Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
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.
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
Hey Peter, so what would be your suggestions to make the process more of the 4 bullet points you mentioned? Best regards, Bart On 30 Jun 2014, at 09:24, Peter Baumann p.baum...@jacobs-university.de wrote: 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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
Hi Bart, what I have in mind is the following (but for sure not the only possible way): - have a well-defined membership status (registered on OSGeo list, paid membership, whatever other criterion) - have 2 rounds of election: * everybody (=members, or even outsiders) can suggest anybody from membership (ie, members in good standing, such as fees paid, if applicable) * from that list, membership elects with simple majority - elected seats are valid until next election (maybe 2 years, to decrease the election effort required) - accepted and incubating projects get one extra seat each, reflecting the impact OSGeo is exercising on them. However, these should always be (strictly) less than 50% of the overall seats so that projects alone can never dominate over the group of elected persons. So this above is a brief sketch, attempting to accommodate: - democracy, opennness, inclusiveness - the perceived need to have projects represented cheers, Peter On 06/30/2014 09:27 AM, Bart van den Eijnden wrote: Hey Peter, so what would be your suggestions to make the process more of the 4 bullet points you mentioned? Best regards, Bart On 30 Jun 2014, at 09:24, Peter Baumann p.baum...@jacobs-university.de mailto:p.baum...@jacobs-university.de wrote: 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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
In general this sounds workable for this year. Nominations will no longer compete against each other but only against the benchmark of what makes a good member. The only reservation I have is on the 50% Yes/No, but maybe I just need a clarification. I see plenty of people potentially voting Yes/No/Abstain(just not marking a particular candidate). So is 50% of the number of people who picked Yes vs No or is 50% the total number of charter members or is 50% the number of charter members who voted in the election? How this line is calculated varies the number of required votes. FYI, only voting Yes and skipping No give people about the same style of vote as the previous method. To me more than a few no votes for a person seems somewhat controversial. At the same time we don't want to give veto power to small groups of people. If a vote is close 50/49, do we really want to allow someone in the 49 charter members clearly have a reason for rejecting? I don't really have a suggestion at this time for what the right way to solve this is. Thanks, Alex On 06/29/2014 01:26 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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
If I have understood this procedure correctly: The board is voted for by the Charter Members, new Charter Members are proposed and voted for by the existing Charter Members, there may be a limit placed on the number of new Charter Members set by the board. Membership of OSGeo does not seem to confer any rights on the member. Do we need to review our foundation docs to find a more inclusive procedure? Steven Feldman about me: stevenfeldman t: @StevenFeldman skype: stevenfeldman2638 On 25 Jun 2014, at 20:00, discuss-requ...@lists.osgeo.org wrote: From: Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members Date: 25 June 2014 12:31:03 BST To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org 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 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
Correct: “membership”, by design at the original founding meeting, was designed not to confer ANY rights or distinguishing properties except for the ability to vote for board members. While the election process is pretty messy right now, I view that as a solvable problem: I’m still at a loss to understand why we’d want to change anything more than that. -mpg On Jun 26, 2014, at 2:58 AM, Steven Feldman shfeld...@gmail.com wrote: If I have understood this procedure correctly: The board is voted for by the Charter Members, new Charter Members are proposed and voted for by the existing Charter Members, there may be a limit placed on the number of new Charter Members set by the board. Membership of OSGeo does not seem to confer any rights on the member. Do we need to review our foundation docs to find a more inclusive procedure? Steven Feldman ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 06/23/2014 09:33 PM, b.j.kob...@utwente.nl wrote: I am very dissapointed in this whole membership/fees discussion. In reading the emails one does not see the international volunteer community I would like to think OSGEO is (should be), but it rather seems we are dealing with a US-based professional organisation, mostly keen on not paying US taxes, and that is not what I want OSGEO to become... Hey Barend, if it makes you feel any better - I can still see the volunteer driven OSGeo and have no intention to drop out just because there are ideas to move to a more consistent way of mapping members. I have been CRO in two consecutive years and cannot see any advantage in sticking with the non-system we have had so far. Instead, my hopes are that a fee based membership can broaden the base we are one. It would make so many things so much easier. I also believe that we have grown to a size where we do not have to fear a hostile takeover so that a lot of the self-referencing and sustaining mechanisms we put in place to start with are not required any more. It would be a pity if others and especially existing OSGeo Charter Members would feel negatively about the proposed suggestions so I beg you all to voice your concerns now. And we should make sure that we pass any changes of this format by the existing Charter Members and make sure there is a fat majority of support for it. Otherwise we would betray our principles which is exactly what we tried to prevent with the existing system in place. Have fun, Arnulf -- Barend Köbben ITC - University of Twente PO Box 217, 7500AE Enschede (The Netherlands) +31-(0)53 4874 253 @barendkobben On 23-06-14 21:00, Alex Mandel tech_...@wildintellect.com wrote: On 06/19/2014 11:58 AM, Peter Baumann wrote: Hi all, good - and important! - discussion! Being Charter Member I am somewhat concerned: - I am surprised that the common democratic procedure of election is perceived as creating dissent. Well it's somewhat conjecture without public confirmation that someone walked away from OSGeo because they didn't get picked. - yes, democracy is expensive, but generally it is considered worth the effort. - is lifelong membership compatible with community participation? Nope and we've actually have discussed in the past what the rules should be to weed out charter members who no longer particpate in the community. - Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders seem to get determined in a very special, selective way (as compared to standard election procedures). Altogether, the criteria seem to make OSGeo a self-sustaining group: insiders will remain insiders for a lifetime, outsiders will...well, face a hurdle. So the contrary of open. Just an idea: what about applying the OSGeo incubation checklist to OSGeo itself to determine feasible procedures? cheers, Peter I think the discussion of membership fees is timely this year now that we officially have our IRS 501c4 status. Why, well when we were aiming for 501c3 that would have given us donations as tax write offs for US members. Without that incentive to donate, membership now seems like it might be the way to push individuals to donate. The amount should be researched quite a bit though, factoring in how to reach maximum membership, with lowest overhead (collecting and tracking membership will incur a cost). Since we don't maintain a huge office, an in print journal, a lobbyist or things like that we should be able to be much lower that other professional societies. I agree it should be relative to country of members, and there probably should be some sharing in places where local chapters exist - or the local chapters trust us to split the money back to them for things they need. I'd suggest something in the $20-$30 US, students $5-$10. Maybe with a sliding scale like PBS or Kickstarter, where if you voluntarily pay more in a given year you get swag of some sort. I'm trying to avoid the syndrome (I'm guilty of this) where one pays for membership only in a year when it will get you a discount worth more than the membership for the conference. I agree with Arnulf that these decisions should probably go to e-vote of all the current charter members, the boards responsibility is to put forward a coherent plan for the vote. Obviously if the board all hates the ideas it should stop there for now. Thanks, Alex ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss - -- http://metaspatial.net -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
Well I just have to chime in... I do promote osgeo projects all the time. I don't get paid. I am a Charter Member. This sometimes is useful for people to understand the sense of community that exists in Open Source projects, as opposed to other associations who are in fact many times seen (and are in fact) protectorate systems for a profession or market/business (also lobbying) generally benefiting a well defined group of individuals and companies. So if I have to pay for membership I will have no feedback for that money since all the work I do promoting and educating on open source in gis is volunteered. And I still am requested to pay on top of that... This is to say membership has value *for OSGeo*. Many times it has no monetary value for volunteers. So I can flip this and say, OSGeo should be paying me and thousands of volunteers around the world. At least a small recognition should be given that OSGeo reach is based on people who will not pay the fees, have no income from open source, and still do the work because they see some kind of social/community/long term general benefit from open source. Paying fees seems to undermine the open relationship between OSGeo and its bases. I am not 100% against fees but there should be always a way to not pay fees and keep the open free model, volunteer based, membership. If you want, you can have the fees as donations and not compulsory. Give a badge to those who pay. Best, Duarte -Mensagem original- De: Mr. Puneet Kishor [mailto:punk.k...@gmail.com] Enviada: segunda-feira, 23 de Junho de 2014 17:41 Para: Howard Butler Cc: ML osgeo discuss Assunto: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members On Jun 23, 2014, at 6:08 PM, Howard Butler how...@hobu.co wrote: Do you lose a significant benefit by not being a Charter Member? Just the ability to vote for the board and the ability to tout your exclusivity on a vita/resume. Anything else? Lack of membership does not prevent anyone from participating now, and we wouldn't want it to (unlike many other professional organizations). I don't lose anything significant, which implies that everything significant I gain from OSGeo's community is unaffected by my membership. This is one of the reasons I don't attend foss4g anymore (actually, mainly because I can't afford to do so). I will still support all the community ideals and aspirations to the fullest possible. In short, I consider this both my vote for membership dues and the concurrent renunciation of my membership as a result. -- Puneet Kishor ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
