Re: second draft of Charter for Foundation

[Bart Decrem <bart eazel com>]

Maciej Stachowiak wrote:



> Suggest we strike the entire "build on what we have" section, it's all
> propaganda and focuses on what the GNOME Foundation should not be,
> rather than what it should be.

Maciej: you make a ton of useful edit suggestions.  I'm just going to
implement a bunch of them.

>
> We should specify who is in charge of determiming what constitutes a
> sufficient contribution (nominating committee, etc).

Yes.  Havoc makes the same point.  I will add a provision.

> > project grows, subject to approval of the board or referendum of the
> > membership.

Well, you still want a range, but 7-15 is wide enough to give us flexibility
to grow.


> > Any Member may propose a slate, provided that at least 10 Members
> > endorse the proposed slate.  The maximum number of valid endorsements
> > from Members affiliated (as defined above) with any one corporation or
> > organization shall be 5.
>
> Maybe we want a higher nomination threshold than that, or perhaps it
> should be a percentage rather than a fixed number.

Havoc concurs with you, but I disagree.  Since we're using a slate system, we
are limiting the ability of the members to have a direct say in who's on the
board.  Therefore, I think it should be fairly easy to get a slate on the
board.  The slate proposed by the outgoing board is always going to have
incumbency advantages, but I think some competition is a good thing.  10
strikes me as a reasonable number.

I'm also wondering how we're going to avoid sclerosis: how do we avoid that
the slate proposed by the outgoing board isn't self-perpetuating?  Let me put
it like this: presumably, the current steering committee is going to propose
a slate of initial board members.  Presumably, the current steering committee
is doing a fine job but the composition could be tweaked.  What can we do to
encourage necessary changes to take place?  This is an issue we are facing
NOW: you guys (the steering committee) need to put together a slate for the
board.

My only idea on this so far is to create a committee of 3 folks on the
steering committee to work together on defining a slate, and then get that
slate approved by the larger group.

Bart