[Qgis-psc] Voting on revised charter

Fri Nov 25 04:46:48 PST 2016

Hi

> On 25 Nov 2016, at 2:18 PM, Neumann, Andreas <a.neumann at carto.net> wrote:
> 
> Hi Tim,
> 
> On 2016-11-25 12:27, Tim Sutton wrote:
> 
>> Hi
>> 
>> On 25 Nov 2016, at 12:42 PM, Neumann, Andreas <a.neumann at carto.net <mailto:a.neumann at carto.net>> wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I understand your feelings.
>> 
>> But how can we represent the project if the community never voted on us as being their representatives?
>> 
>> At some point you need to bootstrap the whole thing. I don't think it is an option just to continue as before. It is not democratic.
>> 
>>  
>>  
>>  
>> I just want to correct this statement. As far as I know we were all democratically elected. I think we lost some of the records of it on the wiki which we cleaned out, but the original PSC and the second round of member additions we did in 2013 were elected by community votes.
>>  
>> http://spatialgalaxy.net/2013/08/25/welcome-to-new-qgis-psc-members/ <http://spatialgalaxy.net/2013/08/25/welcome-to-new-qgis-psc-members/> - in 2013 when new members were added
>>  
>> If I recall correctly (again I would need to go and dig out the records) the original PSC was elected in a similar way.
>>  
>> I think in the case of Andreas as Treasurer this may be the one case where the PSC made an appointment rather than  having an election and this was for more pragmatic reasons since its not so easy to vote in a treasurer.
>>  
>> I'd need to go and fact check all the above but really I think we should not portray ourselves as self appointed. What is problematic (and what we are trying to correct in these changes we are discussing) is that we have no terms (still acceptable in some democracies I guess :-P)  and so for me the big goal here is to give everyone on the community a chance to serve on the PSC.
>>  
>>  
>  
> Good.
>  
> The trade registry will ask me about the establishment of QGIS.ORG. They need documents with minutes how the QGIS PSC and the board have been nominated and elected. That is my main concern here.
>  
> In our existing foundation document we only say that the PSC was transformed into the new board of QGIS.ORG - this means that I will have to show the old documents how the original PSC was established. Perhaps, if you could dig up these old documents, it could help.

Ok I will have a look in the internet archive tonight.

>  
>  
>>  
>> I also think we should not worry - new people in the PSC might bring fresh ideas and enthusiasm and might provide some relief to PSC members who as we have seen in the past year or so are vulnerable to burn out in their roles.
>>  
>> I can live with the clean sweep or the phased approach but my I just think there will be less disruption if we do things in phases than a complete spring clean which will leave many people possibly uncertain of where to start and what to do. 
>>  
>>  
>  
> I personally also don't care so much which approach we take.
>  
> I am just trying to be correct according to the requirements of how an organization is normally established. They have clear rules in Switzerland (and probably any other country) on how such an association (Verein) is normally created. Just transitioning a former inofficial organization may be quite problematic (esp. if there is no proof/no documents around). That's why I thought a clean election from scratch would help.
>  
> Again - I don't think that voting members would replace all of the PSC - it is not in their interest.
>  
> Sorry for being a pain here - but it is me who has to deal with this bureaucratic matter and we can't just say - oh give a shit to all this bureaucracy - we don't care. We just work grass root. This is not how you can register an organization in the trade registry.

No  I (we I hope) absolutely don't think you are being a pain - I really appreciate all the time you have put in to get us registered. Bureaucracy is the price we pay to becoming an organisation that can attract substantial donor funding and be legitimate in the eyes of our users and I think once we have got everything set up, the procedural stuff will not be so bad. If your reasons are purely pragmatic (i.e. its a requirement of the Verein registration process) then from me it is not much to debate and I am happy to go along with that scheme. I just had the impression from the former mails in this thread that it was more of a philosophical debate and less of a pragmatic one.

Regards

Tim

>  
> Andreas
>  
>  
>  
>  
> <KartozaNewLogoThumbnail.jpg>_______________________________________________
> Qgis-psc mailing list
> Qgis-psc at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-psc

—

Tim Sutton

Co-founder: Kartoza
Project chair: QGIS.org

Visit http://kartoza.com <http://kartoza.com/> to find out about open source:

Desktop GIS programming services
Geospatial web development
GIS Training
Consulting Services

Skype: timlinux 
IRC: timlinux on #qgis at freenode.net

Kartoza is a merger between Linfiniti and Afrispatial

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/qgis-psc/attachments/20161125/b2de682d/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: KartozaNewLogoThumbnail.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 6122 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/qgis-psc/attachments/20161125/b2de682d/attachment.jpg>