On Dec 18, 2007, at 6:27 PM, John Plocher wrote: > My previous email (re: constitution, OGB and CGs) touched on > a fundamental assumption in our constitution - that the Community > and the OGB are expected to work *together* to develop and > execute a shared vision for the organization. > > The theory is that the OGB is expected to lead with vision, and > to communicate that vision to others in the community. Then, > those others will get motivated to propose the formation of > Community Groups with a charter to take on responsibility for > (part of) that shared vision. The OGB then ratifies that shared > understanding by formally chartering a Community Group. Yeah, > it also gets to deal with hand holding and arbitration when > CGs go bad, but that should only be a minor part of their job.
Is that your theory, or your perception of the status quo, or something that you actually see written down somewhere? I ask because it sounds like the type of "leadership" that industry expects from a CEO-style employment hierarchy. That's not how opensolaris was designed to work. The design of the community groups is that they consist of overlapping sets of individuals working on a set of tasks (projects) within the scope of each CG. CGs are not containers of people -- they are containers of responsibility that are operated by people who participate in multiple CGs. Whether or not those people have a single shared vision is largely irrelevant, which is essential for attracting non-Sun contributors. What they need is individual vision (generated bottom-up) and the ability to peacefully coalesce and resolve any conflicts in individual vision while making progress toward shared goals. If anyone disagrees with how a CG is progressing, they are fully capable of joining that CG and working towards their own view of better progress within that CG's scope. That is all by design. It is how organizations that do not rely on paid employees find a way to manage the collective work without imposing artificial notions of exalted leadership. The answer to Keith's issue regarding CGs making decisions for other CGs is that the only time it would happen is if the CGs are not properly scoped. It is the OGB's job to ensure that all of the CGs are properly scoped and that they be reorganized when the projects they take on exceed that scope. The Advocacy CG (or Website CG) is supposed to have a defined scope. That scope will cover every individual at Opensolaris that is working on projects defined by that scope. The notion that a CG cannot own the public-facing "home page" for all of Opensolaris is therefore untrue -- everyone who has any intention of expressing creative or content editorial control over the artifacts covered by a project within said CG can simply join that project within that CG and participate as equals. That includes any members of the OGB who feel a need to personally review the public work of that group. There is no conflicting ownership of CG domains because CGs are supposed to overlap. Finally, the OGB (as most of you know by now) is not the land of milk and honey where supplicants come to bask in your wise advice and vision of the future. Being a board member of any nonprofit group (or essentially profitless org like this one) is all about service. The OGB are shepherds. Your job is to keep the flock alive. Sometimes that means running around to remove barriers that are blocking community progress (work by individual leaders within the community regardless of title), sometimes it means sending in the dogs to collect stragglers and keep movement at an orderly pace, sometimes it means intervening to assist with complicated births, and sometimes it is just about handling the disposition of unexpected deaths. The job does not involve eating the grass, nor does it revolve around satisfying every lamb, and aside from the annual election the job is not about "letting sheep do whatever the sheep want to do." It is about caring for the long-term needs so that everyone else can stay focused on the short-term tasks. A nonprofit board is not a glamorous position and it never will be, but occasionally people remember to thank the shepherds when the flock grows. Cheers, Roy T. Fielding <http://roy.gbiv.com/> Chief Scientist, Day Software <http://www.day.com/>
