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

[Venkatesh Raghavan]

The issue of setting the selection criteria at 5% was discussed
after the last years Charter member elections [1].

There was no community discussion when the criteria was changed
to a threshold of 5%. So I do not see the logic in calling for a 
community discussion now
on a matter in which the the community was never consulted, despite the 
fact that
some of us expressed our apprehensions about lowering the threshold.

Venka

[1] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2014-August/012016.html

On 2015/06/21 2:21, Vasile Craciunescu wrote:
> I get Cameron's point of view. Personally, I really don't want to 
> leave valuable people "outside" just because they are not "popular" 
> enough or because they not recommended to the charter members by a 
> popular figure. Myself, I'm not from on a country with notably 
> contributions in term of code to the FOSS4G realm. I do really know 
> that passion for FOSS4G is not always enough to make a person 
> noticeable in the eyes of the community (especially if you are not a 
> programmer). On the other hand, why do we call the process "elections" 
> if we always accept all the nominations? We really need to have some 
> kind of mechanism to assure that "proper" people are elected as 
> charter members, people that really understand and share the values 
> promoted by OSGeo. If the mechanism is right, all the "good" people 
> will get elected (most probably, all people proposed). Of course, 
> there is no easy path to achieve this. I agree that changing the rules 
> of engagement just before the elections is not the best approach. But, 
> I also recall that, since the board meeting in Portland, the 5% rule 
> was contested by an important number of board and charter members (not 
> always on public channels). My proposal is to delay a bit the 
> elections schedule for this year (not sure if bylaws permit this) or 
> shorten the nomination/voting periods in order to have a real 
> consultation on the topic with the OSGeo community. Postponing the 
> rule amendment for an entire year may find us in the very same 
> situation one year latter in 2016 (as Jeff already mentioned, nobody 
> had nothing to reply to his message from May). I encourage all the 
> board/charter members to express their opinion on this subject. If you 
> do care, please talk now.
>
> Best,
> Vasile
>
> On 6/20/15 1:59 AM, Cameron Shorter 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,  Wwww.lisasoft.com,  F +61 2 9009 5099
>>
>>
>>
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