Re: Extending voting period due to renewals

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Mon, 27 Nov 2006, Baris Cicek wrote:

> Dear Foundation Members;
>
> We've taken couple of complaints about some members did not get their
> ballots because their membership is not valid. Reason behind this is
> they did not get renewal notices from membership committee. Even though
> we have announced dates weeks before elections start, it's
> understandable that some of members did not check their membership
> considering their membership is still valid.

Thanks Baris and others on the electoral board for making the effort to
sort this out.

Perhaps someone who has been involved since the earliest days of the
foundation could explain the reason behind the requirement for frequent
membership renewal?  (Maybe it isn't as frequent as I feel it is.  Time
flies.)

If inactivity is a concern perhaps the process could in part be automated.
I do not commit to CVS very often myself but at least checking against
that list might help verify that some members are active and do not
need to be resubscribed.

In a time when foundation membership is much more open to all kinds of
contributors and when I believe we would like an even wider variety of
Gnome/Gtk developers to sign up and get invovled it seems a little counter
productive to put difficulties in the way of those who wish to remain
members.  There are also people like say Alan Cox and Telsa Gwynne for
example who have worked so hard for Gnome in that past (and most likely
continue to do so in ways unseen to me) I do not think anyone would wish
to see them removed from the Foundation.  (In searching for my own name I
was suprised to notice the abscence of Alan Cox.)

Perhaps my perception of the Foundation becoming even wider and even more
open and inclusive is not exactly how others see things progressing.
Perhaps the Foundation now is quite different from what it was and things
simply need to be adjusted to accomodate?

(Apologies if I'm asking in the wrong place, but it seemed appropriate to
ask here.)


Sincerely

Alan Horkan

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