Re: Second Call for nominations - 2007 SPI Board Election

On Tue, Jul 17, 2007 at 09:28:52PM +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Controversies
> -------------
> I thought it would be interesting to note the main decisions made by
> the SPI Board which seemed controversial to me - in particular, there
> were two where I was outvoted which come particularly to my mind:
> * The board decided to transfer the opensource.org domain name to the
> Open Source Initiative. I disagreed because I feel that
> opensource.org is a resource which rightly belongs to the whole
> community and that OSI's governance structure doesn't reflect
> that.

This vote went four in favour, one against, one abstention, and three
members absent with regrets.

http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/meeting-minutes/2006/board-meeting-december-19th-2006.html

> * The board decided to accept the Open Voting Foundation as an
> Associated Project. I disagreed because I feel that computers are
> inherently untrustworthy in the context of public elections and
> that making it Free Software is at best a red herring and at worst
> a diversion.

Apparently those minutes aren't available anywhere. Weird. Anyway,
by my irc logs, the members present at the meeting were:

05:00 <CosmicRay> We have 9 board members, so quorum for today is 6.
05:00 <CosmicRay> We have regrets from Branden.
05:00 <cdlu> David Graham
05:00 <CosmicRay> John Goerzen
05:00 <bdale> Bdale Garbee
05:00 <Hydroxide> Jimmy Kaplowitz
05:00 <IanJackson> Ian Jackson
05:00 <BrucePerens> Bruce Perens
05:00 <cdlu> quorum

(Joey appears present later in the logs), with the vote on OVF going:

05:26 <CosmicRay> [item 6, OVF membership]
05:26 <cdlu> CosmicRay if there is no objection, I move we go straight to voting on
Ian's amendment to the resolution.
05:26 * Hydroxide seconds
05:27 <CosmicRay> !vote start
05:27 <Hydroxide> !vote no
05:27 <CosmicRay> !vote no
05:27 <cdlu> !vote no
05:27 <BrucePerens> !vote no
05:28 <bdale> !vote no
05:28 <cdlu> Ian, Joey?
05:28 * cdlu rolls eyes
05:28 <Joey> !vote no
05:29 <Hydroxide> IanJackson: can we presume you voted yes on your amendment?
05:29 <IanJackson> Hy: Yes.

ie, Ian's amendment (that electornic voting is harmful to the public
interest, and thus OVF shouldn't be accepted) failed with one vote in
favour, six votes against, and two board members not present (Branden,
with regrets as noted, and Mako).

The vote to accept OVF went on as:

05:30 <CosmicRay> is there a motion to vote on 2006-06-06.dbg.1?
05:30 <cdlu> so moved
05:30 * Hydroxide so moves
05:30 <bdale> seconded
05:30 <CosmicRay> !vote start
05:30 <Hydroxide> !vote no
05:30 <cdlu> !vote yes
05:30 <BrucePerens> !vote yes
05:30 <bdale> !vote yes
05:30 <IanJackson> !vote no
05:31 <CosmicRay> !vote yes
05:31 <Joey> !vote yes
05:31 <cdlu> Yes: 5, No: 2, Abstain: 0
05:31 <CosmicRay> !vote stop
05:32 <CosmicRay> 2006-06-06.dbg.1 has passed.
05:32 <slef> shame!
05:32 <CosmicRay> I believe that fully resolves this item, correct?
05:32 <IanJackson> slef: Not exactly helpful.
05:32 <IanJackson> CosmicRay: I think so, yes.

> I don't mean to re-open the debates on those subjects. I mention them
> because but one of the key roles of a board member is to vote on
> matters presented to the board for decision and I would like the
> SPI members to consider the likely voting behaviour of their
> candidates.

So with that leadup, here's my comment: to work well, it seems to
me that the members of a board/committee need to work well with each
other and have a reasonable amount of mutual respect even in the face
of disagreements. To me, that doesn't mean not having disagreements,
but it does mean:

- when you find your view isn't going to prevail, finding
compromises that mitigate (what you see as) the problems
in the prevailing viewpoint

- when you find your view is going to prevail, but other people
disagree with that view (possibly strongly) trying to find
ways to support their views

- trying to keep your disagreements respectful, not being
bitter about losing and bringing the issue back up all the
time, or impugning anything other than the highest of motives
to the people who disagree with you, and so on

> The discussion on opensource.org should have been held in public but
> was not. As a board member at the time I apologise for that failing -
> and as the eventually defeated chief opponent of the transfer I regret
> not enlisting the help of the membership.

So for me, this tends to cross the line into not really helpful
disagreements: the decision's been made, and while some people clearly
think that was the wrong decision, I think it's a long way off base
to imply that the membership had been on your side all along and
only failed to push your view over the line because they weren't
sufficiently involved. Particularly for the opensource.org issue,
I'm a bit more frustrated about that because back when OSI originally
split from SPI, SPI made a public call for comments on what should
be done about opensource.org and the potential open source trademark,
which was never either summarised in public or acted upon in any way,
and unless I'm misremembering that was at your initiative at the time,
and you've been a board member for the entire intervening period.

I guess that just starts looking to me like you're expecting other people
to treat your views with respect when you disagree -- and acknowledging
your dissent, holding debates in public and accepting the outcome of
votes, and so forth -- without doing the same when you're getting your
way, and other people disagree.

I'm not really sure how to summarise what I'm trying to say -- basically
I think it's good that you're standing up for your views, but they
seem to end up either winning or losing, and not going beyond that to
demonstrating how to deal with outlying opinions in a constructive,
inclusive way; and since I have been tending to disagree with your
views where they've differed from the majority of the board, to me,
that doesn't seem to be a useful contribution to the board.

I'd like to form that into a question, but I'm not sure how to say what
I mean well enough to do so. If you can see what I'm getting at, I'd be
interested in your response.

Cheers,
aj