Simon Phipps wrote: > I asked Eduardo Gutentag, the chairman of OASIS and one of the best > governance experts I know, to take a look at a draft of the > Constitution. His input is in the attached document (hope that works > on-list). >
> 1.3 Group Management Processes > In order to encourage consistency across the community and also for > the purpose of mediating disputes, groups are expected to document the > procedures they use to manage their activities. This includes > development methodologies, voting procedures, participation > guidelines, record keeping, requirements for becoming contributors and > leaders, etc. [I would recommend that voting procedures and > participation guidelines be uniform across groups; otherwise if > someone participates in more than one group the possibility of > confusion is enormous] I understand the desire for this but I see difficulties implementing it across so many groups (we have hundreds of groups now). In this constitution we are decentralizing things by removing processes but we are also centralizing other things. We are centralizing at the OGB project creations and membership, so perhaps that`s enough to satisfy Edwardo`s concern? By centralizing those two functions, we are in fact mandating a certain level of process. Also, if we recommend a template group process document, which is what we agreed to do, I think many groups will follow it because it`s less for them to have to create from scratch. But I`m not sure how we can make everything uniform among things as diverse as kernel development in Menlo Park and, say, user groups around the world. But if people want this, then we can easily use much of the process text in the current constitution for community management issues. I just don`t think the OGB (any OGB) will be able to mandate it and manage it, that`s all. > 1.4 Electorate Group > The Electorate Group is responsible for community wide cross-group > governance. All community members who have substantially and > verifiability contributed to any OpenSolaris group are eligible for > Membership in the Electorate. Qualification for Membership in the > Electorate is for life, but actual Membership needs to be renewed > every 2 (two) years. [You may want to re-think this for life issue; > assuming for a second that OpenSolaris will have a long and prosperous > life, do you really think it's a good idea for someone to qualify in > 2008, go on a 10 year round-the-world tour, and be still qualified > when he/she returns, after not having done anything for 10 years?] I agree. I can live without the life bit. Make it 5 years? 10 years? His other comments seem more than reasonable to me or I don`t feel strongly enough about them to comment. Please thank him for his time and interest. Jim -- http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/