Hi, I was following this thread with disbelief how most of the participants don't understand which is the situation of open idea, open source applications and open data in most countries round the world. And what kind of support those people get when trying to bring message to disbelievers. And how small is the group of actives really working. Yes, there is much more members, those who are actually end users taking only benefits and nagging about missing features. And the fight against commercial sector, how much you get back kicking with out real facts? If membership fees are needed, if yearly reporting is needed and if you have to organize real elections, we'll be in trouble. First of all we have to establish a society which is eligible to have bookkeeping, bank accounts, board and official meetings for its election etc. A lot of bureaucracy which will be above the work pain already done by the few volunteers (who are by themselves not satisfied currently to their own efforts due lack of time). If we don't establish a society (without that is impossible to collect money) we should pay these fees to some other country! And then it would be even more difficult to attract people to join. And who will get the benefits of our money then? Of course in organization (OsGeo) those members who represent larger groups(countries can reach their goals easier and can direct the development and efforts to goals more powerful than smaller group representatives or those who lack totally their man/woman. So none in this discussion has presented democratic way, how to ensure equality, in this sense. The timing of this discussion is perfect as it's holiday season and very very few people in northern Europe is reading their emails. Cheers, Kari On 06/24/2014 09:57 AM, Arnulf Christl wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 06/23/2014 09:33 PM, b.j.kob...@utwente.nl wrote: I am very dissapointed in this whole membership/fees discussion. In reading the emails one does not see the international volunteer community I would like to think OSGEO is (should be), but it rather seems we are dealing with a US-based professional organisation, mostly keen on not paying US taxes, and that is not what I want OSGEO to become... Hey Barend, if it makes you feel any better - I can still see the volunteer driven OSGeo and have no intention to drop out just because there are ideas to move to a more consistent way of mapping members. I have been CRO in two consecutive years and cannot see any advantage in sticking with the non-system we have had so far. Instead, my hopes are that a fee based membership can broaden the base we are one. It would make so many things so much easier. I also believe that we have grown to a size where we do not have to fear a hostile takeover so that a lot of the self-referencing and sustaining mechanisms we put in place to start with are not required any more. It would be a pity if others and especially existing OSGeo Charter Members would feel negatively about the proposed suggestions so I beg you all to voice your concerns now. And we should make sure that we pass any changes of this format by the existing Charter Members and make sure there is a fat majority of support for it. Otherwise we would betray our principles which is exactly what we tried to prevent with the existing system in place. Have fun, Arnulf On 23-06-14 21:00, Alex Mandel tech_...@wildintellect.com wrote: On 06/19/2014 11:58 AM, Peter Baumann wrote: Hi all, good - and important! - discussion! Being Charter Member I am somewhat concerned: - I am surprised that the common democratic procedure of election is perceived as creating dissent. Well it's somewhat conjecture without public confirmation that someone walked away from OSGeo because they didn't get picked. - yes, democracy is expensive, but generally it is considered worth the effort. - is lifelong membership compatible with community participation? Nope and we've actually have discussed in the past what the rules should be to weed out charter members who no longer particpate in the community. - Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders seem to get determined in a very special, selective way (as compared to standard election procedures). Altogether, the criteria seem to make OSGeo a self-sustaining group: insiders will remain insiders for a lifetime, outsiders will...well, face a hurdle. So the contrary of open. Just an idea: what about applying the OSGeo incubation checklist to OSGeo itself to determine feasible procedures? cheers, Peter I think the discussion of membership fees is timely this year now that we officially have our IRS 501c4 status. Why, well when we were aiming for 501c3 that would have given us donations as tax write offs for US members. Without that incentive to donate, membership now seems like it might be the way to push individuals to donate. The amount should be researched quite a bit though, factoring in
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
Hi Kari, some replies inline. Best regards, Bart On 24 Jun 2014, at 11:47, Kari Salovaara kari.salova...@pp1.inet.fi wrote: Hi, I was following this thread with disbelief how most of the participants don't understand which is the situation of open idea, open source applications and open data in most countries round the world. And what kind of support those people get when trying to bring message to disbelievers. And how small is the group of actives really working. Yes, there is much more members, those who are actually end users taking only benefits and nagging about missing features. And the fight against commercial sector, how much you get back kicking with out real facts? If membership fees are needed, if yearly reporting is needed and if you have to organize real elections, we'll be in trouble. First of all we have to establish a society which is eligible to have bookkeeping, bank accounts, board and official meetings for its election etc. A lot of bureaucracy which will be above the work pain already done by the few volunteers (who are by themselves not satisfied currently to their own efforts due lack of time). With “we are you talking about the global OSGeo organisation, or its local chapters? OSGeo global already has official status, bank accounts bookkeeping etc. I don’t think it is necessary to do this at the local chapter level personally, I would leave this up to the local chapters to decide. If we don't establish a society (without that is impossible to collect money) we should pay these fees to some other country! And then it would be even more difficult to attract people to join. And who will get the benefits of our money then? Of course in organization (OsGeo) those members who represent larger groups(countries can reach their goals easier and can direct the development and efforts to goals more powerful than smaller group representatives or those who lack totally their man/woman. So none in this discussion has presented democratic way, how to ensure equality, in this sense. The timing of this discussion is perfect as it's holiday season and very very few people in northern Europe is reading their emails. I live in Northern Europe (The Netherlands) but still quite some weeks until holiday season starts here. Cheers, Kari On 06/24/2014 09:57 AM, Arnulf Christl wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 06/23/2014 09:33 PM, b.j.kob...@utwente.nl wrote: I am very dissapointed in this whole membership/fees discussion. In reading the emails one does not see the international volunteer community I would like to think OSGEO is (should be), but it rather seems we are dealing with a US-based professional organisation, mostly keen on not paying US taxes, and that is not what I want OSGEO to become... Hey Barend, if it makes you feel any better - I can still see the volunteer driven OSGeo and have no intention to drop out just because there are ideas to move to a more consistent way of mapping members. I have been CRO in two consecutive years and cannot see any advantage in sticking with the non-system we have had so far. Instead, my hopes are that a fee based membership can broaden the base we are one. It would make so many things so much easier. I also believe that we have grown to a size where we do not have to fear a hostile takeover so that a lot of the self-referencing and sustaining mechanisms we put in place to start with are not required any more. It would be a pity if others and especially existing OSGeo Charter Members would feel negatively about the proposed suggestions so I beg you all to voice your concerns now. And we should make sure that we pass any changes of this format by the existing Charter Members and make sure there is a fat majority of support for it. Otherwise we would betray our principles which is exactly what we tried to prevent with the existing system in place. Have fun, Arnulf On 23-06-14 21:00, Alex Mandel tech_...@wildintellect.com wrote: On 06/19/2014 11:58 AM, Peter Baumann wrote: Hi all, good - and important! - discussion! Being Charter Member I am somewhat concerned: - I am surprised that the common democratic procedure of election is perceived as creating dissent. Well it's somewhat conjecture without public confirmation that someone walked away from OSGeo because they didn't get picked. - yes, democracy is expensive, but generally it is considered worth the effort. - is lifelong membership compatible with community participation? Nope and we've actually have discussed in the past what the rules should be to weed out charter members who no longer particpate in the community. - Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders seem to get determined in a very special, selective way (as compared to standard election procedures). Altogether, the criteria seem to make OSGeo a self-sustaining group: insiders will
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
El 24/06/14 10:58, Duarte Carreira escribió: Well I just have to chime in... I do promote osgeo projects all the time. I don't get paid. I am a Charter Member. This sometimes is useful for people to understand the sense of community that exists in Open Source projects, as opposed to other associations who are in fact many times seen (and are in fact) protectorate systems for a profession or market/business (also lobbying) generally benefiting a well defined group of individuals and companies. So if I have to pay for membership I will have no feedback for that money since all the work I do promoting and educating on open source in gis is volunteered. And I still am requested to pay on top of that... This is to say membership has value *for OSGeo*. Many times it has no monetary value for volunteers. So I can flip this and say, OSGeo should be paying me and thousands of volunteers around the world. At least a small recognition should be given that OSGeo reach is based on people who will not pay the fees, have no income from open source, and still do the work because they see some kind of social/community/long term general benefit from open source. Paying fees seems to undermine the open relationship between OSGeo and its bases. I am not 100% against fees but there should be always a way to not pay fees and keep the open free model, volunteer based, membership. If you want, you can have the fees as donations and not compulsory. Give a badge to those who pay. Best, Duarte Thanks Duarte, you tackled an important point that was bugging me. I want to believe OSGeo inspires people to do things because we think is good in a general sense (for business, for education, the merit good, fun, whatever.). Involving money on the relationship IMHO could take that intrinsic motivation out of the equation: if I'm already paying a fee, let others do the job, why I'm not paid if I'm doing this hard job?, etc. A membership should be related with people willing to participate with OSGeo efforts on projects, committees and local chapters. If we want to channel personal money to the foundation, I'd prefer something like an individual sponsorship program* and give that good people the credit and acknowledgment that kind of support deserves. * maybe you have money but not time to participate? i.e. I've been doing that with Red Cross for many years. But that is very different from what I see as the organizational body that has the obligation to drive the organization with direct elections or delegating to a board. That group of members should emerge from a motivated community*. * following mi example, I don't want to have any decision power on Red Cross or my labor union just because I pay an annual fee. What is more important, what do we really *need* more, an active membership or funds? Sure that both but if I have to decide between one or the other I prefer a low-profile organization with a healthy community and look for money on other places (events, sponsors, etc.) I don't see OSGeo as an association that ask for money on the first place to be a member, but as an open community where anyone with the enough time and motivation can participate and influence. Of course as others said, if a paid membership is what the current membership wants, I'll support that decision but I'm afraid we will drive off some valuable people. Cheers. -- Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas http://es.osgeo.org http://jorgesanz.net signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
