Fw: [Aust-NZ] Incorporation of Aust-NZ chapter

[Bruce Bannerman]

Excellent!   Some debate. 

Thanks for your comments Hamish. We need more like them to generate
debate.


As we haven't heard from Tyler yet and there is some difference in views
it may be better to postpone the vote. I'll leave that with yourselves
to decide, as I'll be off line for most of the day.


It also appears that one week has not been enough time to get a
consensus on approach, unless the silent majority were happy with the
proposed approach.

So, how and when do we handle this.

I'm not going to be available for a few days, so over to you - as
OSGeo-AustNZ list members.


On Thu, 2008-04-03 at 04:04 -0700, Hamish wrote:
> Bruce Bannerman wrote:
> > I'd prefer to keep the vote private.
> 
> I have no problem with Tyler, but as a rule there need to be damn good
> reasons if things are not going to be run with full transparency.
> 

I noted that OSGeo ran the recent elections in private (at least the
voting component).


> In the case of vote for your favourite, we can make it clear that folks
> participate here privately, not in their professional capacities. And all
> agree to no hard feelings.

*We* may be able to make that distinction quite easily. For some of us,
our employers may have other ideas.


> 
> In the case of rank the canidates, there is more room for hard feelings
> so the "send votes to Tyler" option could be preferable. And FWIW
> probably that would be under his role as OSGeo Secretary, not as exec
> director.
> 
> I would suggest that, with modification/simplification/speedup, the
> Debian project may have some wise ideas to examine-
>   http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution
>   http://www.debian.org/vote/
> 

I have a lot of respect for what the Debian community has achieved and
have used Debian and its derivatives as my main systems for over seven
years.

The policies that you refer to appear to work well for the Debian
community (with some dissenting views). However I'd point out that they
have had around fifteen years to develop these policies.

I doubt that we would be be able to adopt them, all of the supporting
policies and general ethos as is within the OSGeo and OSGeo-Aust-NZ
communities as there are some fundamental differences between the Debian
and the Apache (adopted by OSGeo) approaches.

All said and done, we are a new community and we will need to find what
works for us.


> 
> > It will avoid future problems with perceptions of bias relating to who
> > voted for whom etc.
> ...
> > We will also have people who are not comfortable either voting in
> > public or having people know who they voted for.
> 
> The exact same thing could be argued for the opposite case, on both
> counts.
> 
> > I also propose that voting is open during the following
> > period (times are Australian Eastern Standard Time):
> > 
> > - 12:00 noon, Friday 4th April 2008 - voting opens
> > 
> > - 12:00 noon, Saturday 5th April 2008 - voting closes
> 
> "-1."
> 
> too short. give it 5 days. and way too soon, the list must come to a
> clear consensus about the process first. And if Tyler is going to be used
> as a trusted convener, he must agree and be given a chance to convey his
> thoughts about the process rather than have it thrust upon him. We don't
> even have an answer to the WA residency question yet, do we? Or who has
> accepted their nomination? How long is the elected term?
> 

- wrt Tyler - agreed.

- wrt consensus on process - agreed.

- wrt timings, we have had over 6 days already, with minimal debate.
Either there is general agreement or we are not really interested and
don't care. The numbers of people who bothered to vote would have given
us this answer.

- wrt Australian residency, there is a clear explanation on the ASIC
links (we will also need to register with them). There is not a clear
answer on the WA requirements though - agreed.

- wrt longer term process, this needs to be worked through. We have been
(sort of) discussing this for over twelve months that I'm aware of with
no resolution. I'm glad to see that you are starting to enter the
debate. We need your and others input if this is to work.

However IMO we don't have to have the process worked out before we do
anything. As it is we will have:

  + at least one month delay before the WA incorporation can proceed in
order to comply with their process and advertise our intent (see Tim's
earlier post with ling to WA Regs). I'd say we'd need to have directors
names in the ad.

  + we have list members who are doing work on our behalf and will soon
be making decisions that could leave them at personal liability. I'd
prefer to see that they are at least covered by appropriate 'directors'
insurance that may give them some cover. The longer we dilly-dally
around, the more exposed they become.


> 
> but are we jumping the gun here? there are other methods, e.g. elect a
> board somehow, and have that board elect their chair (in public).
> (we are talking about electing a director here, is that right? even that
> is not clear to me) I take it the WA laws say there must be a board as
> well as a chair, correct?
> 

- IMO (and I'm only one voice). Lets get the ball rolling and work out
the process concurrently. If we don't like what has happened once we
have the process in place - fix it.

> I understand that 2009 is not far off and we need to get moving, but we
> must do this right.
> 
> 
> Hamish
> 
> 
> ps- it would be very helpful if everyone who has accepted a nomination
> could introduce themselves and say a few words about their background,
> FOSS qualifications, and ideas for the project. thanks.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>       ____________________________________________________________________________________
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> 
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