Re: Proposed SPI Bylaws Amendment

As a contributing member of SPI, I reject this proposal. Anything that
reduces the democratic nature of the corporation in a long term way,
is potentially harmful.

Also, as has been pointed out, this proposal doesn't scale well at
all. If we are successful in our efforts, there may be hundreds of
open source organizations which are part of SPI in the future, and 4
would be a terribly small number of people to make a decision for all
of them.

> WHEREAS the SPI Board has been ineffectual due to four consecutive
> failures to make quorum at meetings;
>
> WHEREAS it is essential that SPI has a functioning board, so that the
> Corporation can properly function;
>
> WHEREAS it is within the authority of the contributing membership to
> amend the bylaws by an affirmative vote of 2/3 of its number;
>
> THE CONTRIBUTING MEMBERSHIP OF SOFTWARE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST, INC.,
> HAVING OBTAINED THE AFFIRMATIVE VOTE OF 2/3 OF ITS NUMBER, DOES HEREBY
> AMEND THE BYLAWS OF THE CORPORATION AS FOLLOWS:
>
> The following sentence in ARTICLE FOUR is hereby deleted:
>
> "The presence of not less than two-thirds of the board members shall
> constitute a quorum and shall be necessary to conduct the business of
> this organization, but a lesser number may adjourn the meeting for a
> period of not more than two weeks from the date scheduled by these
> bylaws and the Secretary shall cause a notice of this scheduled meeting
> to be sent to all those who were not present at the meeting originally
> called."
>
> In its place are inserted the following two sentences:
>
> "The presence of not fewer than four board members or not less than
> two-thirds of all board members (whichever is a smaller number) shall
> constitute a quorum and shall be necessary to conduct the business of
> this organization. A lesser number may adjourn the meeting for a period
> of not more than two weeks from the date scheduled by these bylaws, and
> the Secretary shall cause a notice of this scheduled meeting to be sent
> to all those who were not present at the meeting originally called."
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
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>
>

--
michael cardenas | lead software engineer, lindows.com
hyperpoem.net | GNU/Linux software developer
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