[Board] UN Meeting

Wed Oct 12 04:05:50 PDT 2016

Thanks Michael,
I totally agree. For those not familiar with the model:
https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Do-ocracy

It currently says on that page that this is "The OSGeo Way of Doing
Things". If there is any change to this approach I will very much insist
that this cannot be decided by the Board of Directors only but has to be
run by the Charter Members because it fundamentally changes the way our
organization functions.

In my earlier mail which Venka cited I did propose to potentially change
to a more "democratic" majority voting system. Just to make sure that I
don't get misunderstood: I DO NOT believe that this is a good way for
OSGeo and would asbolutely prefer to continue with a do-ocratic and
maybe also somewhat meritocractic approach. Plus I agree with Michael
and others that this decision should be taken by the committees themselves.

The other mail only intended to point out that the size of OSGeo and
growing anonymity of actors may REQUIRE us to implement a more
majority-bassed approach to stay credible to the outseide - because this
is how big anonymous political organizations work (unfortunately no
other system has proven to be better). As an evolving organism we will
have to look into change, whether we like it or not.

Best regards,
Arnulf

On 12.10.2016 12:39, Michael Smith wrote:
> It seems to me that this should be a by committee choice, how they
> want to self organize, what works best for them. We are a do-ocracy.
> We should let them do.
> 
> Michael Smith Remote Sensing/GIS Center US Army Corps of Engineers
> 
>> On Oct 12, 2016, at 6:25 AM, Venka <venka.osgeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Sanghee and all,
>> 
>> I am fine with autonomy for our committees and have never been
>> against it. We only need to state this clearly in our Committee
>> guidelines [1] which I choose to follow in absence of any other
>> guideline.
>> 
>> I agree with what Arnulf stated well in his mail [2]. I reproduce
>> parts of his e-mail [2] below as he has phrased it better than I
>> can.
>> 
>> "In that case we may want to change the general voting system to a
>> majority vote as is typical for democratic systems. This is
>> something for the board or maybe even the charter members to
>> decide."
>> 
>> So, let us decide;
>> 
>> a) if majority vote will be 50% of the votes cast or X% as decided 
>> by the committee. b) if a -1 vote can have different meanings for
>> different committees c) if committees is free to decide who could
>> be a member, which member could vote and which member is
>> automatically retired.
>> 
>> And having taken the decision, let us update our committee 
>> guidelines [1] and also have our committees to come up with their 
>> own guidelines and put it on the wiki. This will make our decision
>> making process clear and transparent.
>> 
>> [1] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Committee_Guidelines [2]
>> https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2016-September/003944.html
>>
>>
>> 
Best
>> 
>> Venka
>> 
>>> On 2016/10/12 18:10, Sanghee Shin wrote: Dear all,
>>> 
>>> OSGeo is a community of communities and not a centralised 
>>> organisation. I don’t believe Board could set up or apply any
>>> single clear governance rule for the whole committees. If there’s
>>> any weird(to some) governance procedure in any committees, that’s
>>> also the part of the committees’s long history that started
>>> before OSGeo. I support the autonomy of each committee which
>>> knows the real matter there.
>>> 
>>> Cheers, 신상희 --- Shin, Sanghee Gaia3D, Inc. - The GeoSpatial
>>> Company http://www.gaia3d.com
>>> 
>>>> 2016. 10. 11., 오후 3:26, Maria Antonia Brovelli 
>>>> <maria.brovelli at polimi.it> 작성:
>>>> 
>>>> For completeness, the main point under discussion was the one 
>>>> related to voting procedures. "Everyday topics will be decided
>>>> upon by an open vote of all list participants in a clearly
>>>> designated separate mail thread (+1/-1) over a minimum of two
>>>> business days with a minimum participation of 3 votes. Ideally
>>>> we aim for consensus falling back on simple majority vote where
>>>> necessary. The result will be clearly declared afterwards (or
>>>> whatever is decided)." I believed (and still believe) that for
>>>> important decisions as those of the CC, we need more
>>>> participation in voting, i.e. a quorum of 50 %. As far as I
>>>> have understood there is a handful of such decisions a year.
>>>> After a long discussion about this topic, what was suggested by
>>>> many volunteers (of the CC or not of the CC) is that the
>>>> governance has to be decided by the Board and the CC decides
>>>> only on the Conferences. Here we are: we will discuss this
>>>> topic in next Board meeting.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> An for precision: when we made this discussion and I proposed
>>>> to put the decision of governance in the hand of the Board, I
>>>> was not in  the Board.
>>>> 
>>>> Lovely day. Maria
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> ---------------------------------------------------- Prof.
>>>> Maria Antonia Brovelli Vice Rector for Como Campus and GIS
>>>> Professor Politecnico di Milano
>>>> 
>>>> ISPRS WG IV/4"Collaborative crowdsourced cloud mapping (C3M)"; 
>>>> OSGeo; ICA-OSGeo-ISPRS Advisory Board; NASA WorldWind Europa 
>>>> Challenge; SIFET Sol Katz Award 2015
>>>> 
>>>> Via Natta, 12/14 - 22100 COMO (ITALY) Tel. +39-031-3327336 -
>>>> Mob. +39-328-0023867 - fax. +39-031-3327321 e-mail1: 
>>>> <mailto:maria.brovelli at polimi.it>maria.brovelli at polimi.it 
>>>> <mailto:maria.brovelli at polimi.it> e-mail2 <>: 
>>>> prorettrice at como.polimi.it <mailto:prorettrice at como.polimi.it>
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Da: Board <board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> per conto di Cameron 
>>>> Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com> Inviato: lunedì 10 ottobre
>>>> 2016 22.38 A: Anita Graser; board at lists.osgeo.org Oggetto: Re:
>>>> [Board] UN Meeting
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On 11/10/2016 4:53 AM, Anita Graser wrote: The board
>>>>> micro-managed the conference com? (I'm asking because I have
>>>>> not read the entire thread on the conf mailing list.) Any 
>>>>> way, lets try not to repeat this process with the UNCom.
>>>> Hi Anita, I suggest read the thread embedded into my last
>>>> email I've just CCed to the board. It doesn't include
>>>> everything, but does include enough that you should get an
>>>> idea.
>>>> 
>>>> The quick summary: * After a conference committee face-to-face 
>>>> meeting at FOSS4G, Steven took on an action to clarify
>>>> conference committee procedures. * He did this, put it out for
>>>> comment, actioned feedback, then put to the proposal to vote *
>>>> He received positive feedback from majority of the conference
>>>> committee, and two -1 vetos from Venka and Maria (who are also
>>>> on the board). * This resulted in 120+ emails, and a stalemate.
>>>> * Maria has suggested to solve the problem of voting rules by
>>>> putting on the board agenda. (Hence the implication of being
>>>> micro-managed by the board)
>>>> 
>>>> -- Cameron Shorter M +61 419 142 254
>>>> 
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