Good food for thought Howard, can’t say I disagree with anything you say here. The only thing we need to consider is that for some countries 50 or 70 USD can still be a lot of money. Best regards, Bart On 23 Jun 2014, at 16:12, Howard Butler how...@hobu.co wrote: On Jun 20, 2014, at 7:38 AM, Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks Paul, Dimitris and Peter for your thoughts. Comments inline. On 20/06/2014 4:31 am, Paul Ramsey wrote: http://www.aag.org/cs/membership/individual_membership http://www.aag.org/cs/membership/individual_membership/dues Both simpler, and better for the bottom line of OSGeo, if you want to be a member, sign up as a member, collect your t-shirt, see you @ foss4g. Yes Paul, pay for membership is simple, but I'd argue that the value of OSGeo and OSGeo communities is the volunteer time we contribute, and pay membership wouldn't capture that. This property is the nature of a professional organization, which in my opinion, OSGeo clearly is. There are a number of strong reasons why small annual fees for membership are very attractive. The first is there's no struggling with members who've dropped off, haven't voted, are no longer participating. Second, anyone who wants to associate themselves can simply do so by paying dues. Finally, a consistent, if small, operating revenue. The voting process has been an ad-hoc affair since the beginnings of the organization. Every year it the rules are tweaked. Every year members who've dropped off need to be nagged. Every year we end up just taking everyone who's nominated anyway. It's a lot of overhead and volunteer cost for very little gain. It is certain there are people who wish to be professionally associated with OSGeo who are unable to become members because they haven't generated enough public profile to be nominated. You can't nominate yourself. It's a chicken and egg problem that simply dissolves with paid-but-small membership dues. OSGeo's main revenue stream is the FOSS4G conference. It is an event run on the backs of local chapter volunteers. Please correct me otherwise, but I do not think any local chapter who has hosted FOSS4G has ever put in a proposal to host it again. This well may eventually run dry. Or, it may run dry for a year or two. 80-100k/year (~$50-70/year * 1500 persons) of membership dues is plenty to keep the lights on through droughts and still allow the organization to move forward. At the inception of the organization, a driving factor toward our current membership structure is because OSGeo is a volunteer organization, it shouldn't require members to pay money. I think this is misguided. Every other professional organization of which I'm a member requires membership dues. As an IRS classification, a professional organization has a clear path forward. I am a professional open source Geo/GIS software developer. I want to belong to a professional organization that represents me. I would be happy to pay some nominal membership dues that a) signify my membership, b) provide financial buffer for the organization to achieve its mission, and 3) clearly signal what the rules are to become a member. My $0.02. Howard ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
On Jun 23, 2014, at 9:25 AM, Bart van den Eijnden bart...@osgis.nl wrote: Good food for thought Howard, can’t say I disagree with anything you say here. The only thing we need to consider is that for some countries 50 or 70 USD can still be a lot of money Yes. Something equitable could be arrived at. Let the membership committee come up with the membership dues rules. I would assume there's student memberships, grants, etc. Howard ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
+1 for dues. I would sign up. On Jun 23, 2014, at 10:36 AM, Howard Butler how...@hobu.co wrote: On Jun 23, 2014, at 9:25 AM, Bart van den Eijnden bart...@osgis.nl wrote: Good food for thought Howard, can’t say I disagree with anything you say here. The only thing we need to consider is that for some countries 50 or 70 USD can still be a lot of money Yes. Something equitable could be arrived at. Let the membership committee come up with the membership dues rules. I would assume there's student memberships, grants, etc. GSDI bases membership dues on the gross national per capita income. They do this for organizations, but there's no reason not to do it for individuals. They use the World Bank data for this. See http://www.gsdi.org/fullmemshp for details. Allan ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
On 6/23/14 9:25 AM, Bart van den Eijnden wrote: Good food for thought Howard, can’t say I disagree with anything you say here. The only thing we need to consider is that for some countries 50 or 70 USD can still be a lot of money. All, I also agree whole heartily with Howard. Regarding the notion that the membership fees need to be different for different areas on the globe, what about using a chapter mechanism to set the membership fees according to the locally perceived best pricing model. Might help solidify local chapters by allowing them to capture a percentage of the membership fees based on members and new members being pulled in through their chapter. bobb Best regards, Bart On 23 Jun 2014, at 16:12, Howard Butler how...@hobu.comailto:how...@hobu.co wrote: On Jun 20, 2014, at 7:38 AM, Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@gmail.commailto:cameron.shor...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks Paul, Dimitris and Peter for your thoughts. Comments inline. On 20/06/2014 4:31 am, Paul Ramsey wrote: http://www.aag.org/cs/membership/individual_membership http://www.aag.org/cs/membership/individual_membership/dues Both simpler, and better for the bottom line of OSGeo, if you want to be a member, sign up as a member, collect your t-shirt, see you @ foss4g. Yes Paul, pay for membership is simple, but I'd argue that the value of OSGeo and OSGeo communities is the volunteer time we contribute, and pay membership wouldn't capture that. This property is the nature of a professional organization, which in my opinion, OSGeo clearly is. There are a number of strong reasons why small annual fees for membership are very attractive. The first is there's no struggling with members who've dropped off, haven't voted, are no longer participating. Second, anyone who wants to associate themselves can simply do so by paying dues. Finally, a consistent, if small, operating revenue. The voting process has been an ad-hoc affair since the beginnings of the organization. Every year it the rules are tweaked. Every year members who've dropped off need to be nagged. Every year we end up just taking everyone who's nominated anyway. It's a lot of overhead and volunteer cost for very little gain. It is certain there are people who wish to be professionally associated with OSGeo who are unable to become members because they haven't generated enough public profile to be nominated. You can't nominate yourself. It's a chicken and egg problem that simply dissolves with paid-but-small membership dues. OSGeo's main revenue stream is the FOSS4G conference. It is an event run on the backs of local chapter volunteers. Please correct me otherwise, but I do not think any local chapter who has hosted FOSS4G has ever put in a proposal to host it again. This well may eventually run dry. Or, it may run dry for a year or two. 80-100k/year (~$50-70/year * 1500 persons) of membership dues is plenty to keep the lights on through droughts and still allow the organization to move forward. At the inception of the organization, a driving factor toward our current membership structure is because OSGeo is a volunteer organization, it shouldn't require members to pay money. I think this is misguided. Every other professional organization of which I'm a member requires membership dues. As an IRS classification, a professional organization has a clear path forward. I am a professional open source Geo/GIS software developer. I want to belong to a professional organization that represents me. I would be happy to pay some nominal membership dues that a) signify my membership, b) provide financial buffer for the organization to achieve its mission, and 3) clearly signal what the rules are to become a member. My $0.02. Howard ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.orgmailto:Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.orgmailto:Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
Membership dues for OSGeo could very well work, but they would change the nature of the organization. While it makes sense for those who are professionals and thus want to belong to professional organizations, many OSGeo members are not professionals in the sense of depending upon OSGeo's projects for their living—many are educators, volunteers, govt. folks, hobbyists and so on. That said, not everyone has to be a member of OSGeo to enjoy its products and its community, and believe in the ideals of the community. I have no particular objection to membership dues, but it is not something I would pay. Hence, I would agree to forsake my Charter Membership, if that is what's entailed. On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 4:36 PM, Howard Butler how...@hobu.co wrote: On Jun 23, 2014, at 9:25 AM, Bart van den Eijnden bart...@osgis.nl wrote: Good food for thought Howard, can’t say I disagree with anything you say here. The only thing we need to consider is that for some countries 50 or 70 USD can still be a lot of money Yes. Something equitable could be arrived at. Let the membership committee come up with the membership dues rules. I would assume there's student memberships, grants, etc. Howard ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Puneet Kishor Manager, Science and Data Policy Creative Commons ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
AAG has a sliding income scale, no reason something like that, or a hamburger index multiplier, can't be used to fix that up. http://www.economist.com/content/big-mac-index P. On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 7:25 AM, Bart van den Eijnden bart...@osgis.nl wrote: Good food for thought Howard, can’t say I disagree with anything you say here. The only thing we need to consider is that for some countries 50 or 70 USD can still be a lot of money. Best regards, Bart On 23 Jun 2014, at 16:12, Howard Butler how...@hobu.co wrote: On Jun 20, 2014, at 7:38 AM, Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks Paul, Dimitris and Peter for your thoughts. Comments inline. On 20/06/2014 4:31 am, Paul Ramsey wrote: http://www.aag.org/cs/membership/individual_membership http://www.aag.org/cs/membership/individual_membership/dues Both simpler, and better for the bottom line of OSGeo, if you want to be a member, sign up as a member, collect your t-shirt, see you @ foss4g. Yes Paul, pay for membership is simple, but I'd argue that the value of OSGeo and OSGeo communities is the volunteer time we contribute, and pay membership wouldn't capture that. This property is the nature of a professional organization, which in my opinion, OSGeo clearly is. There are a number of strong reasons why small annual fees for membership are very attractive. The first is there's no struggling with members who've dropped off, haven't voted, are no longer participating. Second, anyone who wants to associate themselves can simply do so by paying dues. Finally, a consistent, if small, operating revenue. The voting process has been an ad-hoc affair since the beginnings of the organization. Every year it the rules are tweaked. Every year members who've dropped off need to be nagged. Every year we end up just taking everyone who's nominated anyway. It's a lot of overhead and volunteer cost for very little gain. It is certain there are people who wish to be professionally associated with OSGeo who are unable to become members because they haven't generated enough public profile to be nominated. You can't nominate yourself. It's a chicken and egg problem that simply dissolves with paid-but-small membership dues. OSGeo's main revenue stream is the FOSS4G conference. It is an event run on the backs of local chapter volunteers. Please correct me otherwise, but I do not think any local chapter who has hosted FOSS4G has ever put in a proposal to host it again. This well may eventually run dry. Or, it may run dry for a year or two. 80-100k/year (~$50-70/year * 1500 persons) of membership dues is plenty to keep the lights on through droughts and still allow the organization to move forward. At the inception of the organization, a driving factor toward our current membership structure is because OSGeo is a volunteer organization, it shouldn't require members to pay money. I think this is misguided. Every other professional organization of which I'm a member requires membership dues. As an IRS classification, a professional organization has a clear path forward. I am a professional open source Geo/GIS software developer. I want to belong to a professional organization that represents me. I would be happy to pay some nominal membership dues that a) signify my membership, b) provide financial buffer for the organization to achieve its mission, and 3) clearly signal what the rules are to become a member. My $0.02. Howard ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
On Jun 23, 2014, at 10:13 AM, P Kishor punk.k...@gmail.com wrote: Membership dues for OSGeo could very well work, but they would change the nature of the organization. Yes, that may be true, however it is also true that OSGeo as an organization has significantly evolved significantly two or three times since it was incorporated. OSGeo is not the GeoApache once envisioned and partially implemented. The sociological structure of open source projects, as elucidated by Fogel and modeled by OSGeo, has changed a ton in the past eight years. OSGeo has evolved to keep up and remain relevant, and it must continue to do so. Does the membership see paid membership as a radical change? I don't have an answer to that, and presumably it is something that would have to be voted on. While it makes sense for those who are professionals and thus want to belong to professional organizations, many OSGeo members are not professionals in the sense of depending upon OSGeo's projects for their living—many are educators, volunteers, govt. folks, hobbyists and so on. Except for maybe hobbyists, all of these groups of people you've listed often pay for membership in professional organizations. A professional organization does not have to mean you make a living doing the thing that the professional organization coalesces around. Instead, in my mind, it means you have an interest in participating in that particular profession. Geographers. Soil Science. Geophysics. Watermelons [1]. They lobby, educate, and host on your behalf. That said, not everyone has to be a member of OSGeo to enjoy its products and its community, and believe in the ideals of the community. I have no particular objection to membership dues, but it is not something I would pay. Hence, I would agree to forsake my Charter Membership, if that is what's entailed. Do you lose a significant benefit by not being a Charter Member? Just the ability to vote for the board and the ability to tout your exclusivity on a vita/resume. Anything else? Lack of membership does not prevent anyone from participating now, and we wouldn't want it to (unlike many other professional organizations). Howard [1] Seriously. http://www.nationalwatermelonassociation.com/membership.php ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
