[Board] OSGeo Elections starting tomorrow

[Jeff McKenna]

Your statement was effective Arnulf.  I was just defending the thousands
of OSGeo volunteers.  Sometimes you're prodding helps.

Thanks for setting up the talk page.  I'll try hard to get the changes
accepted by the Board.

-jeff



On 2013-07-09 11:26 AM, Jeff McKenna wrote:
> Hi Adrian and Arnulf,
> 
> Regarding nobody seeing an immediate need to change anything
> responsible for the Foundation, this is a hurtful statement as many of
> us volunteer almost our whole career for this foundation.  In my case,
> I will try to champion changes that we need.  I will do my best to use
> the talk page outlined by Arnulf to resolve these election issues with
> the Board.
> 
> -jeff
> 
> 
> 
> On 2013-07-09 11:12 AM, Seven (aka Arnulf) wrote:
>> 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:
>>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
>>>>
>>>> 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
>>
>>
>>