Re: Not a Candidate (Daniel A. Powers), and some comments...

[Bart Decrem <bart eazel com>]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for weighing in on this. It's great to see you getting involved
with the GNOME community!

I agree with your comments.  

To answer your question about removing board members: no, there's not
really an easy way to remove a board member.  It's kind of a by-product
of having an elected board.  But there's a somewhat hard way (although I
guess it's not necessarily a lot harder than a recall election for city
council members in the US): any member of the GNOME community can issue
a referendum on any issue, so including recalling the board or a
specific board member, but it's a deliberately tough process.

Here's how referendums work: to issue a referendum, you need to get
signatures from 10% of the members (which would be about 30 people as
things currently stand).  Then, at least 1/3 of the members need to vote
on the issue and 2/3 of those voting need to vote Yes in order for the
referendum issue to be adopted.

Bart


dap us ibm com wrote:
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I have been reading all the candidacy announcements, a very impressive list
> indeed. I was going to submit my name, but I think I would rather be on
> GNOME Foundation corporate advisory/sponsor team...As I get more involved
> with everyone, I may decide to throw my hat in next year.
> 
> I keep seeing many postings that representatives from corporate sponsors on
> Gnome Foundation *board* is not goo, that they will be conflicted, etc,
> etc... I don't quite agree with this thought process...these folks could be
> just as good for board. I believe we need a mix from hacker community,
> corporate member community, visionaries, architects, etc...on board...a
> broad range of folks, not just one-type of person.
> 
> Also...and this is for all folks that do get elected....when you decide to
> join a board like this, and I am on the board of a couple start-up
> companies...you need to join the board and represent the shareholders. In
> this case the shareholders are everyone that touches Gnome (Corporate
> partners, hackers, joe smith who downloaded Linux and Gnome to play with @
> home, etc....). Basically everyone that touches Gnome, uses Gnome,
> contributes to Gnome and sponsors Gnome.
> 
> Your job as board member is to increase shareholder value....this means
> many things...but it strongly means that you are to act in best interest of
> shareholders. On all decisions or votes, the board needs to do due
> diligence, investigate (thoroughly all options), and make a informed
> decision that is in best interest of shareholders as a whole. You need to
> leave all your non-shareholder-interests @ home. Also when you join a
> board, you need to abstain from voting on items, if it represents a
> conflict of interest with your employer. I have been @ many board meeting,
> many times, where they were evaluating major technology purchasing
> decisions, I did not comment to influence to IBM, and did not vote on these
> items....it is a conflict of interest.
> 
> My advice to voters is pick the people who you think will represent the
> GNOME shareholders interests the best...regardless of whether they are with
> a company or not. Their board responsibilities making sure they are
> objective & remove themselves from conflict of interest votes.
> 
> Also, if a board member is not performing properly (missing meeting, voting
> with corporate interest in mind, not spending the time on due diligence of
> decsions)....is there going to be a process, like in corporate board world,
> that the board can remove a member?
> 
> Thanks,  dp - Dan Powers
> Director, IBM Early Stage Internet Technology
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Internet:    dap us ibm com
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> 
> "Try? There is no try....there is only do or not do..."
>       Yoda - Jedi Master
> 
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