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

Mon Jun 22 06:25:44 PDT 2015

+1

On Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 1:14 PM, Venkatesh Raghavan <
raghavan at media.osaka-cu.ac.jp> wrote:

> 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
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Board mailing list
>>> Board at lists.osgeo.org
>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
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