Howard, I’ve wanted membership dues to happen for a long time, but haven’t been able to express it as eloquently or as persuasively as you just did. Mark On Jun 23, 2014, at 10:12 AM, Howard Butler how...@hobu.co wrote: On Jun 20, 2014, at 7:38 AM, Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks Paul, Dimitris and Peter for your thoughts. Comments inline. On 20/06/2014 4:31 am, Paul Ramsey wrote: http://www.aag.org/cs/membership/individual_membership http://www.aag.org/cs/membership/individual_membership/dues Both simpler, and better for the bottom line of OSGeo, if you want to be a member, sign up as a member, collect your t-shirt, see you @ foss4g. Yes Paul, pay for membership is simple, but I'd argue that the value of OSGeo and OSGeo communities is the volunteer time we contribute, and pay membership wouldn't capture that. This property is the nature of a professional organization, which in my opinion, OSGeo clearly is. There are a number of strong reasons why small annual fees for membership are very attractive. The first is there's no struggling with members who've dropped off, haven't voted, are no longer participating. Second, anyone who wants to associate themselves can simply do so by paying dues. Finally, a consistent, if small, operating revenue. The voting process has been an ad-hoc affair since the beginnings of the organization. Every year it the rules are tweaked. Every year members who've dropped off need to be nagged. Every year we end up just taking everyone who's nominated anyway. It's a lot of overhead and volunteer cost for very little gain. It is certain there are people who wish to be professionally associated with OSGeo who are unable to become members because they haven't generated enough public profile to be nominated. You can't nominate yourself. It's a chicken and egg problem that simply dissolves with paid-but-small membership dues. OSGeo's main revenue stream is the FOSS4G conference. It is an event run on the backs of local chapter volunteers. Please correct me otherwise, but I do not think any local chapter who has hosted FOSS4G has ever put in a proposal to host it again. This well may eventually run dry. Or, it may run dry for a year or two. 80-100k/year (~$50-70/year * 1500 persons) of membership dues is plenty to keep the lights on through droughts and still allow the organization to move forward. At the inception of the organization, a driving factor toward our current membership structure is because OSGeo is a volunteer organization, it shouldn't require members to pay money. I think this is misguided. Every other professional organization of which I'm a member requires membership dues. As an IRS classification, a professional organization has a clear path forward. I am a professional open source Geo/GIS software developer. I want to belong to a professional organization that represents me. I would be happy to pay some nominal membership dues that a) signify my membership, b) provide financial buffer for the organization to achieve its mission, and 3) clearly signal what the rules are to become a member. My $0.02. Howard ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
All, nice to have this discussion brought on table, finally. Some local chapters already collect fees for their membership. So OSGeo may collect a percentage of perceived fees. Obviously, this should be discussed and defined by local chapters. It may lead to increasing the current membership price... Best, Le 23 juin 2014 à 16:57, Basques, Bob (CI-StPaul) bob.basq...@ci.stpaul.mn.us a écrit : On 6/23/14 9:25 AM, Bart van den Eijnden wrote: Good food for thought Howard, can’t say I disagree with anything you say here. The only thing we need to consider is that for some countries 50 or 70 USD can still be a lot of money. All, I also agree whole heartily with Howard. Regarding the notion that the membership fees need to be different for different areas on the globe, what about using a chapter mechanism to set the membership fees according to the locally perceived best pricing model. Might help solidify local chapters by allowing them to capture a percentage of the membership fees based on members and new members being pulled in through their chapter. bobb Best regards, Bart On 23 Jun 2014, at 16:12, Howard Butler how...@hobu.co wrote: On Jun 20, 2014, at 7:38 AM, Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks Paul, Dimitris and Peter for your thoughts. Comments inline. On 20/06/2014 4:31 am, Paul Ramsey wrote: http://www.aag.org/cs/membership/individual_membership http://www.aag.org/cs/membership/individual_membership/dues Both simpler, and better for the bottom line of OSGeo, if you want to be a member, sign up as a member, collect your t-shirt, see you @ foss4g. Yes Paul, pay for membership is simple, but I'd argue that the value of OSGeo and OSGeo communities is the volunteer time we contribute, and pay membership wouldn't capture that. This property is the nature of a professional organization, which in my opinion, OSGeo clearly is. There are a number of strong reasons why small annual fees for membership are very attractive. The first is there's no struggling with members who've dropped off, haven't voted, are no longer participating. Second, anyone who wants to associate themselves can simply do so by paying dues. Finally, a consistent, if small, operating revenue. The voting process has been an ad-hoc affair since the beginnings of the organization. Every year it the rules are tweaked. Every year members who've dropped off need to be nagged. Every year we end up just taking everyone who's nominated anyway. It's a lot of overhead and volunteer cost for very little gain. It is certain there are people who wish to be professionally associated with OSGeo who are unable to become members because they haven't generated enough public profile to be nominated. You can't nominate yourself. It's a chicken and egg problem that simply dissolves with paid-but-small membership dues. OSGeo's main revenue stream is the FOSS4G conference. It is an event run on the backs of local chapter volunteers. Please correct me otherwise, but I do not think any local chapter who has hosted FOSS4G has ever put in a proposal to host it again. This well may eventually run dry. Or, it may run dry for a year or two. 80-100k/year (~$50-70/year * 1500 persons) of membership dues is plenty to keep the lights on through droughts and still allow the organization to move forward. At the inception of the organization, a driving factor toward our current membership structure is because OSGeo is a volunteer organization, it shouldn't require members to pay money. I think this is misguided. Every other professional organization of which I'm a member requires membership dues. As an IRS classification, a professional organization has a clear path forward. I am a professional open source Geo/GIS software developer. I want to belong to a professional organization that represents me. I would be happy to pay some nominal membership dues that a) signify my membership, b) provide financial buffer for the organization to achieve its mission, and 3) clearly signal what the rules are to become a member. My $0.02. Howard ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss Gérald Fenoy gerald.fe...@geolabs.fr signature.asc Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
On Jun 23, 2014, at 6:08 PM, Howard Butler how...@hobu.co wrote: Do you lose a significant benefit by not being a Charter Member? Just the ability to vote for the board and the ability to tout your exclusivity on a vita/resume. Anything else? Lack of membership does not prevent anyone from participating now, and we wouldn't want it to (unlike many other professional organizations). I don't lose anything significant, which implies that everything significant I gain from OSGeo's community is unaffected by my membership. This is one of the reasons I don't attend foss4g anymore (actually, mainly because I can't afford to do so). I will still support all the community ideals and aspirations to the fullest possible. In short, I consider this both my vote for membership dues and the concurrent renunciation of my membership as a result. -- Puneet Kishor ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
On Jun 23, 2014, at 12:40 PM, Mr. Puneet Kishor punk.k...@gmail.com wrote: On Jun 23, 2014, at 6:08 PM, Howard Butler how...@hobu.co wrote: Do you lose a significant benefit by not being a Charter Member? Just the ability to vote for the board and the ability to tout your exclusivity on a vita/resume. Anything else? Lack of membership does not prevent anyone from participating now, and we wouldn't want it to (unlike many other professional organizations). I don't lose anything significant, which implies that everything significant I gain from OSGeo's community is unaffected by my membership. This is one of the reasons I don't attend foss4g anymore (actually, mainly because I can't afford to do so). I will still support all the community ideals and aspirations to the fullest possible. In short, I consider this both my vote for membership dues and the concurrent renunciation of my membership as a result. A membership is two-sided. You might not have a different experience as a non-member, but the organization may suffer. So unless you're upset at the turn of the discussion, it may be premature to renunciate your membership. Allan ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
On 06/23/2014 11:01 AM, Dimitris Kotzinos wrote: Dear Cameron, thanks for the reply and the comments to my previous e-mail. It also gave me a chance to revisit the rules around the charter members. I was expecting this issue to be further discussed within the community and i am a bit disappointed with the evolution of the discussion, given the fact that the board will make a decision shortly. I am happy that you agree with me in most of the cases; I should also point out that my comments aim at improving the voting process this year (why wait for the next) unless this year's decision does not accept any alterations. A few more comments: -- Voting of charter members: I agree that in the rules is stated that the Charter Members are voting for new Charter Members and the board. Then maybe we should consider the members to vote (I think that this can be considered based on the bylaws)? If we agree with the need to validate this kind of decisions from a larger body, then a solution can be found. -- For the proposed changes and in the request for data to validate them; I cannot understand the comment that anyone who disagrees should bring up data that validate the current status. Usually the one who proposes changes should bring along some data to prove that the changes are needed and are in the proper direction. But for me there is no need since the last two years, whoever applied for Charter Member status was accepted. So I cannot see who was rejected. So I still do not see where the need for such changes comes from and what exactly we expect to improve with this. One only needs to look at the nomination lists in the years where we did not accept all nominations to find people who were not accepted but are well known contributors to the community. We've avoided the conversation for a few years by accepting all the nominations, but only because the number of them was not too high. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/New_Member_Nominations_2013 http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/New_Member_Nominations_2012 http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/New_Member_Nominations_2011 http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/New_Member_Nominations_2010 http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/New_Member_Nominations_2009 etc... Comparing to http://www.osgeo.org/charter_members is somewhat challenging (seems to be in no particular order, perhaps random order on purpose). Thanks, Alex ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
