[foundation-board] Separation of concerns

[Jo Walsh]

On 23/06/2011 12:48, Jason Kitcat wrote:
> Personally, I wouldn't favour this proposal at this juncture. I
> don't  think the organisation is sufficiently robust nor has the capacity to
> cope with such a split. I also think we would risk losing the beneficial
> overlaps our diverse different activities currently have.

K, it is good to have the operational perspective on this.

Really at this point I want to see a cost/benefit analysis and establish 
some conditions: is this something the board can agree is desirable? 
(possibly not) and how can we judge when OKF is robust enough? Given the 
Omidyar news, there's now a 3-year breathing space
with support assured for the "community" part. (I know this is new news 
but it would be very helpful to see the conditions attached to the 
Omidyar grant).

I'm looking back to Jonny's email of 24th May, suggesting:

   * The Open Knowledge Foundation - which takes on contracts, paid
work, consultancy, pays people and is legally responsible for
delivering on projects. The board is responsible for this bit. This is
the bit that Jason is responsible for making sustainable. And where
all the business development happens (e.g. doing CKAN customisation
work, etc). And it dedicates resources/time/etc to ...
   * The Open Knowledge Foundation Network - which is much more
autonomous. The working groups, and all the smaller projects are part
of this. This is basically 100% community driven. The executive group
and WG leads work on this. The Foundation gives it an annual budget to
spend on projects, events, and other activities as the community see
fit.

Would the Network need its own legal entity? Woul(d it need its own 
board? (Which could be seeded from the coord group and pursue an 
ASF-style meritocratic membership model?) Would it need its own 
(transparent) bank account?

> I certainly don't think it would make management easier!

It could make budgeting / planning easier. OKF has recently taken on a 
couple of new people to do community engagement, which looks great.
Are Lucy and Kat working for the Foundation or for the Network?
Are they paid out of project funds, core funds, or general surplus?

My main problem with this is that the costs can be quite easily 
estimate, the benefits are unknowable but the risks are unquantifiable.
For me the big risk is more people coming along and saying this:

"You're using community energy to build up consultancy / reputation; 
with secret decisions made by an small clique; and spending grant 
funding in ways for which it was not intended."

Now hopefully OKF is *not* doing any of these things but it would be 
helpful to be able to illustrate that fact - in ways that don't require 
extra overhead or effort but are a natural byproduct of the way things 
are run anyway. Which gets me back to where i started - with separation 
of concerns.

(Thanks to your effort Jason we're in a much better management situation 
than we were this time last year, and i really look forward to reading 
the community report :) )

If any of this doesn't make sense you can blame the early morning 
airport sleep deprivation.