Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 2015 Charter Member elections
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Vasile, thanks from here too for this very useful recap. I posted it more or less verbatim to the discussion page of the Charter Members article in the Wiki: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Talk:Membership_Process All, on the OSGeo Wiki we currently have 605 "self categorized" OSGeo members: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Category:OSGeo_Member This is the best we can currently do for anybody who is interested in becoming an OSGeo member apart from subscribing to the Discuss mailing list or being nominated as a "Charter Member" to be then elected by an eclectic group of geospatial whizzes. Just to reiterate: "Charter Members" are usually those who set up the charter of an organization: "A charter member of an organization is an original member; that is, one who became a member when the organization received its charter." - From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter After signing the Charter they can continue to participate actively in the organization, go away or even die - without any of this actually changing the Charter. What is OSGeo's Charter? My guess is that the section "About the Open Source Geospatial Foundation" contains what we would consider our Charter. As a legal body incorporated in Delaware, USA we needed to implement how the newly founded organization should support this charter. This has been written into the bylaws: http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/incorporation/bylaws.html In "ARTICLE VII Members" of our bylaws we specify how we plan to manage membership. There is no talk of "Charter Members", just "members". Looking at what we did almost 10 years ago it was probably the right thing to do at that time. But it may be good for an update. My suggestion is to change this section into regular membership and remove the self-pollinating aspect. At the same time we could update our "About" section into a proper Charter and then go ahead and operate as any regular member association. On a personal note: I do not see any danger of a hostile take-over. This was an important catch we put into the DNA of OSGeo when we founded it. There never was a hostile take-over and I cannot really see it coming. We are big enough to not need to fear this anymore. And we would make OSGeo a much more open and welcoming organization if we moved away from this somewhat strange self pollinating system. I am not really passionate about this and only consider it an overdue maintenance patch to how OSGeo functions. If there is no broad interest I am happy to drop the ball, otherwise I am as happy to help build a more appropriate member mechanism. Best regards, Seven - -- Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) OSGeo President Emeritus OSGeo Founding and Charter Member http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Arnulf_Christl On 30.06.2015 13:24, Gert-Jan van der Weijden - Stichting OSGeo.nl wrote: > Vasile: thanks for this very useful recap. > > > A few remarks from a relative newbie as I am ;-) > - the name of the wiki page with the charter members is already called > "voting members" ;-) > - the charter member list grows and grows. Over the year only 1 person > retired from the charter member list > - charter membership seems to drift towards a title of honour, instead of a > mechanism for proper board elections and prevent a hostile take-over > - the voting participant rate for the board elections is low over the years: > 70% - 85%. I would expect 100%! > > > Therefore, I'd suggest a voting membership with: > - a fixed number of seats (e.g. 72) > - with a certain numbers of seats reserved for each region [51], (e.g. 6*6, > and thus 36 remaining "wildcard"-seats). > - in case of not enough candidates, or note enough votes for a candidate > from a certain region, seats can remain empty > - a 3 term (instead of a lifetime membership, re-election possible) > - and a mechanism in which not all seats are elected every year, but > one-third every year, and thus all seats once every three years > > > Just my 2 eurocents, > > Gert-Jan > > > > [51] http://bl.ocks.org/jsanz/raw/779f9b9954b92461fa50/ > > > > > > -Oorspronkelijk bericht- > Van: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org > [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] Namens Vasile Craciunescu > Verzonden: maandag 29 juni 2015 15:08 > Aan: OSGeo Discussions > Onderwerp: [OSGeo-Discuss] 2015 Charter Member elections > > Dear all, > > First of all, please accept my apologies for the delay in sending this > message to you and, again, apologies for the length of the message. > > Let's start with some basic information about the charter member elections > followed by a little bit of history. I know that many of you already know > the details but the community is quite large now and I find this recap > useful. > > OSGeo charter members [1] are the blood of our foundation. They are voted > into this category by the other charter members. They have the right to vote > in elections for other charter members and for board members. T
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 2015 Charter Member elections
