Re: Changes to the GNOME board

["Luis Villa" <luis tieguy org>]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 2:12 PM, Gregory Leblanc
<headmaster albus dumbledore gmail com> wrote:
> Hi folks, couple of comments and questions below.
>
> On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 1:56 PM, Behdad Esfahbod <behdad behdad org> wrote:
> [snip]
>> Diego Escalante Urrelo will be joining the board as a new member for
>> the remainder of this term. Diego was a candidate for the board in the
>> last election, and his energy, new blood, and Latin American
>> perspective will be a great addition to the board.
>
> As I wasn't sure what the procedure was for the board of directors, in
> the case of a resignation, I went and grabbed a copy of the bylaws
> from http://foundation.gnome.org/about/bylaws.pdf  Section 4
> subsection d it states that the board can fill a vacancy by a vote of
> the remaining directors.
>
> With that said, Congratulations Diego!
>
> I do have one question about the bylaws, though.  I seem to recall a
> large discussion about changing the term of the directors to be 18
> months instead of 1 year.  However, Section 3 subsection a still
> states that directors hold office for one (1) year.  I also noticed
> that the history information at the bottom of the document states that
> the last change was April 5, 2002.  I'm sure that the discussion I
> recall was more recent than this.
>
> What is the current term of a member of the Gnome Foundation Board of Directors?

I believe one year, with an exception for the current 18-month term in
order to align elections with the timing of GUADEC.

> What is the official location of the Bylaws governing the Gnome
> Foundation?  If it is the above URL, and the term is not still 1 year,
> how can we get this copy updated?  If it's not this URL, can somebody
> tell me where it is, and can we make foundation.gnome.org link to it
> prominently?

At the moment, there is nothing better than what you've found.

I have been (slowly) in the process of revising our official
documents; I hope to finish and formalize them during the next
semester. If you're interested, you can participate in this process by
editing and commenting on the documents in co-ment.net:

http://www.co-ment.net/list_public/?q=gnome

Not that this excuses the sloppiness on our part, but note that there
is no requirement in CA non-profit law that there be One True Copy of
these documents; it is sufficient to track the original + the
amendments/diffs. (I worked with some documents over the summer where
this situation persisted for decades.) It absolutely makes things an
utter PITA to deal with- like releasing new versions as diffs rather
than new tarballs- but doesn't cause a formal problem for our status
as a non-profit.

Luis