Re: some issues about membership

[Bart Decrem <bart eazel com>]

OK, we need to resolve the issue of whether to elect a board of directors
before August 15.

Let me try to articulate the pros and cons:

1.  We should elect the board of directors now.  The Steering Committee
has been operating for 6 months now without having been elected.  Lots of
things are happening (such as Sun's announcement last week) and we need a
body that can legitimately represent Gnome.  Creating the board now will
speed up the process of getting the foundation up and running.  We are
sufficiently clear on what the charter of the foundation will be that we
can communicate that to people and allow them to elect a board of
directors.  'Membership' in the foundation simply means that you have a
right to vote on a slate for the board of directors, so this is not a
hugely complicated decision to make.  Havoc suggested this approach and I
think Nat and Miguel, among others, are comfortable with proceeding this
way.

2.  We should elect a board of directors after LWE.  We are trying to
move too fast.  First we should complete the work on the charter of the
foundation, then we create the foundation legally, then we hold
elections.  This will also give us more time to make sure we have a clean
membership list and we can figure out the election logistics better.
We'll also have more time to put together a slate.   If we are filing
legal papers and need to have a board of directors now, we can just make
that the current Steering Committee, and they will be replaced by the
elected board of directors.   Maciej has expressed this opinion most
forcefully.

I'd love to hear from some people who haven't spoken out on this issue
yet.   We need to make a decision on this over the next few days (in
other words: if we don't gear up for this over the next few days, we will
not be able to get this done in time for the LWE announcement).

Bart


Maciej Stachowiak wrote:

> Some folks have told me they don't feel comfortable joining the
> Foundation without a clearer understanding of it's purpose and what it
> would mean to do so, substantively.
>
> This is difficult to do since we don't even have bylaws, but perhaps
> we should take a shot.
>
> I am increasingly convinced that we might end up doing a slipshod job
> by rushing the formation and the election. I really feel like the
> process should go:
>
> 1) Create charter and bylaws
>
> 2) Have people join as members, clearly explaining what this means
>
> 3) Elect initial board
>
> To me it seems like we are already making firm plans to do step 3
> before we have even gotten a good start on step 1!
>
>  - Maciej
>
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