[OSGeo-Discuss] Elections 2017 from the CRO point of view

Thu Oct 26 00:53:21 PDT 2017

great CRO management Vasile, I feel guaranteed by you.

tnx
Luigi Pirelli

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On 25 October 2017 at 20:00, Vasile Craciunescu <vasile at geo-spatial.org> wrote:
> Dear Board directors and dear members of OSGeo community,
>
> This year elections [1] will end in less than 7 hours and it is time for me,
> as CRO, to make a short assessment and to issue a few recommendations.
>
> As you all know, during the process we had a few situations that caused
> tension and discontent to an important number of our members. I will go
> through the most important ones.
>
> 1. This year membership process [2] was a very lite one. The basic rule for
> becoming a charter member was to be nominated by one existing member and to
> be seconded by at least one other existing member. This lite approach was in
> line with the new OSGeo Vision and Mission Statement which is focused on
> being inclusive [3]. However, during the nomination period, many of our
> members considered the new membership process way too inclusive/lite,
> causing a diminution in the importance of the charter member position.
> Another subject that produced criticism was related to the fact that some of
> the nominations were considered short in content and did not offer enough
> information on the "positive attributes" [4] that a potential member shall
> have. Finally, one of the charter member responsibilities [5], "Be aware of
> and protect against a takeover of OSGeo by single group or viewpoint.", was
> also a subject of dispute. My recommendations for the future board are to:
> (a) Change the existing membership process with another one more balanced,
> that assures both inclusiveness and a consistent weight for the charter
> member position. Of course, this new mechanism should be discussed with the
> community; (b) Impose a a very light template for the new nominations. This
> way, all the nominations will be consistent and comparable. (c) Rephrase
> responsibility no. 3 of the charter members. The meaning should be kept bu
> the wording should not sound that martial.
>
> 2. Jeff was nominated for the board of directors while was serving as
> co-CRO. Even if the nominee steeped down immediately from the co-CRO
> position, the access to the cro at osgeo.org was immediately cut-off and he
> never had access to the electronic voting system, criticism over the
> potential conflict of interest and elections credibility was raised. My
> recommendation for the board is to make a specific rule that a
> nomination/candidacy for/from a person that is acting as CRO or has any
> other role in the election management is not acceptable.
>
> 3. During the voting period Jeff sent a request to withdraw from the
> elections due to the negative feedback. This also started a vivid debate. My
> recommendation for the board is to create a clear rule stating that an
> accepted nomination cannot be withdraw after the start of the voting period.
> Of course, elected persons can always resign for various reasons.
>
> Regarding the current status of the elections. 311 from a total of 390
> members voted (80%). Due to the final reminder sent today there are chances
> to improve the voting participation.
>
> In my previous message I was proposing to accept Jeff's withdraw request but
> to continue the elections without any modification to the voting list. After
> more study on different voting systems and after going through your
> feedback, my decision and proposal for the board is not to admit the request
> from Jeff. Such requests are not possible in this kind of elections
> elsewhere. It is true that we have no specific rule for that in our bylaws.
> As I mentioned before, this should change. After the release of the
> elections results, and if Jeff is elected, it's up to him to decide if he
> goes on with the mandate or if he is resigning. This decision should be a
> very fast one, without further discussions on the mailing list, with all the
> possible arguments being already on the table.
>
> The other option that the board can consider is to entirely restart the
> board elections cycle (or only the voting part for the remaining 8
> nominations). Even if this looks like the most correct way to go, looking on
> how the elections went before and after Jeff announcement, I can say,
> without disclosing anything about the final results, that the announcement
> did not changed the way people were voting. Of course, this is not a fact,
> is just my conclusion after looking at the trends. After the elections,
> beside the final numbers, I will also publish the evolution of the votes
> (every single vote and the timestamp, anonymized of course). Other important
> reasons for the board not to start new elections are: (a) The community is
> very irritated about this never ending stories and people are waiting to
> move forward and do the things we usually do. For most of them, the
> arguments for restarting the elections are not strong enough; (b) Four of
> our current board members are also running in this elections. Although that
> personally I have no doubts that each one of them will position/vote/decide
> correctly, only in the interest of the community, some objections on the
> position/vote/decision impartiality can be raised.
>
> In any case, the board should have an opinion before the results are made
> public. To give time to board members to react, I plan to release the
> results of the vote on Thursday 17:00 GMT. If needed, more time can be
> allocated. However, deciding on the way to go further after seeing the
> results can only escalate the possible conflict of interest.
>
> I'm asking the board for a position not because I'm running away from the
> responsibility (my position was clearly presented) but because we have no
> specific rules in our bylaws for the current situation and the CRO has
> really no legal obligations, the board members being the one that are
> legally responsible for the foundation decisions.
>
> Personally I have to apologize again to you for the length of this message.
> I was not able to convey this in a more condensed way. I think the most
> important challenges for the near and medium future are to restore the trust
> of our community in the way the organization is managed and to reconcile
> what is now, in my opinion, a divided community. Of course, achieving this
> is not easy, will require a better communication and the prevail of
> arguments over emotions, but, under such a vibrant, passionate and
> transparent organization like OSGeo this is surely possible.
>
> As CRO, I did my best not to express any personal opinion, to focus strictly
> on facts and rules, to be calm and impartial. Not sure how well that went by
> the end but I want to assure everyone that all my actions were perform in
> good faith and to the extend of my knowledge. I'm thankful for all the
> people that assisted me along the way with technical support (Jeff, Jorge,
> Jody, Werner). I will also would like to extend my gratitude to all the
> people that publicly or privately expressed support for the CRO activity. It
> was highly appreciated. For me this will be the last term as CRO. Not
> because this year was a little bit more challenging but just because I did
> this three times and someone else should take the lead. Of course, that
> person will have my full support.
>
> I will finish this by thanking all the people that voted and expressed
> opinions on this list. Direct involvement and dialog are the only options to
> move ahead as a community.
>
> Best,
> Vasile
> CRO 2017
>
> [1] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2017
> [2] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process
> [3] http://www.osgeo.org/about
> [4] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process#Positive_Attributes
> [5] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process#Responsibilities
>
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