[OSGeo-Board] Board Nomination email (please review)

[Rich Steele]

The board can ask anyone it wants to do the reporting to the board.  But
if the board is establishing a committee to administer foundation work,
then there must be an officer or director on that committee.  This does
not mean that we need to have a board member on every PSC.  We can
simply elect the chairpersons of the various committees as officers of
the corporation -- ie., if a PSC chairperson is not a board member, then
the board can appoint him/her as a vice president.

For example, when Apache creates a new PSC, they appoint the chairperson
of the committee and simultaneously make that person an officer of the
ASF.  See, e.g.  http://logging.apache.org/site/mission-statement.html

We might also want to think about the issue of "committee proliferation"
and whether fewer, but more broadly-scoped, committees are preferable to
many committees.  For example, the website committee seems like a
natural thing to slot under the promotion and visibility committee if it
had an expanded mandate.  Remember too that an "official" committee can
establish its own working groups, subcommittees, etc. without needing
separate board approval.

-Rich

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Holmes [mailto:cholmes at openplans.org]
> Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 11:30 AM
> To: board at board.osgeo.org
> Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Board] Board Nomination email (please review)
> 
> Do the bylaws say chairperson of the committee?  I think it might be
> wise to allow the 'officer', the person who reports to the board, be
> someone other than the chairperson, ie the person who does the leading
> of the project.  Like if the leader of the project isn't interested in
> reporting to the board, just wants to get their work done, and can
then
> designate someone else to do the reporting...
> 
> Chris
> 
> Rich Steele wrote:
> > Related question:  who is the chair of the website committee?  Note
that
> > the bylaws require that a PSC have as a member "at least one officer
or
> > one director of the corporation, who shall be designated the
chairperson
> > of such committee".
> >
> > -Rich
> >
> >
> >>-----Original Message-----
> >>From: Frank Warmerdam [mailto:fwarmerdam at gmail.com] On Behalf Of
Frank
> >>Warmerdam (External)
> >>Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 10:47 AM
> >>To: board at board.osgeo.org
> >>Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Board] Board Nomination email (please review)
> >>
> >>Gary Lang wrote:
> >>
> >>>A meta question:
> >>>
> >>>a) who is keeping track of all of these committees?
> >>>b) who is tracking their progress
> >>>c) do we have a list of these projects that we've agreed to set up
> >
> > and
> >
> >>>pursue?
> >>>
> >>>If board people send me a list of the projects/committees they're
> >>>working on, I'll roll them up and we can start tracking them.
> >>
> >>Gary,
> >>
> >>Each committee seems to be getting it's own subdomain where it
> >
> > documents
> >
> >>itself.  So for instance, as chair of the Incubation committee I
have
> >>written up some brief notes at:
> >>    http://incubator.osgeo.org/
> >>
> >>The web committee has stuff at:
> >>    http://webcommittee.osgeo.org/
> >>
> >>Hopefully the visibility and promotion committee will also have
> >
> > something
> >
> >>similar soon.  I think it is important for each "official" committee
> >
> > to
> >
> >>have a web page listing their members, mandate and some working
> >
> > details.
> >
> >>I think the committee chairs should be reporting back to the board
> >>periodically, as we had from DanielB re: WebCom last week.  We also
> >
> > have
> >
> >>generally had at least one board member on each subcommittee which
> >
> > helps
> >
> >>ensure important issues can be raised and answered at the board
level
> >>when needed.
> >>
> >>There are still some unofficial committees like the free data (or
> >
> > public
> >
> >>geodata) group, and the curriculum group.  They are essentially
still
> >
> > in
> >
> >>the proto-phase and may or may not even have a mailing list.  What
> >>information
> >>is available is normally in the wiki for these.
> >>
> >>Hopefully the leftbox on the OSGeo main page will soon have direct
or
> >>indirect links to the various active committees, replacing the wiki
> >
> > page
> >
> >>at:
> >>
> >>   http://www.fossgis.de/osgeo/index.php/Committees
> >>
> >>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
> >
> >>
>
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> 
> --
> Chris Holmes
> The Open Planning Project
> thoughts at: http://cholmes.wordpress.com