Re: Bylwas Revision[2]: COMMITTEES

On Fri, 2 Apr 1999, Nils Lohner wrote:

> - 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

Day to day operations are short term tasks and require ongoing decision
making. Maybe I am confused here about the nature of committees.

> - 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?

committees are formed around an issue. This could be by members sharing a
certain interest or by the BOD organizing a committee or appointing
someone to start a committee. Powers to make decisions are conferred to
the committee by the BOD. Unless a committee has the power to make
decisions in a certain they can only submit recommendations
to the BOD.

> - should non-contributing members be able to serve on committees?
> [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.]

Of course

> - 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?
> [I'd say leave it up to the charter. The membership committee and
> administrative committee should be a lot more reactive, and (for example) an
> Open Source committee or other more politically oriented committees should
> be more slow moving and stable.]

Maybe leave that up to the committee. The chairman needs to be responsible
for the actions to the BOD to have accountability.