Re: Bylwas Revision[2]: COMMITTEES

On Fri, Apr 02, 1999 at 03:58:03PM -0500, Nils Lohner wrote:
> COMMITTEES
> ----------
>
> - Committees are an extension of the BOD and they should take care of most
> of the day to day operation of SPI
>
> - committees should perform ongoing functions and should not be formed to
> accomplish short term tasks
Why? Why can the BOD not form a "team" to work with apple on developing an
Open Source license? Once the license is done, the "team" (I like team
better than committee) is not needed and can be disbanded, naturally. It
could even be written into the charter in such a way that it wouldn't take
a seperate action by the BOD to disband. (But still satisfy the BOD
disbanding it).

> - committees can propose resolutions and motions
either "within the scope of their charter" or "of the type specified in
their charter" or "if allowed in their charter"... A committee on the OS
trademark shouldn't have any power to propose on an issue involving
membership. The individual members will still have what ever powers the
bylaws give, but not the "team" as an "entity".

> Leadership and Membership
> -------------------------
> - the BOD appoints the committee leadership (leaders and alternates)
Structure should be left up to the charter. Maybe (can't think of one off
the top of my head but maybe) a leader isn't necessary or even harmful to
the Foobard team... so they shouldn't have one. Instead, the whole team
should be appointed by the BOD -- esp. since the "teams" are an extention
of the BOD. If a leader is needed, the how the leader comes to be can be
spelled in the charter (in theory, some leaders can then be appointed by
the BOD, elected by the membership or chosen by the committee members).

> QUESTIONS:
> ----------
> - how are members appointed? BOD? Leaders? Membership? Actually, should
> the committee have an official membership? The membership of a committee
> should be 'slow moving' i.e. committees should not have a 'revolving door'
> membership with a quick turnover. How do we accomplish this?
see above. I"m not sure "turnover" can be measured except by very careful
selection of the "team" members.

> - should non-contributing members be able to serve on committees?
No...
> [incidentally, that would automatically make them contributing
> members...!! I would say no, as I envision committees doing the more
> 'important' work and to be a member you should have done some free software
> work already. Off course, they can help with committee work, just not be a
> member. That in turn would qualify them for contributing membership
> eventually.]
Or if yes, the membership should exclude being a committee member.

> - what should the internal structure of the committee look like? how are
> decisions reached within a committee? Voting? Consensus? Should there be
> a general specification for this, or should this be left up to the charter?
Charter defined...

Try to think of ALL the possible types of committees... then find the
ingredients that are in common that you want ALL the "teams" to have...
That is all that should be in the bylaws. The rest should be in the
charters.

--
Please cc all mailing list replies to me, also.
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