First of all I am not proposing anything, nor am i complaining about anything. I am just bringing to your notice what I think is a very serious problem with the OpenID board. And yes let us face it. There definitely is a serious leadership vacuum here. I am sure every one is aware of it but nobody speaks about it.
As you said Don is an infrastructure guy, but why bring Don into this at all. I dont think he was hired for a leadership role at all. The leader has to be the chairman of the board. The chairman must be a technical wiz plus someone who can lead from the front, and should be rallying the community. I cant see someone who is good at both here, technology and rallying the flock. Actually I dont mind one of the corporate members being chairman of the board provided he has a written mandate from his company to work as he wishes independently on a board like this. Something like the mandate given to Eran from Yahoo. Chris Messina wrote: > > Santosh, I'm not sure what you're proposing. > If there is a leadership vacuum in the community, complaining about it > doesn't seem like an effective way to address it. > > That said, I certainly think that the Foundation via the board has not > been > terribly effective in its communications and outreach since the elections. > That said, much has been happening, albeit in many different places so > keeping track of everything is very challenging — even for those directly > working on these things. > > A couple weeks back I sent Don a list of interview-style questions that I > had hoped would have made it to the blog by now, but alas I've not heard > back from him yet. Don has pointed out that he is more of an > infrastructure > kind of guy — who likes to operate behind the scenes, and so combining > that > style of leadership with an otherwise quiet board can of course lead to > questions of progress. > > I also noticed that the board's meeting minutes have not been published to > the wiki recently, so I'll go an make sure that they are copied from this > list to the wiki, so at least you can trace the conversations that have > gone > on over the last several months. > > I would be interested in hearing solid proposals for rallying the > community > — and coordinating efforts if the board is unable or unavailable to do so. > I > have ideas myself, but not the time or ability to implement them at the > moment. > > Chris > > On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Santosh Rajan <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> >> Allen I think you missed a major point here. >> It is nice to know about Yahoo's work. Other coorporates have also done a >> lot of work, like Google, Facebook etc. >> >> But what about the independent community members? Nothing!! Or atleast I >> haven't seen any work coming from then. >> >> I think in Open Communities the most important contributions must come >> from >> the independant members and not the coorporate members. Independent >> members >> are not "boxed in" by coorporate objectives. >> >> Corporate members are focussed by their companies. Independent >> individuals >> need community leadership, otherwise they will end up running around like >> headless chicken. Which is more or less what is happenning now. >> >> >> >> Allen Tom-2 wrote: >> > >> > Hi all, >> > >> > Yahoo is very heavily invested in OpenID and we have a bunch of >> > engineers and designers currently working on enhancements to our OpenID >> > service. Earlier this year, we worked with the community to write the >> > OpenID UI and OAuth/Hybrid Extensions, and the Yahoo OP will be >> > implementing both of these extensions in the very near future. >> > >> > In addition to protocol enhancements, we have a crack team of >> UI/Product >> > designers and researchers who are actively experimenting with ways to >> > improve the overall usability of our OpenID service. We'll be deploying >> > many significant upgrades to the Yahoo OpenID Provider's user interface >> > later this year. The new OpenID UI, along with support for the UI and >> > Hybrid Extensions, and our soon to be released support for Open >> Social's >> > REST based APIs (including Portable Contacts) will be a huge upgrade to >> > our existing Open Stack offering. >> > >> > We've also been working behind the scenes to line up several new and >> > exciting Relying Parties to accept OpenID. Every potential Relying >> Party >> > that I've been working with wants to accept not just Yahoo OpenID, but >> > also OpenIDs from other Providers, which is making a really strong case >> > for interoperability and open standards. >> > >> > Yahoo along with other OPs and Relying Parties are committing plenty of >> > resources for OpenID and are actively working towards the goal of >> > having OpenID reach widespread usage and adoption. Many of these >> > efforts are behind the scenes, and aren't really visible on the public >> > mailing lists, so perhaps the OpenID Foundation can take the lead in >> > publicizing the activities that its membership is actively working on. >> > >> > Allen >> > >> > >> > Nat wrote: >> >> Hi >> >> >> >> Inline below: >> >> >> >> =...