steering committee vs foundation

[Bart Decrem <bart eazel com>]

Hi everybody,

There's been a ton of interesting postings about the right way to
address the international issue and corporate representation, and the
membership issue and I wanted to propose the following structure:

1- Gnome Steering Committee:
--------------------------
The Steering Committee would be the forum to discuss the overall
technical discussion of the Gnome project.  It would also coordinate
releases.  So it's responsibilities would be identical to those of
today's steering committee.  The Steering Committee would be elected by
all the members of the Gnome community as a slate.  The slate would be
proposed by the outgoing steering committee but any member could propose
an alternative slate.  All slates that have at least 5 signatories would
be on the election ballot.  Elections would be held electronically once
a year.  Membership would be determined as follows:
- A committee from the current steering committee would go through the
Gnome hackers mailing list and the CVS account list and make the most
inclusive list of members of the Gnome community, and post that list on
a web site.
- Anyone who's not on that list and wants to be a member would send off
a brief email to the committee describing how they're contributing to
Gnome.  The criterion for membership would be to have made 'meaningful
contributions to Gnome for at least 2 months', which would be
interpreted liberally by the committee - in other words, very rarely
would people be denied membership.  The idea would be that basically
people become members by asking to be members, with some minimal
threshold.  There would be no membership fee, and no rules for corporate
affiliations (so if you're working at a company on Gnome and you care
enough to be aked to be a member, then you're a member).
The Gome Steering Committee would not be affiliated with a legal entity
and so it would be a worldwide virtual entity.  This solves the
US/Europe problem.

2- Gnome Foundation (USA):
------------------------
The Gnome Foundation we are creating in the US would have a board of
directors that is self-appointed (much in the way most non-profit boards
are appointed and just like many of the standards bodies).  The board
would include a balance of Gnome hackers, including several members of
the Gnome Steering Commitee (including the Chair of the Steering
Committee), and corporate representatives.  The Foundation would be the
main forum where corporations who are interested in Gnome get to talk
among themselves and with representatives of the Steering Committee
about the technical direction of Gnome.  The Foundation would also focus
on promoting Gnome, setting up technical conferences etc.  The
Foundation would have paying corporate members.  There could also be
Gnome Foundations in Europe, Asia or where ever.

How does that sound?

Bart