[OSGeo Oceania] [FOSS4G-Oceania] Suggest OSGeo Oceania board discussions come back on list
Cameron Shorter
cameron.shorter at gmail.com
Fri Aug 2 13:49:17 PDT 2019
For those of you who might not know Bruce, I thought I should provide
some background.
Bruce was on the organising committee of FOSS4G 2009, and previously an
active contributor within the OSGeo Aust-NZ email list, among other things.
I've had a deep respect for Bruce's ability to deeply analyse open
technology problems, from a technical, social and business context. And
if you manage to pick a topic he is passionate about, he has a track
record of stepping up and following through.
He will also call bullshit on you (in a pointed, yet constructive
manner), and it is usually wise to listen to him when he does. (Exhibit
A at the start of the email thread).
On 2/8/19 10:12 pm, John Bryant wrote:
> Hi Bruce,
>
> Thanks a lot for raising this. I see it as a critical issue and I
> appreciate your candid comments. I believe we're 100% in agreement
> about the importance of appropriate community engagement.
>
> By way of a brief outline, here's how we've arrived at this point:
>
> Immediately after the 2018 conference, the topic of governance was
> raised and discussed at length in a Nov 2018 thread on the
> FOSS4G-Oceania list [1], culminating in a Terms of Reference [2] for
> an organisation called OSGeo Oceania, and an interim Board of
> Directors (ratified by motion on the list in Dec 2018 [3]). Your
> suggestion from August 2018 [4] to '/have separate bodies for the
> Local Chapter and the Conference Committees/' was taken on board and
> incorporated at this stage.
>
> The Terms of Reference broadly outlined an agenda for this
> organisation for 2019:
>
> /- determine a process for recruiting and managing an appropriate
> general membership
> - determine a process for renewal of board membership, including
> accountability to the general membership, and clarify such items
> as term limits and staggering of terms
> - determine a process for inviting expressions of interest and
> selecting groups wishing to host the annual FOSS4G SotM Oceania event
> - determine and formalise an appropriate non-profit structure
> - submit an official expression of interest to the OSGeo board to
> form an OSGeo local chapter
> - apply to the OpenStreetMap Foundation board to form an
> OpenStreetMap local chapter/
>
>
> Forming a non-profit was the first priority, as it was seen as a
> foundational piece for the other items. Following the TOR, a rather
> extensive piece of research led to a draft recommendation in March
> 2019, which was posted on the lists for community feedback [5 & 6]. At
> that time you pointed to some earlier advice/comments you'd offered
> (/determine an open process, understand liability, understand who has
> the right to establish this entity, understand how we will replace
> this person/people/organisation when appropriate/), which we
> considered in drafting the recommendations. I hope the TOR and entity
> recommendation documents sufficiently address these concerns, and I'll
> also point out that we're still in the process of determining how this
> will work - on the agenda for the coming months ahead of the conference.
>
> The entity was formed, based on the recommendation and professional
> advice, on 1 May 2019.
>
> I'm now realising the distinct possibility that many people in the
> community aren't subscribed to the foss4g-oceania list, and thus the
> lengthy discussion that happened there may not have been visible to
> some of the people who needed to see it. This is unfortunate, and I
> only really see this now in hindsight. I'm cc'ing the foss4g-oceania
> list so that anyone who's on that list and not the Oceania list can
> also see this discussion.
>
> ALSO... I acknowledge that we can and will do better at transparency.
> But I also ask for your patience. This isn't easy work, we're all
> volunteers, and everyone is trying the best they can. We've worked
> _very_ hard to keep the community apprised of what we're doing, seek
> input and feedback, and try to address whatever comes our way.
>
> If anyone feels they've been kept out of the loop, I apologise for
> that, and I hope that in the coming months we can find ways to make
> sure nobody is left behind.
>
> John
>
>
> [1]
> https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g-oceania/2018-November/001049.html
> [2] https://drive.google.com/file/d/13aZ6L08ke1-l32I7c00MahyEKgxeZkq8/view
> [3]
> https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g-oceania/2018-December/001163.html
> [4] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oceania/2018-August/001929.html
> [5]
> https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g-oceania/2019-March/001313.html
> [6] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oceania/2019-March/001989.html
>
>
>
> On Fri, 2 Aug 2019 at 13:29, Bruce Bannerman
> <bruce.bannerman.osgeo at gmail.com
> <mailto:bruce.bannerman.osgeo at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Hello John, Cameron and fellow OSGeo Oceania community members,
>
> I’m in two minds as to how to address this email:
>
> - Firstly, I’m happy to see some momentum around OSGeo-Oceania.
>
> - Secondly, I’m very disappointed to see that we have what appears
> to be a fait accompli [1] presented to us.
>
> I have not seen any suitable discussion on how we want to
> establish a local community, the rules that we want to work to,
> how we are going to select and reselect our community leaders etc,
> etc.
>
> The last that I recall was when I dug out an older email where I
> listed a number of concerns related to creating a legal entity
> about five months ago [2]. I have not seen these addressed, or had
> the opportunity to participate in the follow up discussion.
>
> Perhaps I have missed all of this discussion?
>
> I have looked through the Oceania email archives, but cannot see
> the relevant discussion. So I wasn’t imagining not seeing it.
>
> Can someone please outline how we have arrived at this point
> without suitable community engagement and discussion?
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Bruce
>
> [1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fait-accompli
>
> [2] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oceania/2019-March/001993.html
>
>
>
> On 2 Aug 2019, at 19:31, John Bryant <johnwbryant at gmail.com
> <mailto:johnwbryant at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>> I agree with this approach.
>>
>> My feeling is that board discussions should default to using this
>> mailing list except where they're sensitive, ie. about specific
>> people and/or incidents, or relate to other confidential matters
>> eg. financial arrangements with partners. It's valuable to the
>> community to see how we operate, not only for accountability, but
>> also because it allows people to watch over time, and potentially
>> become contributors.
>>
>> Meeting notes/minutes are already published here:
>> https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Oceania
>>
>> Re:opening board meetings to the public, I'm generally in favour.
>> There will be times when confidential discussions need to happen,
>> but these are the exception rather than the rule. If the board is
>> OK with this, maybe we can do this for next meeting and see how
>> we go?
>>
>> Cheers
>> John
>> _______________________________________________
>> Oceania mailing list
>> Oceania at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:Oceania at lists.osgeo.org>
>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/oceania
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> FOSS4G-Oceania mailing list
> FOSS4G-Oceania at lists.osgeo.org
> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/foss4g-oceania
--
Cameron Shorter
Technology Demystifier
Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant
M +61 (0) 419 142 254
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