[Board] OSGeo Officers and their roles, liabilities, etc.

[Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)]

Hi all,
I thought this might be a good time to discuss this topic, since as part
of our 501c3 application we have to supply a list of officers and
directors.

As you can see here:
http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/board_and_officers.html

there are a ton of officers, one for each project steering committee and
more.

If I recall correctly, at a board meeting not too long ago it was agreed
to no longer automatically make local chapter liaisons into official
"officers" of OSGeo.

In the past I've talked to a couple officers (one committee VP and
another project VP) who were unaware they were even on the list.  PSC
chairs have been elected by the board as officers, seemingly without the
 chairs knowing.

Further to that, after finding out he was on the list, one of them was
concerned about his exposure to the US tax service (IRS) by being signed
on as an officer one.

If we can help address these questions, I think it would help get us
closer to clearly discussing who/what should be officers.  Naturally, we
can't promote people to positions without them knowing/agreeing, so
getting some public documents outlining this would help for all involved.

* Why are project chairs considered officers?
* What does it mean to be an officer?  What roles and responsibilities
do they have?
* What does being an officer mean under our bylaws and with regards to
the US IRS in particular?
* Is it a requirement for incubating projects to identify a PSC member
to be an officer?  If no project rep wishes to be an officer, then what?
* What personal liabilities are officers exposed to?
* What benefits does officers gain?

I'm sure there are many more good questions, hopefully we can clear this
up.  Feel free to point me to past discussions.  The main one I found
was here, a good summary from Frank:

http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2008-February/002311.html

Tyler