@tokyo via iPhone >> >> >> >> On 2009/07/30, at 2:22, David Recordon <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> >>> Forwarding these three posts from the General list. Not because I >> >>> agree with all of the sentiments expressed, but because it shows how >> >>> we as a board and organization are clearly not being transparent >> >>> enough in the activities that are actually being taken on. >> >>> >> >>> Two ideas I think that we should seriously consider are: >> >>> 1) making use of a project management tool like Basecamp >> >>> (http://www.basecamphq.com/) so that at least the entire board and >> >>> Don know the status of each project that is underway >> >> >> >> I strongly agree to this. >> >> >> >>> 2) having Don write a monthly blog post about OpenID's achievements >> >>> the past month and what the Foundation has accomplished >> >> >> >> +1 >> >> >> >>> >> >>> Thoughts? >> >>> >> >>> --David >> >>> >> >>> Begin forwarded message: >> >>> >> >>>> From: Santosh Rajan <[email protected]> >> >>>> Date: July 28, 2009 11:11:03 PM PDT >> >>>> To: [email protected] >> >>>> Subject: Re: [OpenID] Google's proprietary discovery extension? >> >>>> >> >>>> >> >>>> Hehe! Shade for once I am going to agree with you. >> >>>> Why do we have a chairman? Isnt he supposed to be leading the flock >> and >> >>>> showing the way? >> >>>> And what about the rest of the board. This is the "coldest" board I >> >>>> have >> >>>> ever seen. >> >>>> I think Eran Hammer should have been the chairman of the board! I >> >>>> wonder why >> >>>> he disappeared from here 2 yrs back. (I have seen some posts from >> >>>> him from >> >>>> 2007). >> >>>> >> >>>> >> >>>> SitG Admin wrote: >> >>>>> >> >>>>>> There is no sign of the "STD mechanism" coming soon. >> >>>>> >> >>>>> Perhaps it will arrive after Chris Messina's "Policy Expression >> >>>>> Extension" passes ;) >> >>>>> >> >>>>>> Apathy on the part of the OpenID Foundation. >> >>>>> >> >>>>> Inaction, or so it may appear; timely, though? >> >>>>> >> >>>>>> Half the Identity folk have moved on to Kantara Initiative. >> >>>>>> The Other half to the Open Web foundation. >> >>>>>> XRI TC has tied itself in knots. >> >>>>>> And the hilarious part is that there are folk involved in all >> >>>>>> these three >> >>>>>> foundations! >> >>>>> >> >>>>> Sounds like good separation of duties to me. If the rest of us can >> >>>>> still interop (and work is still being done that *needs* to be done >> >>>>> before we can move forward), it doesn't really matter where most of >> >>>>> the various communities is doing that work. >> >>>>> >> >>>>>> No idea were the rest of us should bail out to!? >> >>>>> >> >>>>> If the development of OpenID were to halt now, I think it would be >> >>>>> Federated implementations that found themselves hardest hit; small, >> >>>>> independent operators such as myself (working with libraries >> already >> >>>>> distributed "in the wild") might not even notice. >> >>>>> >> >>>>> -Shade >> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >> >>>>> general mailing list >> >>>>> [email protected] >> >>>>> http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/general >> >>>>> >> >>>>> >> >>>> >> >>>> >> >>>> ----- >> >>>> >> >>>> Santosh Rajan >> >>>> http://santrajan.blogspot.com http://santrajan.blogspot.com >> >>>> -- >> >>>> View this message in context: >> >>>> >> http://www.nabble.com/Re%3A-Google%27s-proprietary-discovery-extension--tp24414092p24713025.html >> >>>> >> >>>> Sent from the OpenID - General mailing list archive at Nabble.com. >> >>>> >> >>>> _______________________________________________ >> >>>> general mailing list >> >>>> [email protected] >> >>>> http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/general >> >>> >> >>> _______________________________________________ >> >>> board mailing list >> >>> [email protected] >> >>> http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/board >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> board mailing list >> >> [email protected] >> >> http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/board >> > >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > board mailing list >> > [email protected] >> > http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/board >> > >> > >> >> >> ----- >> >> Santosh Rajan >> http://santrajan.blogspot.com http://santrajan.blogspot.com >> -- >> View this message in context: >> http://www.nabble.com/Perception-of-the-Foundation-%28Was%3A-Fwd%3A--OpenID--Google%27s-proprietary-discovery-extension-%29-tp24724040p24730408.html >> Sent from the OpenID - Foundation Board mailing list archive at >> Nabble.com. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> board mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/board >> > > > > -- > Chris Messina > Open Web Advocate > > Personal site: http://factoryjoe.com > Twitter: http://twitter.com/chrismessina > > Diso Project: http://diso-project.org > OpenID Foundation: http://openid.net > > This email is: [ ] bloggable [X] ask first [ ] private > > _______________________________________________ > board mailing list > [email protected] > http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/board > > ----- Santosh Rajan http://santrajan.blogspot.com http://santrajan.blogspot.com -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Perception-of-the-Foundation-%28Was%3A-Fwd%3A--OpenID--Google%27s-proprietary-discovery-extension-%29-tp24724040p24731706.html Sent from the OpenID - Foundation Board mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ board mailing list [email protected] http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/board
