Fw: [Aust-NZ] Incorporation of Aust-NZ chapter

[Mark Leslie]

I agree with much of this.  Tyler is a prime candidate for the role, if 
he has time and inclination for it.  The silent vote doesn't sit well 
with me, but I understand the motivation and won't cry over it for too long.

I'm suddenly confused about what we're actually voting for.  Are we 
voting in a single director, or several directors to form the board? 
I've been under the impression it was the latter, which makes the 
ranking system somewhat nonsensical.

I would think having a strong board, with a fairly arbitrary chair at 
this point, is needed to get our procedures organized quickly.  We can 
then have a more formal vote for chair, and have established processes 
for adding and removing members of the board.  Voting for a single 
person right now makes much less sense to me.  Perhaps someone that's 
followed this thread better than I can post a summary?

Mark

Bruce Bannerman wrote:
> Excellent!   Some debate. 
> 
> Thanks for your comments Hamish. We need more like them to generate
> debate.
> 
> 
> As we haven't heard from Tyler yet and there is some difference in views
> it may be better to postpone the vote. I'll leave that with yourselves
> to decide, as I'll be off line for most of the day.
> 
> 
> It also appears that one week has not been enough time to get a
> consensus on approach, unless the silent majority were happy with the
> proposed approach.
> 
> So, how and when do we handle this.
> 
> I'm not going to be available for a few days, so over to you - as
> OSGeo-AustNZ list members.
> 
> 
> On Thu, 2008-04-03 at 04:04 -0700, Hamish wrote:
>> Bruce Bannerman wrote:
>>> I'd prefer to keep the vote private.
>> I have no problem with Tyler, but as a rule there need to be damn good
>> reasons if things are not going to be run with full transparency.
>>
> 
> I noted that OSGeo ran the recent elections in private (at least the
> voting component).
> 
> 
>> In the case of vote for your favourite, we can make it clear that folks
>> participate here privately, not in their professional capacities. And all
>> agree to no hard feelings.
> 
> *We* may be able to make that distinction quite easily. For some of us,
> our employers may have other ideas.
> 
> 
>> In the case of rank the canidates, there is more room for hard feelings
>> so the "send votes to Tyler" option could be preferable. And FWIW
>> probably that would be under his role as OSGeo Secretary, not as exec
>> director.
>>
>> I would suggest that, with modification/simplification/speedup, the
>> Debian project may have some wise ideas to examine-
>>   http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution
>>   http://www.debian.org/vote/
>>
> 
> I have a lot of respect for what the Debian community has achieved and
> have used Debian and its derivatives as my main systems for over seven
> years.
> 
> The policies that you refer to appear to work well for the Debian
> community (with some dissenting views). However I'd point out that they
> have had around fifteen years to develop these policies.
> 
> I doubt that we would be be able to adopt them, all of the supporting
> policies and general ethos as is within the OSGeo and OSGeo-Aust-NZ
> communities as there are some fundamental differences between the Debian
> and the Apache (adopted by OSGeo) approaches.
> 
> All said and done, we are a new community and we will need to find what
> works for us.
> 
> 
>>> It will avoid future problems with perceptions of bias relating to who
>>> voted for whom etc.
>> ...
>>> We will also have people who are not comfortable either voting in
>>> public or having people know who they voted for.
>> The exact same thing could be argued for the opposite case, on both
>> counts.
>>
>>> I also propose that voting is open during the following
>>> period (times are Australian Eastern Standard Time):
>>>
>>> - 12:00 noon, Friday 4th April 2008 - voting opens
>>>
>>> - 12:00 noon, Saturday 5th April 2008 - voting closes
>> "-1."
>>
>> too short. give it 5 days. and way too soon, the list must come to a
>> clear consensus about the process first. And if Tyler is going to be used
>> as a trusted convener, he must agree and be given a chance to convey his
>> thoughts about the process rather than have it thrust upon him. We don't
>> even have an answer to the WA residency question yet, do we? Or who has
>> accepted their nomination? How long is the elected term?
>>
> 
> - wrt Tyler - agreed.
> 
> - wrt consensus on process - agreed.
> 
> - wrt timings, we have had over 6 days already, with minimal debate.
> Either there is general agreement or we are not really interested and
> don't care. The numbers of people who bothered to vote would have given
> us this answer.
> 
> - wrt Australian residency, there is a clear explanation on the ASIC
> links (we will also need to register with them). There is not a clear
> answer on the WA requirements though - agreed.
> 
> - wrt longer term process, this needs to be worked through. We have been
> (sort of) discussing this for over twelve months that I'm aware of with
> no resolution. I'm glad to see that you are starting to enter the
> debate. We need your and others input if this is to work.
> 
> However IMO we don't have to have the process worked out before we do
> anything. As it is we will have:
> 
>   + at least one month delay before the WA incorporation can proceed in
> order to comply with their process and advertise our intent (see Tim's
> earlier post with ling to WA Regs). I'd say we'd need to have directors
> names in the ad.
> 
>   + we have list members who are doing work on our behalf and will soon
> be making decisions that could leave them at personal liability. I'd
> prefer to see that they are at least covered by appropriate 'directors'
> insurance that may give them some cover. The longer we dilly-dally
> around, the more exposed they become.
> 
> 
>> but are we jumping the gun here? there are other methods, e.g. elect a
>> board somehow, and have that board elect their chair (in public).
>> (we are talking about electing a director here, is that right? even that
>> is not clear to me) I take it the WA laws say there must be a board as
>> well as a chair, correct?
>>
> 
> - IMO (and I'm only one voice). Lets get the ball rolling and work out
> the process concurrently. If we don't like what has happened once we
> have the process in place - fix it.
> 
>> I understand that 2009 is not far off and we need to get moving, but we
>> must do this right.
>>
>>
>> Hamish
>>
>>
>> ps- it would be very helpful if everyone who has accepted a nomination
>> could introduce themselves and say a few words about their background,
>> FOSS qualifications, and ideas for the project. thanks.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>       ____________________________________________________________________________________
>> You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost.  
>> http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Aust-NZ mailing list
>> Aust-NZ at lists.osgeo.org
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/aust-nz