for
> which group - there is nothing left to discuss

You are mixing up things again. ;) My concerns were about transparency
and documenting a decision, not about approval.

But your statement raises an interesting question: What if there is a
disagreement between FAmSCo and the cc holder or card holder plus FPL?

I was under the impression that FAmSCo members and credit card holders
were equals. They always were allowed to approve requests up to the same
limit. When you now say "there is nothing to discuss", you are
effectively telling us that credit card holders and the FPL can
overpower FAmSCo and don't need to abide Fedora governance. I don't
think this is true, not even the FPL can overpower it (he/she just has
veto powers).

> > but what if there was a misunderstanding?
> > What if something goes wrong and the credit card holder gets in trouble
> > with Red Hat finance dept.?
> > The credit card holders are ultimately responsible for their expenses.
> > This is a big burden and the least we can do is to clearly document
> > everything. 
> 
> And what is intransparent if i report it to the ticket right after that?

Please try to understand that it's not about you but about anybody, it's
about the process. Anybody can claim that $whoever has approved
something, either because of a misunderstanding or even bad intentions.

> > This means the person who approved something should clearly
> > state this somewhere - themselves, written down and in public. Having
> > somebody say somebody else approved something hardly counts.
> 
> thanks Christoph for your good intent - but you do not help here -
> instead you make it harder by trying to putting up barriers for me -

I am trying to lower the barrier for you. It shouldn't be your duty to
write a mail to somebody and report back when he/she approved the
expense. Instead, that person should do it in the ticket. That's less
work and more security for you.

> instead of writing this email i could have reimbursed the tickets in the
> same time. Please do not interfere with my business as CommCard Holder
> that is on RedHat and on the FPL not on you.

For the record: The FPL has nothing to do with the credit cards. The
credit cards were an initiative of Max when he was working for Red Hat
as community architect and Paul was the FPL. The FPL did not issue the
credit cards and has no say over them. I mean, if FAmSCo is
"irrelevant", why should the FPL have a say?

> Again, Red Hat has trust in us (commcard holder)to decide what makes an
> expense legitimate - and if we say we have a agreement with the - it
> counts even if it is only verbal! 

See above. Red Hat does trust you, and so do we. But we trust you to
work *with* us as part of Fedora governance.

> In this case also the peer review
> would apply but this is another story...

My understanding is different: According to the wiki the premier events
budget is managed by the budget owner and not by FAmSCo or credit card
holders.

I really don't understand why you bring up the topic of credit card
holders 'vs.' FAmSCo again. I thought we discussed this already and I
explained you that nothing has really changed. I mean, what do you think
has changed? Not even the concerns John raised are new, these problems
existed before we changed anything. So what is it that upsets you?

Kind regards,
Christoph