Re: Candidacy (Tim Ney)

[Christian Schaller <uraeus linuxrising org>]

Sorry for replying so late, but I have extreme long days this week.

On Tue, 2001-11-13 at 19:56, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> On 13Nov2001 06:44PM (+0100), Christian Schaller wrote:
> >
> > Personally I would like to suggest that the foundation impose the
> > following policy:
> > 
> > * No employee of the GNOME Foundation as represented by the GNOME
> > Foundation board can be elected to the board. 
> > 
> > * The Director of the GNOME Foundation (which currently is Tim Ney) gets
> > a non-voting place on the board.
> 
> Hi Christian,
> 
> It's actually quite common in both for-profit corporations and
> non-profit organizations for executives of the organization to also be
> on the board of directors.

I will not claim to know every detail of a how a corporation work and I
bet they differ slightly from country to country, but AFAIK the CEO
meets on board meetings in the role as CEO, to inform the board of the
current situation of the company, not as the elected representative of 
the stockholders. The CEO or director attending board meetings due to
being the CEO/director is in line with my suggestion.

As a sidenote I also wonder if we should use the corporate world as our
inspiration for how to build democratic institutions :)
 
> We could add a rule like you suggest, though I think it's a bit late
> to do so for this election, and I do not think it's necessary.

I guess it is to late to do this for this election, but I think it is
something which should be discussed to be made part of our rules for the
next round.

> People can express their opinion on whether it's a good idea to have
> the Executive Director also on the Board by voting or not voting for
> Tim.

True and I will, but I do not want me and others not voting for Tim due
to our objections to the conflicting roles to be seen as a vote off no
confidence to how Tim has handled the job of director.  

> Also, to specifically address the issue of Tim's employment status,
> Bart suggested that the board form an employment committee which does
> not include Tim. I think this is a good idea, and it's analogous to
> the way these issues are handled by other corporate and nonprofit
> boards.
There are other examples to on where Tim could find himself on both
sides of the table too, but I will let this debate rest now til after
the election. 

> Personally I think Tim has been doing a bang-up job on organizational
> issues, and it could be helpful to give him a more official voice on
> the board. On the other hand, since we almost always operate by
> consensus and Tim comes to the phone meetings anyway, it would not
> make all that much practical difference whether Tim has a vote or not.
True, but I think that it not making much practical difference is an
argument which strenghtens my position on these issues more than it
weakens it.

As mentioned earlier I accept that changing/clarifying the election
rules at this time is too late, but I still felt a need to voice my
objection because unless I said something now then we might had a
situation after the election where the election result had created a a
precendence for a organisational culture I do not want to see.

Christian