On Wed, Oct 31, 2007 at 10:45:11AM -0600, Nicholas Solter wrote: > reasonable assumption, and I'm not sure of the benefit of doing it > differently.
The benefits I see are that 1. It forces Groups to consider very carefully who should be named a Core Contributor, as part of their obligations to the OpenSolaris Community as a whole. Clearly, this only works if everyone is aware of it. 2. It provides for continuity. 3. It allows people who feel hard done by a particular Group several avenues for addressing the problem (such as constitutional amendments and voting on OGB members) that would not otherwise be available. 4. It allows people to take a vacation or follow changing interests without losing their Community-wide voting rights. > Now going to the constitution, I agree that we didn't "remove" them as > members. But I think I can still argue that we "terminated" their > membership according to 4.3. The last sentence of that paragraph says, > "A Member's membership shall be terminated upon the expiration of all The key word here is 'expiration' - grants expire 2 years from date of issue; what you've effectively done is not terminate them but notify them that you will no longer be renewing them. It's up in the air whether listing someone as a Core Contributor constitutes continuous renewal of that status as described in 4.3; it would probably be best if not (but this does mean that Groups will need to renew these grants). Roy may have more thoughts on this. As a strict constructionist, I could easily find ways out of this if you like. For one, the Members could resign. For another, I'm confident that the Secretary never received notice "of their willingness to accept the status of Member" as described in 4.2. The problem with this is that it would be selective enforcement; we've never actually required this. Unfortunately, although it would be better for everyone to follow the letter of the law and for the OGB to enforce it strictly, I personally am unwilling to do so because the OGB is basically under siege from all sides by people who seem to think we're burdening them with needless bureaucracy. In fact, if it is a burden, it's imposed not by us but by the constitution, but it's pulling teeth to get anyone to respect that and I'm tired of trying. That the tiny amount of bureaucracy has value is apparent to most only after some time has passed and incidents like this one have occurred, leading to confusion, wasted time, and undesired or unexpected outcomes. If the OGB and the OpenSolaris Community survive, I'm certain that future boards will have an easier time convincing people of the value offered by the rule of law. But we've had to choose our battles carefully and this wasn't one of them. -- Keith M Wesolowski "Sir, we're surrounded!" FishWorks "Excellent; we can attack in any direction!"
