[kwlug-disc] Richard Stallman announcing his return to the FSF's Board of Directors

[Mikalai Birukou]

Wow
> On Sun, 2021/03/28 12:39:56PM -0400, Mikalai Birukou via kwlug-disc <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org> wrote:
> | Interesting tidbit, there is no public list of FSF board members:
> | https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/1375716381073813508
>
> It appears that the annual form 990 filings must list current officers,
> directors, and trustees, but of course those filings are only available
> after the fact.

I personally don't think its enough to have only government-mandated 
docs for organization of these inspirations.

> Linked to from
>      https://www.fsf.org/about/financial
> 2019 filing:
>      https://static.fsf.org/nosvn/financial-statements/Form990-FY2019.pdf
>      2019 Part VII page 7, August 14 2020
> which to my uninformed reading seems to say that Stallman was a
> director as of that date (though I could be wrong).

Part I, Summary, lines 3 to 6.

Line 3, number of voting members: 8.

Line 4, number of independent voting members: 8. I assume it is a number 
out of that on line 3. And I wonder about technical meaning of 
"independent" here, cause, looking at PART VII, Section A, all these are 
directors.

Line 5, number of individuals employed: 14.

Line 6, number of volunteers: 2335.


Wow. 8, 14, 2335.

- Sheer orders of magnitude suggest that it is foolish to ignore even a 
bit emotional abuse from the top.

- There are only 8 (eight) people who voted. As has been said elsewhere 
membership dues didn't give you the vote. Ma-a-an. Even in Communitech 
startups (members) have more nominal power.

- Part VI, Section A, 3 says No. No, there is no further oversight/control.


At this point my mind goes into "what a genius to have inbuilt checks 
and balances in constitution, yada, yada, yada". Otherwise, given long 
enough time, abuses may happen unchecked.