[Board] motions from June 18 meeting - making OSGeo Charter membership more exclusive

[Ravi Kumar]

+1
Ravi Kumar

On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 5:29 AM, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
wrote:

>  OSGeo board,
> As an OSGeo Charter member, I request that the following motion (see
> below) not be passed without first discussing publicly on the OSGeo Discuss
> email list.
>
> The current process for joining OSGeo Charter Membership [2] was
> specifically refined to be more inclusive than before, in order to make it
> easy for all passionate people within the OSGeo community to join, while
> aiming to protect against the now relatively unlikely possibility of a
> hostile takeover.
>
> Based on the proposal below, 11 out of 64 of last years successful
> nominations would be rejected under the  proposed new rules. I suggest this
> is not in OSGeo's interests.
>
> It is possible that some of these 11 people are not very involved in
> OSGeo, and maybe haven't contributed much since being nominated, but is
> that a bad thing? Have any of these 11 people been actively detrimental to
> OSGeo while being an OSGeo Charter member? Note, the only official duty of
> a charter member is to vote for the board. However, being recognised as a
> charter member is useful for many of our members looking to gain OSGeo
> credibility, such as when presenting at conferences.
>
> If we are more inclusive, and add 10 new non-active/non-disruptive OSGeo
> Charter members, then I'd argue that it is worth it for the 1 passionate
> Charter member we also gain.
>
> I remember a quote from Jeff which rang true with me, and which I think is
> applicable here:
>
> *"I once heard an interview with a legendary lead singer of a band, who
> said his goal each concert was to make the kid sitting in the very back row
> to feel like he's as much a part of the concert as the kid sitting in the
> front row, and this is exactly how I focus my community work for OSGeo."*
> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2014-August/013498.html
>
> Warm regards, Cameron Shorter
>
> On 20/06/2015 5:29 am, Vasile Craciunescu wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
> Please also vote for motion below.
>
> 5) For the new charter members elections, change the threshold of required
> YES votes of charter members from 5% to 50%. See Jeff's e-mail [1] for
> detailed explanations and the rationale of this change. If needed, also
> check the Membership Process [2].
>
> My vote is +1.
>
> Best,
> Vasile
>
> [1] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2015-May/012863.html
> [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process
>
>
>
> On 26/05/2015 2:18 am, Jeff McKenna wrote:
>
> 3. Decide on 2015 Selection Process
> -----------------------------------
>
> To refresh everyone's memory, last year we (Board) modified the selection
> process[3] for Charter members; but in my opinion we made a mistake with
> the voting change of "Each candidate with more YES votes than NO votes, and
> greater than 5% of voting charter members voting YES for them, will be
> included as new charter members."
>
> What I saw was, for the first time in OSGeo history, strategic nominations
> by certain projects, for relatively unknown community members; the result
> was that all 64 nominations were accepted as Charter members.
>
> For 2015, I am proposing we make 1 change, instead of the 5% acceptance,
> change that to 50% or greater voting YES.   Such as:
>
> ***
> Each candidate with more YES votes than NO votes, and greater than or
> equal to 50% of voting charter members voting YES for them, will be
> included as new charter members.
> ***
>
> I have checked the 2014 results again, and with those new 50% rules, we
> would have accepted 45 nominations versus all 64 nominations.  I believe
> this is much better.
>
> But of course this needs to be decided by the Board and community.  I am
> merely kicking off the process   So please speak your mind, or edit the
> 2015 Elections wiki directly.
>
> Yours,
>
> -jeff
>
> --
> Cameron Shorter,
> Software and Data Solutions Manager
> LISAsoft
> Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
> 26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
>
> P +61 2 9009 5000,  W www.lisasoft.com,  F +61 2 9009 5099
>
>
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>
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