[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Membership and/or upcoming elections

[Seven (aka Arnulf)]

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Folks,
there always was a lot of discussion and different opinions about how we
manage OSGeo membership.

This usually happened when the elections process had already started.
After the fact everything quieted down again until - same procedure as
every year.

Instead of volunteering to go through the holistically not automated
process of manually searching 150+ mail addresses, verifying
individually with people and nudging us through elections that nobody
really thinks are useful I suggest to start a conversation (SIC! not a
discussion) [1] on how to change the current procedure, because change
it needs.

Before happily conversing away I suggest we all go back to what we
already have now and then proceed from there.

What we have:
http://www.osgeo.org/membership official documents

How we do it:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process

Why it sucks:
* It is a bit incestuous
* Hard to maintain
* Always ''feels'' a bit fishy
* Charter Members have nothing to do most of the time
* (Appears to) exclude normal people
* tbc ... please add your personal offense

Have fun,
Eight minus one


[1] Why not a discussion? Because discussions are usually based on
predefined opinions of which a single one can "win" whereas all others
"lose". Instead I'd like to first see an animated collection of ideas
and later on a fleshing out process to find a new way of - well, what
exactly? Having folks become OSGeo members.


- -- 
Exploring Space, Time and Mind
http://arnulf.us
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