Revision of Bylaws

The time has come to begin discussing the changes that need to be made
to the bylaws. The most important changes will be regarding the
memberships, and the voting. Later changes will address committees, etc.
These will be attacked in order, with membership being first as this is
currently the more hazy issue, and a lot of questions have been raised
about it.

The bylaws can be found on the SPI web site at <http://www.spi-inc.org/corp
orate/spi-bylaws>.

Articles 1 and 2 will never change, as they need to stay consistent with
the COI (Certificate of Incorporation- also online). Article 3 is the
membership article, and this will be discussed first. As this article is
discussed, please keep in mind that the entire bylaws will be gradually
revised, so the articles don't necessarily have to be consistent with
other articles.

Technically, the way the revisions will work is as follows:
- write resolutions to change the various articles (one at a time, to
avoid confusion and multiple simultaneous discussions- tough to keep track
of!)
- discuss the resolutions until they're ready to be voted on
- the board will then vote on them.
- once all necessary articles of the bylaws have been changed, they should
be voted into the actual bylaws as a block. This ensures that the bylaws
are not inconsistent with themselves at any given time, and thus avoids
confusion.

If anyone has any problems with the general approach, please let me know.
I've been thinking about this a long time (about 5 months) and this is IMO
the best way to approach the problem.

I plan on posting the proposed changes to the membership articles in the
next day or so (hopefully).

Nils.

--
Nils Lohner Software in the Public Interest, Inc.
E-Mail: lohner(at)spi-inc(dot)org PO Box 1326
Board Of Directors <board(at)spi-inc(dot)org> Boston, Ma. 02117 USA