Vasile: thanks for this very useful recap. A few remarks from a relative newbie as I am ;-) - the name of the wiki page with the charter members is already called "voting members" ;-) - the charter member list grows and grows. Over the year only 1 person retired from the charter member list - charter membership seems to drift towards a title of honour, instead of a mechanism for proper board elections and prevent a hostile take-over - the voting participant rate for the board elections is low over the years: 70% - 85%. I would expect 100%! Therefore, I'd suggest a voting membership with: - a fixed number of seats (e.g. 72) - with a certain numbers of seats reserved for each region [51], (e.g. 6*6, and thus 36 remaining "wildcard"-seats). - in case of not enough candidates, or note enough votes for a candidate from a certain region, seats can remain empty - a 3 term (instead of a lifetime membership, re-election possible) - and a mechanism in which not all seats are elected every year, but one-third every year, and thus all seats once every three years Just my 2 eurocents, Gert-Jan [51] http://bl.ocks.org/jsanz/raw/779f9b9954b92461fa50/ -Oorspronkelijk bericht- Van: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] Namens Vasile Craciunescu Verzonden: maandag 29 juni 2015 15:08 Aan: OSGeo Discussions Onderwerp: [OSGeo-Discuss] 2015 Charter Member elections Dear all, First of all, please accept my apologies for the delay in sending this message to you and, again, apologies for the length of the message. Let's start with some basic information about the charter member elections followed by a little bit of history. I know that many of you already know the details but the community is quite large now and I find this recap useful. OSGeo charter members [1] are the blood of our foundation. They are voted into this category by the other charter members. They have the right to vote in elections for other charter members and for board members. They are required to act in accordance with the goals and bylaws [2] of the Foundation and have the following responsibilities: (1) annually vote for OSGeo Board members; (2) annually vote for new OSGeo Charter members and (3) be aware of and protect against a hostile takeover of OSGeo. Each year new charter members are nominated (nomination process is open for the entire community, not only to the existing charter members) and elected by existing OSGeo charter members, in a process supervised by the board [3] and operated by the Chief Returning Officer (CRO) [4]. Non-active members can retire or be removed by board decision. An updated list with all the current and past charter members is available on OSGEo website [5]. During the years the charter members selection procedure suffered minor and major changes as you can see bellow. OSGeo was created in early 2006 [7]. One of the main outcomes of the first OSGeo meeting (held in Chicago) [7] was a list of 21 foundation voting members (most of them high profile figures of the existing FOSS4G projects) and 5 interim directors [8]. Later that month, the first real elections started with a public nomination call [9] followed by a vote [10] and the election of new 24 voting members [11]. This was followed by a new nomination call [12] for the remaining four open seats in the board. After a tight vote, the first four candidates [13] from a list of eight [14] join the board. In June, after a f2f meeting, the new board redefined the OSGeo membership categories as we know today [15]. The voting members are now called "Charter Members" and they have the right to vote in elections for other charter members, and for board members. The other member categories (participant & members) have the right to nominate charter board members but they cannot cast votes. In March 2007, with the approach of the new charter members elections, discussion started about the ned for a CRO position, the number of new seats (and by who/how the number is decided) and the voting procedure (e.g. nomination and voting period extend, right to designate a proxy, the number of votes each charter member can submit) [16]. In June 2007 the nomination process [17] started with the aim to elect 15 charter members (the number was arbitrarily selected by the board). During the vote [18], each charter member was entitled to cast votes up to 15 names from the nomination list. It was possible to cast more than one vote to the same nominee (even all 15 votes). The same voting procedure was used for the 2008 charter member elections (including the number of seats, 15) [19]. However, the nomination list included 18 great names [20] and people start asking to accept all the names. Again, the method to pick the number of open seats was questioned again. Some people ask not to change the rules during the game and to select only 15 names. And 15th it was. Ironically, "there was a four-way tie for last place. So, the 15th perso
[OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G Seoul Preliminary Program Released
Dear All, FOSS4G Seoul team is very excited to announce the FOSS4G Seoul preliminary program.[0] You can see whole FOSS4G Seoul program at a glance and can see what kind of talks will be given through the main conference. You’ll find lots of interesting talks there. Please take a look at the preliminary program and plan your attending. Please be aware that this is preliminary program and subject to change without prior notice. FOSS4G Seoul team is looking forward to seeing all of you in Seoul soon. All the best, Sanghee [0]http://2015.foss4g.org/foss4g-seoul-2015-preliminary-program/ --- Sanghee Shin, Chair of FOSS4G 2015 Seoul "Toward Diversity! FOSS4G Bigbang from Seoul!" http://2015.foss4g.org Twitter: @foss4g Facebook: FOSS4G2015 email: foss4gch...@osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
