[OSGeo Oceania] A discussion on openness

[Edoardo Neerhut]

Hi everyone,

*TLDR: *
*To the current/former directors: How would you describe the organisation's
experience with openness and transparency?*
*To the whole community: How do you feel? What should the board and the
community do more or less of?*

*The context*
There have been a number of comments made recently about transparency and
openness and I wanted to tease them out a bit as the end of year
approaches. In particular, Adam and John expressed their concerns here
<https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oceania-board/2020-November/000112.html>
and here
<https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oceania/2020-November/002439.html>
respectively, with both resigning as directors as a consequence.

This is clearly an issue for further discussion. The OSGeo Oceania director
elections end in a few hours and regardless of the results, I am very keen
to hear what practical steps we should take to address these concerns.
Adam/John: if you have time to elaborate that would be much appreciated as
well.

*My experience*
I think most would agree transparency and openness should be
fundamental aspects to our community. What's harder is living up to them. I
am guilty of sending a quick Slack message or email to people for the sake
of expediency, but failing on transparency as a consequence.

I have worked with many on the current board and feel they are all
wonderful, talented people, operating with the best interests of OSGeo
Oceania at heart. I'm optimistic about where we're at and we can go and I
want to thank all on the board and the wider community for getting us here.
Hundreds of people from across the region have been able to learn, share,
and connect with geospatial ideas and tools through these efforts. I
honestly don't believe there is a people issue here, but a fog over the
decision making process which we need to tease out.

My read from where I stand is that there is a constant battle between
expediency and openness. I am still trying to understand the relationship
between these two things at a practical level.

*Practically speaking, what should we do?*
I am going to assume we agree that openness is fundamental to the health of
the organisation. If I have falsely assumed this, please correct me.

On the areas we are failing, why do we think this is the case? I believe
everyone is operating in good faith.

   - Take the example of meeting minutes. They went up eventually, so do we
   need to make sure we share responsibility more so that this happens
   immediately after? Could members of the community join board meetings in
   this role?
   - On board decisions, why were some decisions timely? Can we minimise
   that in future? Were some board members slow to make a decision? What is
   the expectation here from board members?
   - The concept of membership is still vague and I bear more
   responsibility for this failure than anyone. At the same time, this is
   something that we as a community should decide collectively. I should have
   done more to initiatie that conversation openly.

These are just three examples. I'm sure there are many more.

*So finally, what are the low hanging fruits? Where should the community
focus our efforts going forward? Why are we failing in these areas? How
should we address them?*

We've come a long way thanks to all of you and I'm very optimistic about
the road ahead. How do we traverse it?

Looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts.

Ed
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