On 06/19/2014 11:58 AM, Peter Baumann wrote: Hi all, good - and important! - discussion! Being Charter Member I am somewhat concerned: - I am surprised that the common democratic procedure of election is perceived as creating dissent. Well it's somewhat conjecture without public confirmation that someone walked away from OSGeo because they didn't get picked. - yes, democracy is expensive, but generally it is considered worth the effort. - is lifelong membership compatible with community participation? Nope and we've actually have discussed in the past what the rules should be to weed out charter members who no longer particpate in the community. - Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders seem to get determined in a very special, selective way (as compared to standard election procedures). Altogether, the criteria seem to make OSGeo a self-sustaining group: insiders will remain insiders for a lifetime, outsiders will...well, face a hurdle. So the contrary of open. Just an idea: what about applying the OSGeo incubation checklist to OSGeo itself to determine feasible procedures? cheers, Peter I think the discussion of membership fees is timely this year now that we officially have our IRS 501c4 status. Why, well when we were aiming for 501c3 that would have given us donations as tax write offs for US members. Without that incentive to donate, membership now seems like it might be the way to push individuals to donate. The amount should be researched quite a bit though, factoring in how to reach maximum membership, with lowest overhead (collecting and tracking membership will incur a cost). Since we don't maintain a huge office, an in print journal, a lobbyist or things like that we should be able to be much lower that other professional societies. I agree it should be relative to country of members, and there probably should be some sharing in places where local chapters exist - or the local chapters trust us to split the money back to them for things they need. I'd suggest something in the $20-$30 US, students $5-$10. Maybe with a sliding scale like PBS or Kickstarter, where if you voluntarily pay more in a given year you get swag of some sort. I'm trying to avoid the syndrome (I'm guilty of this) where one pays for membership only in a year when it will get you a discount worth more than the membership for the conference. I agree with Arnulf that these decisions should probably go to e-vote of all the current charter members, the boards responsibility is to put forward a coherent plan for the vote. Obviously if the board all hates the ideas it should stop there for now. Thanks, Alex ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
I am very dissapointed in this whole membership/fees discussion. In reading the emails one does not see the international volunteer community I would like to think OSGEO is (should be), but it rather seems we are dealing with a US-based professional organisation, mostly keen on not paying US taxes, and that is not what I want OSGEO to become... -- Barend Köbben ITC - University of Twente PO Box 217, 7500AE Enschede (The Netherlands) +31-(0)53 4874 253 @barendkobben On 23-06-14 21:00, Alex Mandel tech_...@wildintellect.com wrote: On 06/19/2014 11:58 AM, Peter Baumann wrote: Hi all, good - and important! - discussion! Being Charter Member I am somewhat concerned: - I am surprised that the common democratic procedure of election is perceived as creating dissent. Well it's somewhat conjecture without public confirmation that someone walked away from OSGeo because they didn't get picked. - yes, democracy is expensive, but generally it is considered worth the effort. - is lifelong membership compatible with community participation? Nope and we've actually have discussed in the past what the rules should be to weed out charter members who no longer particpate in the community. - Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders seem to get determined in a very special, selective way (as compared to standard election procedures). Altogether, the criteria seem to make OSGeo a self-sustaining group: insiders will remain insiders for a lifetime, outsiders will...well, face a hurdle. So the contrary of open. Just an idea: what about applying the OSGeo incubation checklist to OSGeo itself to determine feasible procedures? cheers, Peter I think the discussion of membership fees is timely this year now that we officially have our IRS 501c4 status. Why, well when we were aiming for 501c3 that would have given us donations as tax write offs for US members. Without that incentive to donate, membership now seems like it might be the way to push individuals to donate. The amount should be researched quite a bit though, factoring in how to reach maximum membership, with lowest overhead (collecting and tracking membership will incur a cost). Since we don't maintain a huge office, an in print journal, a lobbyist or things like that we should be able to be much lower that other professional societies. I agree it should be relative to country of members, and there probably should be some sharing in places where local chapters exist - or the local chapters trust us to split the money back to them for things they need. I'd suggest something in the $20-$30 US, students $5-$10. Maybe with a sliding scale like PBS or Kickstarter, where if you voluntarily pay more in a given year you get swag of some sort. I'm trying to avoid the syndrome (I'm guilty of this) where one pays for membership only in a year when it will get you a discount worth more than the membership for the conference. I agree with Arnulf that these decisions should probably go to e-vote of all the current charter members, the boards responsibility is to put forward a coherent plan for the vote. Obviously if the board all hates the ideas it should stop there for now. Thanks, Alex ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
I think that might be a slight misunderstanding. We are an international organization, our main funding accounts happen to be subject to US law currently. The main funds used to seed FOSS4g each year come from this, which 2/3+ of the time is outside the US. Exhibition packs to local chapters comes from this, servers come from this. Other requests for seed funding for local FOSS4g sometimes comes from this. So I'd say much of the funds are actually spent on the international community. Many local chapters keep their dues locally, actually most if they have fees. Which is great the funds should stay local as much as possible. The downside is the overall budget is quite low in the centralized needs area. Example, we've been discussing how to put osgeo server mirrors more wide spread across the globe. That reality is impossible without more funds in the central org. So unless projects and chapters start passing some funds in to be re-allocated by OSGeo there's not really a way for the org to fund the mirrors, or code-sprints, or more local Foss4g events, or materials for new chapters, etc. Thanks, Alex On 06/23/2014 12:33 PM, b.j.kob...@utwente.nl wrote: I am very dissapointed in this whole membership/fees discussion. In reading the emails one does not see the international volunteer community I would like to think OSGEO is (should be), but it rather seems we are dealing with a US-based professional organisation, mostly keen on not paying US taxes, and that is not what I want OSGEO to become... -- Barend Köbben ITC - University of Twente PO Box 217, 7500AE Enschede (The Netherlands) +31-(0)53 4874 253 @barendkobben On 23-06-14 21:00, Alex Mandel tech_...@wildintellect.com wrote: On 06/19/2014 11:58 AM, Peter Baumann wrote: Hi all, good - and important! - discussion! Being Charter Member I am somewhat concerned: - I am surprised that the common democratic procedure of election is perceived as creating dissent. Well it's somewhat conjecture without public confirmation that someone walked away from OSGeo because they didn't get picked. - yes, democracy is expensive, but generally it is considered worth the effort. - is lifelong membership compatible with community participation? Nope and we've actually have discussed in the past what the rules should be to weed out charter members who no longer particpate in the community. - Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders seem to get determined in a very special, selective way (as compared to standard election procedures). Altogether, the criteria seem to make OSGeo a self-sustaining group: insiders will remain insiders for a lifetime, outsiders will...well, face a hurdle. So the contrary of open. Just an idea: what about applying the OSGeo incubation checklist to OSGeo itself to determine feasible procedures? cheers, Peter I think the discussion of membership fees is timely this year now that we officially have our IRS 501c4 status. Why, well when we were aiming for 501c3 that would have given us donations as tax write offs for US members. Without that incentive to donate, membership now seems like it might be the way to push individuals to donate. The amount should be researched quite a bit though, factoring in how to reach maximum membership, with lowest overhead (collecting and tracking membership will incur a cost). Since we don't maintain a huge office, an in print journal, a lobbyist or things like that we should be able to be much lower that other professional societies. I agree it should be relative to country of members, and there probably should be some sharing in places where local chapters exist - or the local chapters trust us to split the money back to them for things they need. I'd suggest something in the $20-$30 US, students $5-$10. Maybe with a sliding scale like PBS or Kickstarter, where if you voluntarily pay more in a given year you get swag of some sort. I'm trying to avoid the syndrome (I'm guilty of this) where one pays for membership only in a year when it will get you a discount worth more than the membership for the conference. I agree with Arnulf that these decisions should probably go to e-vote of all the current charter members, the boards responsibility is to put forward a coherent plan for the vote. Obviously if the board all hates the ideas it should stop there for now. Thanks, Alex ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
Thanks for your feedback Dimitris, You have made some valuable comments. I'm also surprised that there has only been a few comments on this thread, although I'm hopeful that this equates to a general feeling that the proposal as crafted is reasonably close to group opinion. The proposal as it stands aims to address some of the concerns raised from previous years, and leaves the opportunity for others to improve it still in future years. (In particular, after testing with this upcoming vote, I see the potential to make greater use of charter member voting using tools such as limesurvey). On 24/06/2014 4:01 am, Dimitris Kotzinos wrote: Dear Cameron, thanks for the reply and the comments to my previous e-mail. It also gave me a chance to revisit the rules around the charter members. I was expecting this issue to be further discussed within the community and i am a bit disappointed with the evolution of the discussion, given the fact that the board will make a decision shortly. I am happy that you agree with me in most of the cases; I should also point out that my comments aim at improving the voting process this year (why wait for the next) unless this year's decision does not accept any alterations. A few more comments: -- Voting of charter members: I agree that in the rules is stated that the Charter Members are voting for new Charter Members and the board. Then maybe we should consider the members to vote (I think that this can be considered based on the bylaws)? If we agree with the need to validate this kind of decisions from a larger body, then a solution can be found. -- For the proposed changes and in the request for data to validate them; I cannot understand the comment that anyone who disagrees should bring up data that validate the current status. Usually the one who proposes changes should bring along some data to prove that the changes are needed and are in the proper direction. But for me there is no need since the last two years, whoever applied for Charter Member status was accepted. So I cannot see who was rejected. So I still do not see where the need for such changes comes from and what exactly we expect to improve with this. I think that the proposed process creates a small bias and mainly gives the message that the Charter Members do not vote wisely enough to let the breadth and depth of the Foundation Membership to be represented. And I think that this is simply not true. I am also afraid when a future board might decide to have the 3/4 of members ex officio and so on ... But this can be just me. So no need to recycle the discussion, thanks again for the response - I am sure that the board will consider the fact that whatever objections come in good faith and I do trust that the board will take a wise decision. Best regards, Dimitris ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- 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, W www.lisasoft.com, F +61 2 9009 5099 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
