[Board] [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Elections starting tomorrow

[Seven (aka Arnulf)]

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Adrian,
thanks for asking.

The election period itself is not the best point in time to actually
*change* anything. So I suggest to keep things as they are for now.
But I have just started the talk page where we can add points which we
think need to be changed:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Category_talk:Elections

The other problem might be that nobody sees an immediate need to
change anything / feels responsible for these aspects of the
Foundation. *During* the elections sometimes things pop up (as your
mail and Venka's last year) but there is no follow-up process.

Our job as CROs (Michael and me) is to run the elections, not to clean
up the process.


I'll try to summarize how I see things right now:

Reality:
Charter Membership is a very low key role. Their only responsibility
is to elect new individuals into Charter Membership and elect the
board of directors. As such the Charter Members never have had a
meeting and there is no roll call except that we monitor who has voted
in the charter and board elections. Members who fail to take part in
two elections in a row become inactive and drop out. Any time they
take part in an election makes them become active again. It has so far
never happened that a member had to be excluded and I am not seeing it
happen. But it may well be necessary to have something like this in
place (is what every lawyer tells us) for example if somebody severely
damages the reputation of the organization, etc.

By Laws:
The bylaws as published at
http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/incorporation/bylaws.html are
based on standard Delaware law for non-profit organizations and
originate from the very first days of the Foundation when we still had
corporate funding from Autdoesk and Rich Steele acted as our lawyer. I
don't think that they are very relevant to how things are run at the
foundation and it may be time to amend them to reflect how we really
operate. The reality here is that lacking a lawyer and not seeing an
immediate need for change things just stay as they are.

You probably refer to clause 7.7 Automatic Termination (not 7.4). Our
 current interpretation is that we move Charter Members to a dormant
status if they fail to vote in three consecutive elections. The CRO
makes sure the information is recorded and passed on to the OSGeo
secretary who maintains the list.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Arnulf.

On 09.07.2013 14:50, Adrian Custer wrote:
> Hey both,
> 
> On 7/8/13 10:49 AM, Seven (aka Arnulf) wrote:
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>> 
>> Folks, OSGeo elections are about to start. The nomination period
>> for new Charter Member starts tomorrow!
>> 
>> Please consider nominating new Charter Members within the next
>> two weeks and help grow the Foundation to become a diverse and
>> lively group of enthusiasts, professionals and hobbyists
>> interested in geospatial openness.
>> 
>> Elections page: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2013
>> 
>> News item: http://www.osgeo.org/elections_2013
>> 
>> Please help spread the word and also reach out into communities
>> who have not yet connected with OSGeo. We are open for open
>> source geospatial software, education and data.
>> 
>> Have fun, Arnulf
> 
> 
> Since it's 'charter member' season again, I am again reminded of
> the weird OSGeo rules for such 'charter members' that include
> automatic termination, clause 7.4 
> http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/incorporation/bylaws.html 
> Unfortunately, for this rule to work, OSGeo should be recording
> its 'meetings of the members of the corporation' and logging
> attendance.
> 
> I have brought this up before (though I can not find the mail
> quickly) and, at the time, there was some plan to get more serious
> about following the bylaws. However, I cannot find any list of
> 'charter member' attendance at the 'meetings of the members of the
> corporation'. I would expect that the member list 
> http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/members/voting_members.html
>
> 
would include a table of attendance.
> 
> So has this part of the Bylaws fallen by the wayside yet again? 
> Alternatively, is there a list of 'meetings of the members' with
> minutes and attendance? Finally, which of the committees 
> http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/committees.html is
> responsible for membership?
> 
> 
> thanks for any clarification, ~adrian


- -- 
Exploring Space, Time and Mind
http://arnulf.us
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