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Comment by ivanbakel | Hacker News Reader

Previous discussion on the Foundation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24988454

Also relevant if you read through those comments, and the discussion they include on FP Complete's involvement, is Michael Snoyman's more recent statement: https://www.snoyman.com/blog/2020/12/haskell-foundation

I think Snoyman makes a few good points - namely, it remains to be seen exactly what the Foundation can and will do, and what input the community is going to have in that process. While the criticism that was once made of Facebook/IOHK/FPC applies here (namely, that a large enough force will trump Haskellers who invest in the community), the Foundation has all the power to be much worse. The academic side of the language still carries the most weight.

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If you're worried that the Foundation might not live up to your expectations or go awry, keep in mind that it can only function insofar as it has input from the community. Feel free to apply for the board at https://haskell.foundation/board-nominations/, and if you think you can execute HF's technical agenda, try out for the Executive director position at https://haskell.foundation/ed-job-description/.

I appreciate the openness of these invitations, but they are ultimately not valuable to large parts of the community. I (like most people) am not in a position to become a board member - certainly not an Executive Director. There are obstacles of both personal qualification and free time (since I don't see any evidence that the position is paid).

Because of that, I'm much more interested in how the Board will determine how it can best serve the community, and gather community feedback. That question can only really be answered after the board members themselves have been chosen.

> I don't see any evidence that the position is paid

> Salary will be commensurate with the experience, qualities, and location of the individual, and will also reflect the Foundation’s status as a non-profit organisation funded by donations.

https://haskell.foundation/ed-job-description/

And for the position of board member, which is the more accessible of the two?

Board members are board members. They do not have executive function in the same sense as an Executive Director. The latter carries out the strategic plans decided by their Board, and serves as the day-to-day executive function. The Haskell Foundation's Board responsibilities are clearly delineated on the site, and is the more accessible position of the two. It is also unpaid, and not a function (necessarily) of tech experience, unlike the Executive Director, who must necessarily have at least some experience with project delivery and Haskell's ecosystem + community in order to function.

Here is what I imagine being on the board to be like:

"Call to order! We have here before us a motion to assign the task of deciding whether to remove 'Hello World' as a program from the documentation, given the ambiguity of its semantics. We have a second...the ayes have it, motion approved."

Or more like, "Here, let us nibble away at this $400k cheese, and by the time we get through the paperwork decide to make anything we'll hire someone on Fiverr to do a cornflower blue logo, but it will be SVG so they know we're serious.""

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