Ah, I replied to this email (from my osgeo-board inbox) before reading the rest of my emails from my osgeo-discuss inbox. I see there has been a lot of discussion about this proposal in the last 12 hrs. I'm still of the opinion that charter membership is most valuable when provided to recognised volunteers. This aligns with our current OSGeo Board Priorities: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_of_Directors#Board_Priorities */OSGeo as a low capital, volunteer focused organisation/*/ //Should OSGeo act as a high capital or low capital organisation? I.e., should OSGeo dedicate energy to collecting sponsorship and then passing out these funds to worthy OSGeo causes.// //While initially it seems attractive to have OSGeo woo sponsors, because we would all love to have more money to throw at worthy OSGeo goals, the reality is that chasing money is hard work. And someone who can chase OSGeo sponsorship is likely conflicted with chasing sponsorship for their particular workplace. So in practice, to be effective in chasing sponsorship, OSGeo will probably need to hire someone specifically for the role. OSGeo would then need to raise at least enough to cover wages, and then quite a bit more if the sponsorship path is to create extra value.// //This high capital path is how the Apache foundation is set up, and how LocationTech propose to organise themselves. It is the path that OSGeo started following when founded under the umbrella of Autodesk.// //However, as OSGeo has grown, OSGeo has slowly evolved toward a low capital volunteer focused organisation. Our overheads are very low, which means we waste very little of our volunteer labour and capital on the time consuming task of chasing and managing money. Consequently, any money we do receive (from conference windfalls or sponsorship) goes a long way - as it doesn't get eaten up by high overheads. This low capital path is something that is working very well for us, and the path we should continue to follow./ I'm open to revisiting this, but switching from a charter based on recognised volunteers to paid membership is a major change from OSGeo's constitution, and should not be made without substantial consultation with the community. (I'd agree with Dimitris that this would be a vote which should be put to the whole of the OSGeo Charter membership). On 24/06/2014 8:17 am, Cameron Shorter wrote: Thanks for your feedback Dimitris, You have made some valuable comments. I'm also surprised that there has only been a few comments on this thread, although I'm hopeful that this equates to a general feeling that the proposal as crafted is reasonably close to group opinion. The proposal as it stands aims to address some of the concerns raised from previous years, and leaves the opportunity for others to improve it still in future years. (In particular, after testing with this upcoming vote, I see the potential to make greater use of charter member voting using tools such as limesurvey). On 24/06/2014 4:01 am, Dimitris Kotzinos wrote: Dear Cameron, thanks for the reply and the comments to my previous e-mail. It also gave me a chance to revisit the rules around the charter members. I was expecting this issue to be further discussed within the community and i am a bit disappointed with the evolution of the discussion, given the fact that the board will make a decision shortly. I am happy that you agree with me in most of the cases; I should also point out that my comments aim at improving the voting process this year (why wait for the next) unless this year's decision does not accept any alterations. A few more comments: -- Voting of charter members: I agree that in the rules is stated that the Charter Members are voting for new Charter Members and the board. Then maybe we should consider the members to vote (I think that this can be considered based on the bylaws)? If we agree with the need to validate this kind of decisions from a larger body, then a solution can be found. -- For the proposed changes and in the request for data to validate them; I cannot understand the comment that anyone who disagrees should bring up data that validate the current status. Usually the one who proposes changes should bring along some data to prove that the changes are needed and are in the proper direction. But for me there is no need since the last two years, whoever applied for Charter Member status was accepted. So I cannot see who was rejected. So I still do not see where the need for such changes comes from and what exactly we expect to improve with this. I think that the proposed process creates a small bias and mainly gives the message that the Charter Members do not vote wisely enough to let the breadth and depth of the Foundation Membership to be represented. And I think that this is simply not true. I am also afraid when a future board might decide to have the 3/4 of members ex officio and so on ... But this can
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
Thanks Paul, Dimitris and Peter for your thoughts. Comments inline. On 20/06/2014 4:31 am, Paul Ramsey wrote: http://www.aag.org/cs/membership/individual_membership http://www.aag.org/cs/membership/individual_membership/dues Both simpler, and better for the bottom line of OSGeo, if you want to be a member, sign up as a member, collect your t-shirt, see you @ foss4g. Yes Paul, pay for membership is simple, but I'd argue that the value of OSGeo and OSGeo communities is the volunteer time we contribute, and pay membership wouldn't capture that. On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 10:28 AM, Dimitris Kotzinos kotz...@csd.uoc.gr wrote: Dear all, some thoughts on the proposed changes on the Charter Member election process. I will divide my comments into two parts, first some issues about the process itself and then some comments on the proposed changes. (A) the process per se: 1/ I think that whatever change in the election process should be validated by the Charter Members themselves, so I fully agree with Arnulf that we need to vote on that and not just the Board. And of course this contains no offense for the Board; it is just that I think that it is fair that the body who is affected by the changes to take the decisions. Moreover the charter members are the ones who elect the Board so it seems quite awkward to me that the smaller governing body will take such decision. This is a worthy comment, and something we can work toward. I've heard many people over the years suggest that OSGeo doesn't make enough use of our Charter Members. The OSGeo constitution defines the role of charter members to vote once a year for new charter members and to vote for the board. With the trialing of limesurvey for voting for these elections, the process of setting up a vote will be easier so we could ask charter members to vote on other issues as well. However, until a new process is put in place, we should continue with the old process, which has been to vote in a board, and then have the board vote on day to day matters. (Community comments such as this email thread helps the board form an opinion, which hopefully reflects the feelings of the community). 2/ I think that whatever decision taken should be enforced in next year's elections; members need some time to evaluate that. So it is good to conclude this process now but enforce it from next year. Historically, despite suggestions being discussed at the end of each election, we get to the next election and find that no one has updated the process. Our aim this time is to be proactive, make a decision and put it into place. Sure, what we decide probably won't be perfect, but hopefully it will be better than last year. The aim here is for continuous improvement. (B) the proposed changes: Before discussing the proposed changes I think that we should understand where the current system has failed. Do we have cases where recognized community leaders failed to be elected? If so please bring them forward. I doubt so though since if I recall correctly the last two years all charter member nominations were accepted without voting! While I understand your sentiment, I'm wary of going back to look at evidence from previous years: 1. I think it inappropriate to bring up examples of specific people who were denied access to charter membership, probably due to insufficient positions. 2. There is quite a bit of work involved in compiling such evidence. (Would you like to volunteer to do the research?) Moreover the notion of a recognized community leader that cannot be elected as a charter member is a contradiction by itself. So why change? Note that our definition of a recognised osgeo community leader is someone who has already been *voted* into a prominent role within OSGeo. So I don't think this is a contradiction. I am not against the idea of having some people becoming OSGEO Charter Members ex officio but for one I do not like the idea of having members of different categories and secondly I need to have a look at the data: how many of the committee chairs, PSC members, official Chapter chairs are not already OSGEO Charter members Interesting question. Would you like to do the research? (and they wanted to be and failed)? Why are they not nominated to become ones and to be voted? And I don't see how the problem described here: 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. will be resolved: again we will have some people not becoming Charter Members if the seats are not enough. So some of us will still be disappointed, etc. So if the numbers are the same the only difference I see is that now we choose beforehand whom to disappoint and people working in the community but in not official positions will have less
[OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
Dear all, some thoughts on the proposed changes on the Charter Member election process. I will divide my comments into two parts, first some issues about the process itself and then some comments on the proposed changes. (A) the process per se: 1/ I think that whatever change in the election process should be validated by the Charter Members themselves, so I fully agree with Arnulf that we need to vote on that and not just the Board. And of course this contains no offense for the Board; it is just that I think that it is fair that the body who is affected by the changes to take the decisions. Moreover the charter members are the ones who elect the Board so it seems quite awkward to me that the smaller governing body will take such decision. 2/ I think that whatever decision taken should be enforced in next year's elections; members need some time to evaluate that. So it is good to conclude this process now but enforce it from next year. (B) the proposed changes: Before discussing the proposed changes I think that we should understand where the current system has failed. Do we have cases where recognized community leaders failed to be elected? If so please bring them forward. I doubt so though since if I recall correctly the last two years all charter member nominations were accepted without voting! Moreover the notion of a recognized community leader that cannot be elected as a charter member is a contradiction by itself. So why change? I am not against the idea of having some people becoming OSGEO Charter Members ex officio but for one I do not like the idea of having members of different categories and secondly I need to have a look at the data: how many of the committee chairs, PSC members, official Chapter chairs are not already OSGEO Charter members (and they wanted to be and failed)? Why are they not nominated to become ones and to be voted? And I don't see how the problem described here: 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. will be resolved: again we will have some people not becoming Charter Members if the seats are not enough. So some of us will still be disappointed, etc. So if the numbers are the same the only difference I see is that now we choose beforehand whom to disappoint and people working in the community but in not official positions will have less chances to be elected. If we want to open up the numbers, this is OK, more seats are offered every year anyway. But what else? And of course the first come first served approach if the recognized community leaders are more than the seats is a bit odd: to lighten up the discussion I cannot imagine people with the finger on the mouse waiting for the process to open in order to submit there nominations. Finally, for the voting process I completely disagree with the ability of a member to vote multiple times for the same person. This removes from the process the requirement of someone to be widely recognized within the community and potentially allows a couple of friends to elect whoever they want. I think that the discussion is interesting and thanks to the board and Arnulf :) for initiating it! I think that other solutions could also be considered if we feel that we need to differentiate on how charter members get elected, e.g. agree on a bonus percentage that a community leader gets when he goes through the standard process, so he still has to be voted by many... I apologize for the length of the e-mail and thanks for listening, Best regards, Dimitris Kotzinos 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.
