Peter Tribble wrote: > On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 11:11 PM, Simon Phipps <webmink at sun.com> wrote: >> I therefore request that the OGB consider its strategy for replacing the >> constitution with one more suited to the current needs of the community as a >> matter of priority. I note it's not even on the agenda list at present, let >> alone the agenda. > > Time to start a new thread. Donning flameproof clothing...
Peter thanks for starting this thread. It helped me organized some thoughts on what we do about the constitution. First, I would like to bow to the prior OGB and thank them for putting together, I think, a very good proposed constitution. My hats off especially to Jim Grisanzio for his extra effort at the end to finalize the text. Second, even though I think the constitution is important, I personally don't want to spend a good part of our term debating it and organizing it for vote. I would like our term defined by something else (I don't know what yet). That said, I don't mind spending some time on this important issue. Based on thread input, I suggest we work on the following documents together: 1. Charter 2. Preamble 3. Constitution I'm adding the Preamble, because I think the OpenSolaris community needs a short paragraph that is meant to inspire and communicate a vision of our community. And, the Charter and Constitution don't allow us enough latitude to express this due to their need to focus on the nuts and bolts business of running an open source community. I suggest we layout the three documents onto one wiki and ask for help from the community to identify and mark what sections need work and which do not, then focus our attention on the areas that need work until they can be included with the ones that do not. In effect, implement what Rich suggested by voting on parts first with the hope that the whole can eventually pass muster. This was done before, but I think it will be more effective by including the Charter and Preamble so everything can be tied together. The OGB may need to establish some ground rules. It would be great if we did the debating on the wiki itself instead of never ending email threads so it has less impact on those not interested in these areas all the time, and it doesn't distract us from other duties and initiatives we undertake. We could start with no time limit, but review regularly what we have to determine if the documents are approaching completion and are ready to be ratified. And, we can take a series of larger informal straw polls to help identify any areas that still need work. Those that have interest can help the process along, but I am against this work being done by a subcommittee of any kind, which can tend to give us a false sense that someone else is responsible for something every OpenSolaris community member can actively contribute to. I trust the Thomas Jeffersons of the community will show themselves. In parallel with this, as Valerie, Shawn and others suggest, we can make improvements in educating the electorate on their voting responsibilities and make the voting process easier. Together these approaches may get us what we want without impacting anyone too much. This community deserves great organizational documents. Cheers, Jim
