Re: Fwd: Proposal.

[Andy Tai <lichengtai yahoo com>]

--- Telsa Gwynne <hobbit aloss ukuu org uk> wrote:
> ----- Forwarded message from Nat Friedman
> <nat ximian com> -----
>
> Proposal
> --------
>     2. Guidelines for Membership
  A
> non-trivial
>     contribution is any activity which contributes
> to the development
>     of the project at a level significantly above
> that expected of a
>     normal user or fan of GNOME.

The guideline should be more clear here... what counts
as the contributions to GNOME?  The membership
committee had the experience of rejecting the
application from an important GIMP contributor.  That
is somewhat strange, considering that GIMP is the
"parent" of GNOME  in some ways.  I would suggest
anyone who makes significant Free Software application
that uses the GUI components of the GNU Desktop
(GNOME), namely, gtk+ and libraries above, can be a
member of the foundation, whether that Free Software
application is a GNU/GNOME project or not, because
such persons have direct interest in the
functionalities of gtk+ and libraries above, and thus,
the GNOME platform. And such applications enrich the
GNOME environment even if they are not part of the
GNOME release. Issues like whether GIMP is part of
GNOME, or whether it should be moving to the GNOME
platform, or whether an application or library can be
part of a GNOME release, would be decided by hackers
involved, and ideally these issues should not be
factors the membership committee need to worry about.


>     3. Membership Duration and Renewal
>
>     Membership in the Foundation is lifetime. 
> However, in order for a
>     membership to be valid, it must be renewed every
> year.  The intent

If renewal is necessary, then membership is not
lifetime...  ?

>     of this renewal process is to ensure that the
> membership roster is
>     not filled with people who no longer have any
> interest in the
>     project, and to verify and keep up-to-date
> membership contact
>     information.
>
>     To renew his membership, an individual must
> submit a new
>     application for membership.  If the application
> is well-formed and
>     the individual has previously been a member of
> the Foundation, his
>     membership will be automatically approved.  All
> renewals will take
>     place at once, every year.

Currently members renew every two years.  Should it
stay two years?

Also, who counts as "active" member?  Anyone who has
contributed within the past one month, six months, one
year, or two years? Maybe we need to have a clear time
interval defined. (I would suggest, say two years, so
we only remove members who have become "clearly"
inactive and allow members to "take a leave" for some
time without losing membership.)
 


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