[foundation-board] "OKF's development as an open, decentralised, organisation."

Fri Nov 12 15:00:09 UTC 2010

Thanks for this Jo - it will be very helpful for tonight's discussions.

On 12 November 2010 14:52, Jo Walsh <metazool at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm happy to hear that Ben Laurie is up for offering reflections and
> informal advice to OKF based on his experience as an ASF founder (where ASF
> is a model for so many free and open source software foundations as well as
> OKF).
>
> Here are the topics that are highest on my mind.
>
> 1) How to get more people in the wider community onto the Board, and make
> sure the Board membership is taking decisions that reflect the aims of the
> wider community.
>
> OKF right now has a selected rather than elected board. ASF has a membership
> that elects the board. OKF doesn't have a formal membershp category, like a
> lot of other free software foundations have (providing a constituency for
> electing the board.) OpenStreetmap has a paid-for annual membership that
> buys one voting rights. One potential problem that can be observed with wide
> elections is that they become a popularity contest - people are elected
> because their work is well known, not necessarily because they have
> strategic-thinking mindsets or a lot of energy for getting involved in the
> work of the Foundation.
>
> 2) Transparency of contracts and budgets regarding paid work undertaken by
> the Foundation as entity and its members as individuals, on Foundation
> projects. Does, or did, ASF as a body take on work directly that added
> features and dependencies to ASF projects? How was this handled?
>
> Important to ensure that we don't see an internal division in the work of
> OKF - on the one hand the wider community of enthusiasts and volunteers - on
> the other, a smaller group doing directly paid work on some of the same
> projects. (CKAN is the clearest example here).
> One role of the "projects coordinator" that OKF is looking to hire,
> is to hold paid project work to a high documentation standard, so that
> community members can get review and monitor work that is happening.
> Generally we should be looking for separation of concerns, the
> strategic/Board stuff and the operational/Executive work separated out.
>
> 3) Balance of public/private discussion of operational goings-on.
> A general aim that there should be as little private discussion is possible
> (an acknowledgement that some matters to do with unsigned contracts,
> uncertain financial transactions, things that may affect other peoples'
> current employment) ought to remain private.
>
> The problem is always that once a discussion starts in a non-public forum,
> it's difficult to extract elements out into a public forum. "Many eyes make
> shallow bugs"; OKF grew by carrying out its work in public, encouraging
> random interested passers-by could to feel they have a stake, are members of
> an "open, decentralised organisation".
>
> I'm sure there's more, but these are the main issues that bug me...
>
>
> jo
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