[OSGeo-Board] Eighth Board Meeting - Committee Chair Guidelines

[Frank Warmerdam]

Jo Walsh wrote:
> dear Board,
> 
> On Fri, Apr 28, 2006 at 04:32:23PM +0200, Markus Neteler wrote:
>> in preparation of the meeting I have re-read
>> http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Committee_Chair_Guidelines
> 
> Something else that jumped out at me was this:
> 
> #  Note that anyone can become a committee member. Voting Members of
> #  OSGeo have no special status at the committee level, and we wish to
> #  encourage any qualified member of the community to get involved in
> #  committees.
> 
> I recall this conversation about committee membership:
> https://board.osgeo.org/servlets/ReadMsg?listName=board&msgNo=634
> [[ The initial committee members would need to add new members by a
> voted on motion... So, in particular, people can't add themselves to a
> committee.  They can volunteer to participate and the committee 
> would add them if it so wishes. ]]
> 
> This makes sense but is a bit rigid. The Geodata committee has a lot
> more people on its project page than on its formal 'committee'. I am
> concerned a bit that a bar to entry as formal as a voting process, a
> meeting etc, might be a bar to participation.

Jo,

Note the two above points, that foundation non-members can join and that
joining requires a motion of the committee are not contrary to one
another.

You do raise an interesting point about the need to differentiate between
members of a committee (vs. folks just joining in a meeting).   As long
as committees have responsibilities to take certain sorts of actions I
think it is valuable to keep track of who the formal committee members
are so it is clear what the voting process is. But for many committees
there is no harm in having lots of extra folks participating whether they
are members or not.  For instance, anyone can attend a meeting, contribute
on the wiki, etc.

But ultimately if somewhat potentially contentious issues arise it is
helpful to be clear on who gets to vote and who doesn't.  Certainly I
can see this issue arising in something like the incubator where we may
have challenges deciding on whether to recommend projects for
graduation.  In the geodata committee, perhaps this is less of an issue
since it is mostly just voluntary contribution without much policy
making.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGF, http://osgeo.org