[Board] On constitutional re-engineering

[Frank Warmerdam]

Jo Walsh wrote:
> Our model is overcomplex and is a PITA to administer
> with the two rounds of elections each year, fatigue, etc.

Jo,

I do not find our current model particularly complex or
painful to administer.

> A suggestion of Martin Keegan's is that, instead of
> Board members having fixed terms after which
> they need to be re-elected (or re-selected), each year
> every Board member must send a ping saying
> "Yes, i am up for renewing my commitment for another year".

I would not be adverse to us confirming with existing
board members half way through a 2 year term that they
want to continue for a second year.  However, I don't
see this as a substantial change. Already, board members
can resign if they feel they don't have the time to
participate actively.

> As far as membership is concerned, I think that
> everyone who wants to be an OSGeo member, should be.
> GNOME has a system whereby you ask for membership
> pointing to SVN commits to one of their projects, then
> there is a membership committee, which hopefully
> just rubberstamps and enters you into a file.
> 
> I see quite a few people with "OSGeo Charter Member"
> in their sigs and why not have as many people as possible
> doing this?

As a corporation, I think OSGeo has some obligations with
regard to keeping track of our "owners", the charter members
in this case.  So I am hesitant to move to an approach where
the charter membership becomes very large, on account of the
potential bookkeeping overhead.

I wish regular membership was more meaningful and that folks
where putting "OSGeo Member" in the signatures.

> If we went to a model like this then the burden of administering
> the Board elections each year would be lesser, the timing
> would be more consistent. 

How would the timing be more consistent?

> I don't think it would be any
> less fair. Members could also be invited to re-state their
> commitment every year or two.

The CRO and Secretary are supposed to keep track of who
has voted in charter or board elections and if someone doesn't
participate within some number of years (3?) they are supposed
to be dropped from the charter roles or something like that.

> I wonder what others think and guess this should go
> to the discuss list if it is worth while to discuss.

I think this is a topic worth taking to the discuss list.

Overall I'm not particularly keen on the suggested change.
I am somewhat concerned about a "flash crowd" significantly
distorting the nature of the foundation and I just don't feel
we have a real issue now.

I will reiterate my concern over the last few years that when
we launched we established a set of bylaws that essentially
put all the power in the hands of the board with the intention
that we would eventually engineer in some better mechanisms
to protect the role of the foundation and to give a way of
bringing a rogue board under the control of the membership.

I don't feel up to attacking this, but I do think at some
point we need to revisit our bylaws.

Best regards,
-- 
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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    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent