[foundation-board] "members" language on /governance page

Wed Sep 15 10:23:58 UTC 2010

On 15 Sep 2010, at 10:10, Rufus Pollock wrote:

> On 14 September 2010 23:26, Jordan S Hatcher
> <jordan at opencontentlawyer.com> wrote:
>> Hi everyone
>> 
>> I briefly mentioned the use of "members" on the /governance page and the need to make it clear that formal "membership" of our company limited by guarantee (the equivalent of a shareholder in a profit making company).  We have to be clear that any kind of OKF membership doesn't mean being a member of Open Knowledge Foundation Limited.
> 
> I have to say I think this is the page as I drafted it largely and as
> submitted earlier in the year to the board. I think at some point it
> said Network Member to explicitly distinguish from 'company limited by
> guarantee' members but (if i recall correctly) in discussion on
> okfn-discuss it was decided to go with simpler 'member'.
> 
> I apologize for not including a more explicit disclaimer and I think
> this probably passed the board by when I submitted it here (there is
> quite a lot).

No worries and my apologies for not commenting further on the earlier draft.

> 
> I have just added the following NB to the governance page.
> 
> <quote>
> NB: 'Membership' in the sense discussed here is not formal
> "membership" of the Open Knowledge Foundation Limited (the company
> limited by guarantee which forms the underlying legal entity for the
> Foundation). 'Membership' in the sense discussed above implies no
> rights or responsibilities in regard of this company limited by
> guarantee, and in particular implies no right to elect the board of
> that entity.
> </quote>

Sounds good.

I do still have a query about the class of "members" that the board can then revoke, as outlined in this document.  Maybe we should sketch out a plan where:

-- formal members are actually members of the company
-- they pay dues to be a member
-- they get to vote on the board as part of being a member

I'll take this as an action item with Paula as part of our subcommittee...

> 
> @Jordan: why don't we get you an account on okfn.org so you can edit
> this sort of thing ...

That would be great!  I need to adjust the privacy policy and to adjust our companies house information (it says "incorporated in the United Kingdom as a company limited by guarantee".  You can only be incorporated in one of our constituent countries --  England & Wales or in Scotland).

> 
>> Forgive me if it's there and I missed it, but I do not see this distinction on the current page:
>> 
>> <http://okfn.org/governance/>
>> 
>> I understand from Rufus that this distinction used to be there.
> 
> I believe I was mistaken.
> 
>> Has the page on the site changed? Jo?
>> 
>> I'm concerned because the current page makes "members" look like a voting status inside the organisation, including by requiring "members" to be in working groups, and that the board can "revoke" membership. Parts of it look like they were copied directly from the ASF website?
> 
> No, none was copied directly from the ASF. Some was copied pretty
> directly from OSGeo.
I only say that because there are some formatting issues from the markup language that was used that mention ASF.

Note that the same formatting issues seem to have popped up elsewhere on the site, such as at:

http://okfn.org/about/

"Running open knowledge [OKCon](/events]], such as [[okcon)."

Thanks!

~jordan

> 
> Regards,
> 
> Rufus
> 
>> Can we change this ASAP or revert it back to the previous version and make this version a "draft"?
>> 
>> Thanks!
>> 
>> ~Jordan
>> ____
>> Mr. Jordan S Hatcher, JD, LLM
>> 
>> More at: <http://www.jordanhatcher.com>
>> Co-founder:  <http://www.opendatacommons.org>
>> Open Knowledge: <http://www.okfn.org/>
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-board mailing list
>> foundation-board at lists.okfn.org
>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-board
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Open Knowledge Foundation
> Promoting Open Knowledge in a Digital Age
> http://www.okfn.org/ - http://blog.okfn.org/
> 
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____
Mr. Jordan S Hatcher, JD, LLM

More at: <http://www.jordanhatcher.com>
Co-founder:  <http://www.opendatacommons.org>
Open Knowledge: <http://www.okfn.org/>