Cameron & all,
a lot of serious, involved work is going on on this thread; however, some core
issues which I tried to phrase, but Steven (Feldman) expressed much crisper,
still remain unaddressed by the currently voted proposal:
* Inclusiveness
* Democracy
* Growth
* Openness
The proposal as it stands is in high danger of establishing a self-sustaining
oligarchy.
I am concerned that a body that claims to have international impact (through
project branding) high responsibility must be exercised in terms of
transparency, openness, and democratic principles.
-Peter
On 06/29/2014 10:26 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
OSGeo board,
In the interests of making a decision such that Jorge Salinas (our CRO) can
move forward, I propose the following process be followed for voting new
charter members in 2014:
1. Charter member to nominate potential new charter member(s) (as before).
2. Charter members then vote (in/out) nominated charter members. This will be
different to prior years, as we previously voted in a fixed number of members
for a larger selection pool. (eg vote in 20 people from a list of 30). For
this year, I propose we have a "Yes/No" vote. Ie, if we have a list of 30
candidates, we will ask all charter members to vote Yes or No against each
candidate. Each candidate with greater than 50% of YES votes will be included
as new charter members.
3. Charter members would be guided to select candidates who fit the "Positive
Attributes for Charter Members" as defined here:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process#Positive_Attributes
4. There will be no limit to the number of new charter members who can be
selected. This will require an update of
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process
5. Note: This vote is being put to the board and not to charter members as I
don't wish to complicate this decision by adding a 2nd (positive) idea for
change. We can address getting charter members to vote on issues as a separate
motion.
Board members, can you please all vote on above:
+1 Cameron
On 25/06/2014 9:31 pm, Cameron Shorter wrote:
Following the community discussion, I further researched OSGeo's foundation
documents, (in retrospect I should have done this earlier).
Of particular relevance to current discussion is our ByLaws:
http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/incorporation/bylaws.html
/Section 7.1. Admission of [Charter] Members. An initial group of up to
forty-five (45) persons shall be admitted as the initial [charter] members of
the corporation upon the affirmative vote of the Board of Directors of the
corporation. Thereafter, to be eligible for [charter] membership, a person
must be nominated by an existing [charter] member of the corporation pursuant
to a written document in such form as shall be adopted by the Board of
Directors from time to time. The nomination must be included in a notice to
the [charter] members at least ten (10) days in advance of the meeting at
which the [charter] members will vote on the applicant's admission. Proposed
[charter] members shall be admitted upon the affirmative vote of the members
of the corporation./
This section implies that the proposal below of automatically accepting
"Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders" is unconstitutional, as charter members
need to be voted into the role by existing charter members.
It also implies that while a separate paid membership category could be
created, paid members would still need to be voted into a charter member role
by existing charter members.
The ByLaws don't mention limiting the number of new charter members. This
criteria seems to have been introduced as a Membership Process by the 26th
Board meeting:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process
/The number of new members will be between 10% and one third of the existing
charter membership count as decided by the board/.
Such a statement created by the board, could be updated by the board, and as
such the board could agree to accept an unlimited number of new charter members.
So I'm now thinking that our election process can be simplified to:
1. Charter member to nominate potential new charter member(s)
2. Charter members then vote (in/out) against all nominated charter members
A suitable criteria for determining whether a nominee qualifies is listed
here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process#Positive_Attributes
4. Nominees with a majority of votes are included as new Charter Members
On 15/06/2014 9:52 am, Cameron Shorter wrote:
Within 2 weeks we intend to start our annual process for selecting new OSGeo
charter members.
In previous years the Charter Member selection process has been a little
contentious. We typically receive numerous nominations from high caliber
members of our community, and insufficient positions to accept them all.
This typically results in unnecessary disappointment and dissent.
In response, the OSGeo board has agreed to trial tweaking the voting
process. The aim is to automatically accept recognised OSGeo community
leaders, while continuing with our existing process which attracts the many
valuable community members who contribute in other ways. Community comments
are encouraged, and will be considered over the next week.
*Design guidelines:*
* We want a process which is simple to understand and implement.
* We want a process which encourages recognised OSGeo community leaders to
become OSGeo charter members, while continuing to accept members from the
many other valuable OSGeo roles.
* We want a process which is difficult to abuse.
* For the first iteration, we should err on being more selective in our
criteria, with potential widening of selection criteria in future years.
*Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders**
*
OSGeo aims to provide OSGeo Charter Membership to all recognised OSGeo
community leaders who are nominated. Hopefully, sufficient positions are
available. If there are more candidates than available, then membership will
be allocated to the first to be nominated. Remaining nominees will be
automatically offered to go through the standard voting process.
Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders are defined as people who have been
*voted* into a position of authority within official OSGeo projects and
committees, where the voting community includes at least 3 OSGeo charter
members.
Acceptable roles are currently limited to:
* Project Steering Committee member of a Graduated OSGeo Project
* Chair of Official Local Chapter
* Chair of an OSGeo committee
The application process for recognised OSGeo Community Leaders is the same
as for other nominees.
Full text of our processes are at:
* http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process_2014
* http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2014
--
Cameron Shorter,
Software and Data Solutions Manager
LISAsoft
Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
P +61 2 9009 5000, Wwww.lisasoft.com, F +61 2 9009 5099
--
Cameron Shorter,
Software and Data Solutions Manager
LISAsoft
Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
P +61 2 9009 5000, Wwww.lisasoft.com, F +61 2 9009 5099
--
Cameron Shorter,
Software and Data Solutions Manager
LISAsoft
Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
P +61 2 9009 5000, Wwww.lisasoft.com, F +61 2 9009 5099
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