[Board] [OSGeo-Discuss] Invitation to participate in the OSGeo membership consultations

[Vasile Craciunescu]

Dear Bruce, Steve, Even, Peter, Dan and others,

Sorry for replying so late. I'm in vacation with limited Internet 
access. Personally, I agree with many of your points. However, as Steven 
already pointed out, we had a few days of open discussions on the survey 
before sending to our Charter members. Somehow I expected that our 
Charter members are subscribed on the discuss and board mailing list and 
following the topics there. Perhaps we need a dedicated mailing list for 
our Charter members or the invitation to comment on the survey should be 
also sent individually to all our Charter members. Not sure about the 
right approach. Anyway, please keep in mind that this is the first time 
we are polling our members and we still have to learn and adjust our 
communication skills.

Now, regarding the survey. The main point was to find the best method to 
select our Charter members. This is an ongoing discussion for many 
years. The survey included the previous voting options and some new 
proposals. Then, some people suggested to use this opportunity to 
include additionally questions regarding the future of OSGeo membership. 
That's how the survey was created. The survey is really flawed if is not 
connected with the discussions on the "board" and "discuss" mailing 
lists. Different people, different angles, different opinions... But 
only a fraction of our members expressed their ideas/questions/opinions 
before assembling the survey. That's why the survey looks heterogeneous. 
I did my best to merge similar topics and not to include redundant 
questions. I also did not remove any question based on my own judgement. 
Anyway, I find this exercise very useful for our community. We should 
discuss further to keep our organization on the right track.

Warm regards from the sunny Black Sea coast!
Vasile

PS I'm slowly catching up will all the emails on this thread (most of 
them privately sent). I'll get back when I have the full picture.

On 7/31/15 3:07 AM, Bruce Bannerman wrote:
> Hi Vassile,
>
> This survey appears to be flawed.
>
> I applaud your efforts to bring this issue to a head, but I'm not convinced
> that we'll get valid results from the survey.
>
>
> In my case:
>
> I believe that there should be open membership for any interested, perhaps
> with a membership fee.
>
> I also see the value of recognising key contributors voted through some
> meritocracy process as the current Charter Membership allows, with this
> group having a voting responsibility. This is in essence not very different
> from the concept of a 'committers' group within an open source project. I
> don't really care if the name 'Charter Membership' is changed.
>
>
> However the survey appears to lead people into a binary situation where
> they believe in 'open' or 'closed' with 'closed' apparently assigned to
> those favouring 'Charter Membership'.
>
>
> For example:
>
> I'd like to vote NO to 'Should OSGeo move from the actual elected Charter
> member model to an (open) regular membership?'
>
> But, YES to 'If you agree with the OSGeo regular membership, do you also
> agree with a low annual membership fee?'
>
> However, I'm precluded from doing so, because I answered NO to Q1.
>
> For Question 4, I would like to answer both:
>
> - YES for Open, in the context that everyone interested should be able to
> participate in discussions and the OSGeo Community (perhaps having paid a
> membership fee); and
>
> - YES for 'Closed', in the context of key votes being subject to the
> equivalent of a 'Committers' list where people have been voted in through
> some meritocracy process.
>
> - However, I can only choose one or the other!
>
>
> I haven't read the remaining questions at this stage, given the flawed
> questions at the beginning.
>
>
>
> I apologise if you had sent this out for review earlier. I have not been
> following this debate closely as this type of membership noise pops up on a
> regular basis.
>
> However, when this proceeds to a vote of the OSGeo Charter membership, I
> need to register a comment.
>
>
> For consideration.
>
> Bruce
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Vasile Crăciunescu <cro at osgeo.org>
>> Reply-To: Vasile Crăciunescu <cro at osgeo.org>
>> Date: Thursday, 30 July 2015 23:52
>> To: Bruce Bannerman <>
>> Subject: Invitation to participate in the OSGeo membership consultations
>>
>> Dear Bruce,
>>
>> As an existing OSGeo Charter Member, you have been invited to participate
>> in the 2015 OSGeo membership consultations.
>>
>> To participate, please click on the link below.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Vasile ()
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>


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Vasile Crăciunescu
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