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

[Frank Warmerdam]

Ravi wrote:
> Strengthening OSGeo local chapters will strengthen OSGeo's aims and
> endeavor. Much of the world awaits the Open GIS revolution to happen. Local
> Chapters can make this happen.

Folks,

If I may act as devils advocate for a moment, I'd like to give some reasons
why it may not be good to make the linkage between OSGeo and OSGeo chapters
too tight.

1) Generally speaking we do not want any risk of chapter finances being
linked to OSGeo finances for tax purposes, our "charitable test", and
such things.

2) Some chapters prefer a loose affiliation with OSGeo over a tight one.
The concept of making the project steering committee chairs/liasons an
officer is so that they are bound by fiduciary duty to OSGeo and can be
directed by OSGeo's board in the administration of the project.  That is
it establish a responsible chain of control which we are expected to be
able to demonstrate over the project for them to be considered part of
OSGeo (for legal purposes).   There are chapters that would bristle at
being put in the same position.

3) Our current procedure for project liason/VPs is that they are proposed
by the project, and then confirmed in the role by the board.  While this
has not generally been an onerous process, we (as the board) are supposed
to be vetting the individuals and establishing that we are comfortable with
them being an officer - a position of non-trivial responsibility and
potential mischief.  Currently we generally have at least some personal
knowledge of individuals likely to be named as project liasons.  But that is
not necessarily the case for local chapters.

4) There will be times when local chapters wish to take initiatives which
are contrary to the position of OSGeo and I'd prefer to leave ourselves some
flexibility and distance.  For instance, I could imagine a local chapter
establishing a mirror that failed to enforce US export restrictions.  If this
is effectively done under the management of an OSGeo officer they and we might
be liable under US law.  If the chapter is more arms length this might not be
an issue.

5) It is my hope that our number of local chapters will continue to grow
and this gives us the potential of having *many* chapter officers.  The more
officers, the more risk that they will do something in the name of OSGeo that
we might regret.  Frankly, I'm already concerned about this "officer
proliferation" with projects and I think the number of projects is
substantially less.

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