[Apologies in advance - I've skimmed the subject lines of my e-mails, but
not read most of them, so you may have covered all these topics already.
As I won't be at this week's meeting, this is my chance to express my
opinion on the matter.]
When the last OGB had to choose between continuing the website board or
dissolving it and handing over its power to the community group, the issue
that decided it for me [Pass the jar now, I've got my dollar ready] was the
Constitution's prohibition on the OGB overruling a CG decision, while we can
overrule the committee.
I would be happy to see us switch from the current barely functioning pre-review
model for website changes to an appeal to the OGB in the rare occasions of
something posted that does not represent the community as a whole, as long as
we have some way to have that appeal, leaving the OGB, not a single CG, as
the final voice of the community as a whole in the website. (I wonder if
indeed this constitutional requirement on absolute power in the community
groups is not better suited to Apache's federation of semi-related projects
than to our goal of producing a unified OS out of all our CG's, but that's
a longer term question for the OGB.)
I know we've had confusion around the role of the website committee - when
we voted on it at the OGB, I thought its only role was reviewing changes to
prevent another firestorm like the one caused by the Indiana project
announcement - but others have thought it had a more active role to play
in the defining of the website content, and I'd like to make sure the
committee members who are interested in participating in those ways (like
Alyson's suggestion of editorial guidelines for people producing content
who are not skilled technical writers/editors) are given a chance to do
so going forward, in whichever venue we decide is best for their contributions.
--
-Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersmith at sun.com
Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering