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
http://www.aag.org/cs/membership/individual_membership http://www.aag.org/cs/membership/individual_membership/dues Both simpler, and better for the bottom line of OSGeo, if you want to be a member, sign up as a member, collect your t-shirt, see you @ foss4g. P. On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 10:28 AM, Dimitris Kotzinos kotz...@csd.uoc.gr wrote: Dear all, some thoughts on the proposed changes on the Charter Member election process. I will divide my comments into two parts, first some issues about the process itself and then some comments on the proposed changes. (A) the process per se: 1/ I think that whatever change in the election process should be validated by the Charter Members themselves, so I fully agree with Arnulf that we need to vote on that and not just the Board. And of course this contains no offense for the Board; it is just that I think that it is fair that the body who is affected by the changes to take the decisions. Moreover the charter members are the ones who elect the Board so it seems quite awkward to me that the smaller governing body will take such decision. 2/ I think that whatever decision taken should be enforced in next year's elections; members need some time to evaluate that. So it is good to conclude this process now but enforce it from next year. (B) the proposed changes: Before discussing the proposed changes I think that we should understand where the current system has failed. Do we have cases where recognized community leaders failed to be elected? If so please bring them forward. I doubt so though since if I recall correctly the last two years all charter member nominations were accepted without voting! Moreover the notion of a recognized community leader that cannot be elected as a charter member is a contradiction by itself. So why change? I am not against the idea of having some people becoming OSGEO Charter Members ex officio but for one I do not like the idea of having members of different categories and secondly I need to have a look at the data: how many of the committee chairs, PSC members, official Chapter chairs are not already OSGEO Charter members (and they wanted to be and failed)? Why are they not nominated to become ones and to be voted? And I don't see how the problem described here: 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. will be resolved: again we will have some people not becoming Charter Members if the seats are not enough. So some of us will still be disappointed, etc. So if the numbers are the same the only difference I see is that now we choose beforehand whom to disappoint and people working in the community but in not official positions will have less chances to be elected. If we want to open up the numbers, this is OK, more seats are offered every year anyway. But what else? And of course the first come first served approach if the recognized community leaders are more than the seats is a bit odd: to lighten up the discussion I cannot imagine people with the finger on the mouse waiting for the process to open in order to submit there nominations. Finally, for the voting process I completely disagree with the ability of a member to vote multiple times for the same person. This removes from the process the requirement of someone to be widely recognized within the community and potentially allows a couple of friends to elect whoever they want. I think that the discussion is interesting and thanks to the board and Arnulf :) for initiating it! I think that other solutions could also be considered if we feel that we need to differentiate on how charter members get elected, e.g. agree on a bonus percentage that a community leader gets when he goes through the standard process, so he still has to be voted by many... I apologize for the length of the e-mail and thanks for listening, Best regards, Dimitris Kotzinos 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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
Hi all, good - and important! - discussion! Being Charter Member I am somewhat concerned: - I am surprised that the common democratic procedure of election is perceived as creating dissent. - yes, democracy is expensive, but generally it is considered worth the effort. - is lifelong membership compatible with community participation? - Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders seem to get determined in a very special, selective way (as compared to standard election procedures). Altogether, the criteria seem to make OSGeo a self-sustaining group: insiders will remain insiders for a lifetime, outsiders will...well, face a hurdle. So the contrary of open. Just an idea: what about applying the OSGeo incubation checklist to OSGeo itself to determine feasible procedures? cheers, Peter On 06/19/2014 07:28 PM, Dimitris Kotzinos wrote: Dear all, some thoughts on the proposed changes on the Charter Member election process. I will divide my comments into two parts, first some issues about the process itself and then some comments on the proposed changes. (A) the process per se: 1/ I think that whatever change in the election process should be validated by the Charter Members themselves, so I fully agree with Arnulf that we need to vote on that and not just the Board. And of course this contains no offense for the Board; it is just that I think that it is fair that the body who is affected by the changes to take the decisions. Moreover the charter members are the ones who elect the Board so it seems quite awkward to me that the smaller governing body will take such decision. 2/ I think that whatever decision taken should be enforced in next year's elections; members need some time to evaluate that. So it is good to conclude this process now but enforce it from next year. (B) the proposed changes: Before discussing the proposed changes I think that we should understand where the current system has failed. Do we have cases where recognized community leaders failed to be elected? If so please bring them forward. I doubt so though since if I recall correctly the last two years all charter member nominations were accepted without voting! Moreover the notion of a recognized community leader that cannot be elected as a charter member is a contradiction by itself. So why change? I am not against the idea of having some people becoming OSGEO Charter Members ex officio but for one I do not like the idea of having members of different categories and secondly I need to have a look at the data: how many of the committee chairs, PSC members, official Chapter chairs are not already OSGEO Charter members (and they wanted to be and failed)? Why are they not nominated to become ones and to be voted? And I don't see how the problem described here: 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. will be resolved: again we will have some people not becoming Charter Members if the seats are not enough. So some of us will still be disappointed, etc. So if the numbers are the same the only difference I see is that now we choose beforehand whom to disappoint and people working in the community but in not official positions will have less chances to be elected. If we want to open up the numbers, this is OK, more seats are offered every year anyway. But what else? And of course the first come first served approach if the recognized community leaders are more than the seats is a bit odd: to lighten up the discussion I cannot imagine people with the finger on the mouse waiting for the process to open in order to submit there nominations. Finally, for the voting process I completely disagree with the ability of a member to vote multiple times for the same person. This removes from the process the requirement of someone to be widely recognized within the community and potentially allows a couple of friends to elect whoever they want. I think that the discussion is interesting and thanks to the board and Arnulf :) for initiating it! I think that other solutions could also be considered if we feel that we need to differentiate on how charter members get elected, e.g. agree on a bonus percentage that a community leader gets when he goes through the standard process, so he still has to be voted by many... I apologize for the length of the e-mail and thanks for listening, Best regards, Dimitris Kotzinos 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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
+1 D. On 18-06-14 04:15, Arnulf Christl wrote: [...] Is the board going to vote on this proposal or all charter members? Thanks, Alex This is actually a good question and maybe points towards a new way of leveraging our Charter Membership. I would think that it would be worthwhile to pass major changes in the way the organization operates by the Charter Members. They basically own the organization and (should) have vetted interests in how it takes shape. In the long run [1] I can see an electronic voting tool where every now and then something bubbles up the board deems relevant enough that all (a majority, quorum, etc.) of our Charter Members wrap their heads around. Have fun, Arnulf [1] The definition of long is directly proportional to the level of interest we can trigger in Charter Membership, so maybe indefinite. :-) ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Yours sincerely, ir. Dirk Frigne CEO Geosparc n.v. Brugsesteenweg 587 B-9030 Ghent Tel: +32 9 236 60 18 GSM: +32 495 508 799 http://www.geomajas.org http://www.geosparc.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
2014-06-15 1:52 GMT+02:00 Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@gmail.com: 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. No comments yet on this proposal on changing the Charter Members election procedure, everything is OK? -- Jorge Sanz http://www.osgeo.org http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Jorge_Sanz ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
Hi List, Regarding the new proposal for voting in charter members- it's slightly off topic, but I doubt all existing Local Chapter representatives have been voted in by at least 3 charter members. That sets the bar quite high for new chapters as well- under the new regime if they have no existing chapter members it might not be possible for them to a) elect a chapter representative and b) get them elected as a charter member. Maybe I've misunderstood this part of the new rules? Jo On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 12:56 PM, Jorge Sanz js...@osgeo.org wrote: 2014-06-15 1:52 GMT+02:00 Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@gmail.com: 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. No comments yet on this proposal on changing the Charter Members election procedure, everything is OK? -- Jorge Sanz http://www.osgeo.org http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Jorge_Sanz ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- *Jo Cook* Astun Technology Ltd, The Coach House, 17 West Street, Epsom, Surrey, KT18 7RL, UK t:+44 7930 524 155 iShare - Data integration and publishing platform http://www.isharemaps.com/ * Company registration no. 5410695. Registered in England and Wales. Registered office: 120 Manor Green Road, Epsom, Surrey, KT19 8LN VAT no. 864201149. -- https://astuntechnology.com/ishare/2014-enterprise-gis-roadshows/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
