subtoot, matrix
No details on how the Foundation intends to materially support socio-economically disadvantaged elected board members, of course...
They only mention that they will seek to accommodate remote participants (which is good!) but nothing about how they will make it possible for people to do the job to begin with (like who pays for travel costs, whether there is financial support, what to expect from the board meetings exactly...)
FOSS "foundations" in general
Every time I see some sort of 'Foundation' anywhere in FOSS announce 'representatives' and 'elections' I check whether they have done the work to make the process inclusive, and every. single. time. the answer is "no"
Corollary: if you have a governance problem, and you create a Foundation... you now have *two* governance problems, and one of them is the board
(That last bit is not applicable to Matrix, to be clear)
@joepie91 this is something even larger: it was for example one difference between the Greens and the Pirates in Germany:
- The Greens pay the travel and part of the expenses of representatives elected by district groups to go to country-level meetings.
- The Pirates expected them (in the beginning, I don’t know the current state) to come without payment.
The Pirates were initially surprised why mostly well-off men were present at the larger meetings.
I really wish more people would realize that "non-profit foundations", as a concept, are fundamentally designed for abled white cis men and the personal resources that come with that, and that unless you *very actively* subvert this, that is the bias that you will be perpetuating in any sort of project or group that is governed by one, regardless of what your code of conduct says