Re: Reducing the board size

[Luis Villa <luis villa gmail com>]

On 9/14/05, Daniel Veillard <veillard redhat com> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 09:01:38PM +0200, David Neary wrote:
> > I'm in favour of reducing the board to 7 people. I would like to see us
> > have a referendum on the issue next month.
> >
> > The board has huge problems being pro-active. Any issue which is
> > slightly contentious has an opposition in a board of 11 people. It's
> > inevitable. And when there is opposition, there are many voices, and
> > when there are many voices, there is no resolution.
> 
>   My experience is rather that all board members are busy members of the
> community, so getting people do do things is hard. If you get 7 persons
> instead of 11 you reduce also the amount of available time from board
> members. People running for the board will need more time upfront to
> fullfill their board member requirements.

I have not had time to review the records, but I'm pretty sure that at
least two board members have taken zero action items all year, and a
couple have taken very few, and that this has been fairly consistent
every year I've been on the board (though it has been different people
each year, that's just how it is.) So at least in an average year you
could cut the board down to seven people with very, very little impact
on the amount of work done.

In addition, as Dave mentioned, I think that cutting down the number
of people would increase actual campaigning, which is, I think a good
thing. Amount of time available for board work would certainly be
something that people might campaign on- certainly, I'd be less likely
to vote for someone who I know is very busy, so we might actually get
(gasp) selection of the board, instead of the current 'virtually
whoever self-nominates gets in' situation, which I think is damaging
to the ability of the board to function as a coherent, motivated unit.

Finally, I'd suggest that it is also quite possible that a board with
fewer people might more actively seek out and charter new teams more
actively, instead of 'hoarding' some of the work. A board that did
less work itself and did more to distribute work would both need less
time and (I think) be more effective in the work it did do.

Luis