I like the idea of the new Charter Membership rules. On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 9:43 AM, Jo Cook joc...@astuntechnology.com wrote: Hi List, Regarding the new proposal for voting in charter members- it's slightly off topic, but I doubt all existing Local Chapter representatives have been voted in by at least 3 charter members. That sets the bar quite high for new chapters as well- under the new regime if they have no existing chapter members it might not be possible for them to a) elect a chapter representative and b) get them elected as a charter member. Maybe I've misunderstood this part of the new rules? I think that a) is still possible. The Local Chapter can do what they want regarding their internal workings. I agree that b) could be impossible in the scenario you describe. Local Chapters are approved by the Board including a representative who then becomes an Officer of OSGeo.[0] Graduated OSGeo projects are approved by both the Incubation Committee and the Board. I think in these cases where the Chapter/Project has already been approved by the Board, removing the requirement where the voting community includes at least *3* OSGeo charter members is reasonable. Jo, do you think that the where the voting community includes at least *3* OSGeo charter membersrequirement should be removed for Official Local Chapters and Graduated OSGeo Projects? You might want to clarify how the Charter Membership is tied to the elected position. Let's say I volunteer to chair the Web Committee now, then become a Charter Member, then quit the Web Committee and someone else takes it over. Am I still a Charter Member? Is the person who takes it over? I think that Charter Membership is lifetime unless you repeatedly don't vote or ask to not be a Charter Member, so that might address the first question. For the second question about the person who takes over chairing, would it wait until the next Charter membership election for it to become effective? Same scenario with Local Chapter Representatives. Once these changes are approved, this page should perhaps be updated, http://www.osgeo.org/membership Eli [0] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Local_Chapter_Guidelines#Chapter_Formation Jo On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 12:56 PM, Jorge Sanz js...@osgeo.org wrote: 2014-06-15 1:52 GMT+02:00 Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@gmail.com: 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. No comments yet on this proposal on changing the Charter Members election procedure, everything is OK? -- Jorge Sanz http://www.osgeo.org http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Jorge_Sanz ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- *Jo Cook* Astun Technology Ltd, The Coach House, 17 West Street, Epsom, Surrey, KT18 7RL, UK t:+44 7930 524 155 iShare - Data integration and publishing platform http://www.isharemaps.com/ * Company registration no. 5410695. Registered in England and Wales. Registered office: 120 Manor Green Road, Epsom, Surrey, KT19 8LN VAT no. 864201149. https://astuntechnology.com/ishare/2014-enterprise-gis-roadshows/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
On 06/17/2014 12:22 PM, Eli Adam wrote: I like the idea of the new Charter Membership rules. On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 9:43 AM, Jo Cook joc...@astuntechnology.com wrote: Hi List, Regarding the new proposal for voting in charter members- it's slightly off topic, but I doubt all existing Local Chapter representatives have been voted in by at least 3 charter members. That sets the bar quite high for new chapters as well- under the new regime if they have no existing chapter members it might not be possible for them to a) elect a chapter representative and b) get them elected as a charter member. Maybe I've misunderstood this part of the new rules? I think that a) is still possible. The Local Chapter can do what they want regarding their internal workings. I agree that b) could be impossible in the scenario you describe. Local Chapters are approved by the Board including a representative who then becomes an Officer of OSGeo.[0] Graduated OSGeo projects are approved by both the Incubation Committee and the Board. I think in these cases where the Chapter/Project has already been approved by the Board, removing the requirement where the voting community includes at least *3* OSGeo charter members is reasonable. Jo, do you think that the where the voting community includes at least *3* OSGeo charter membersrequirement should be removed for Official Local Chapters and Graduated OSGeo Projects? You are right, Local chapter liaisons probably don't need the specific 3. I find this whole thing odd because in California we gave the liaison position to whoever was willing to do it, not exactly an election... course we wouldn't want a local chapter to just keep switching liaison to get more charter members so they have enough vote to get a board member of their choosing... If we follow the only adding once a year - it should take too many years for this strategy to be worthwhile. More below. You might want to clarify how the Charter Membership is tied to the elected position. Let's say I volunteer to chair the Web Committee now, then become a Charter Member, then quit the Web Committee and someone else takes it over. Am I still a Charter Member? Is the person who takes it over? I think that Charter Membership is lifetime unless you repeatedly don't vote or ask to not be a Charter Member, so that might address the first question. For the second question about the person who takes over chairing, would it wait until the next Charter membership election for it to become effective? Same scenario with Local Chapter Representatives. It's not tied together. You do not need to be a Charter member to be the chair or member of a committee. The only time you need Charter membership is to serve on the Board or vote for the Board or vote for new Charter members. You are correct once a Charter member you stay one unless you remove yourself - or as discussed in previous years (I can't recall if it's a proposal or rule) if you fail to vote often enough. Charter members are only added once a year, that is unlikely to change. This ensures that they are added at a somewhat measured pace. Once these changes are approved, this page should perhaps be updated, http://www.osgeo.org/membership Eli Is the board going to vote on this proposal or all charter members? Thanks, Alex ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
Thanks all for the feedback. One thing that you have made me realise is that the text was potentially unclear as to whether a person is eligible as a recognised community leader if they previously, but not currently hold a role as a PSC member (or similar). The intent is they should be eligible. Re: 3 charter members to vote. This was introduced to make it harder to rig the system. I expect that most established OSGeo communities will have 3 charter members. If not, people can still apply for charter member status under our previous voting process. I agree that PSC membership for graduated OSGeo projects should suffice for validating that a candidate has contributed significantly to OSGeo, and as such should be considered automatically for OSGeo Charter status. * *I've updated text to reflect comments: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process_2014#Positions_for_recognised_OSGeo_Community_Leaders /Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders are defined as people who have been '''voted''' into a position of authority within official OSGeo projects and committees. *(This may refer to a current or previously held position).*// // //Acceptable roles are currently limited to:// // //* Project Steering Committee member of a Graduated OSGeo Project// //* Chair of Official Local Chapter, *where the voting community includes at least '''3''' OSGeo charter members*// //* Chair of an OSGeo committee, *where the voting community includes at least '''3''' OSGeo charter members*/*/ /* On 18/06/2014 5:48 am, Alex Mandel wrote: On 06/17/2014 12:22 PM, Eli Adam wrote: I like the idea of the new Charter Membership rules. On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 9:43 AM, Jo Cook joc...@astuntechnology.com wrote: Hi List, Regarding the new proposal for voting in charter members- it's slightly off topic, but I doubt all existing Local Chapter representatives have been voted in by at least 3 charter members. That sets the bar quite high for new chapters as well- under the new regime if they have no existing chapter members it might not be possible for them to a) elect a chapter representative and b) get them elected as a charter member. Maybe I've misunderstood this part of the new rules? I think that a) is still possible. The Local Chapter can do what they want regarding their internal workings. I agree that b) could be impossible in the scenario you describe. Local Chapters are approved by the Board including a representative who then becomes an Officer of OSGeo.[0] Graduated OSGeo projects are approved by both the Incubation Committee and the Board. I think in these cases where the Chapter/Project has already been approved by the Board, removing the requirement where the voting community includes at least *3* OSGeo charter members is reasonable. Jo, do you think that the where the voting community includes at least *3* OSGeo charter membersrequirement should be removed for Official Local Chapters and Graduated OSGeo Projects? You are right, Local chapter liaisons probably don't need the specific 3. I find this whole thing odd because in California we gave the liaison position to whoever was willing to do it, not exactly an election... course we wouldn't want a local chapter to just keep switching liaison to get more charter members so they have enough vote to get a board member of their choosing... If we follow the only adding once a year - it should take too many years for this strategy to be worthwhile. More below. You might want to clarify how the Charter Membership is tied to the elected position. Let's say I volunteer to chair the Web Committee now, then become a Charter Member, then quit the Web Committee and someone else takes it over. Am I still a Charter Member? Is the person who takes it over? I think that Charter Membership is lifetime unless you repeatedly don't vote or ask to not be a Charter Member, so that might address the first question. For the second question about the person who takes over chairing, would it wait until the next Charter membership election for it to become effective? Same scenario with Local Chapter Representatives. It's not tied together. You do not need to be a Charter member to be the chair or member of a committee. The only time you need Charter membership is to serve on the Board or vote for the Board or vote for new Charter members. You are correct once a Charter member you stay one unless you remove yourself - or as discussed in previous years (I can't recall if it's a proposal or rule) if you fail to vote often enough. Charter members are only added once a year, that is unlikely to change. This ensures that they are added at a somewhat measured pace. Once these changes are approved, this page should perhaps be updated, http://www.osgeo.org/membership Eli Is the board going to vote on this proposal or all charter members? Thanks, Alex ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
On 18/06/2014 5:48 am, Alex Mandel wrote: Is the board going to vote on this proposal or all charter members? Alex, Vote on the changed process will be put to the board. It is currently significantly easier to manage a board process than a charter member voting process. -- 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, W www.lisasoft.com, F +61 2 9009 5099 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 [...] Is the board going to vote on this proposal or all charter members? Thanks, Alex This is actually a good question and maybe points towards a new way of leveraging our Charter Membership. I would think that it would be worthwhile to pass major changes in the way the organization operates by the Charter Members. They basically own the organization and (should) have vetted interests in how it takes shape. In the long run [1] I can see an electronic voting tool where every now and then something bubbles up the board deems relevant enough that all (a majority, quorum, etc.) of our Charter Members wrap their heads around. Have fun, Arnulf [1] The definition of long is directly proportional to the level of interest we can trigger in Charter Membership, so maybe indefinite. :-) - -- http://metaspatial.net -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iEYEARECAAYFAlOg9loACgkQXmFKW+BJ1b1bEgCcCWQ3WgCab4pWk3e0BN/VLdnC EJkAnRzgtxS/skP92ZL+BzJqu3qIBppv =/U8Z -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
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, W www.lisasoft.com, F +61 2 9009 5099 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
