Re: Proposed revisions of Article 3: Membership

Ean-
The current discussion is about the general purpose of membership and
its structure- we're not discussing voting etc. yet. Please keep this in
mind and bring it up again when we discuss the voting after the basic
membership issues have been decided on. Do you have any comments
regarding membership and the three scenarios I proposed?

Nils.

In message <19990318182943(dot)H1636(at)boof(dot)novare(dot)net>, "Ean R . Schuessler"
writes:
>I think one useful concept is to have representative minority veto be
>part of the equation. So that there is a special class of members
>(board or directing members, if you will) that can fabricate potential
>new policies. In certain cases (controlled by policy) there should be
>resolutions that can be voted in with a 5 or 7 day veto period. Some
>items might be whether a license is Open Source or something like that.
>
>If the motion survives the veto period without recieving a representative
>minority veto then it passes. Reasonably, I cannot see much of any
>situation that requires such a quick turn around. The only thing I can
>think of is press releases representing community opinion. This, however,
>is difficult and slow to assess and reasonably could not be fabricated
>in a short time frame.
>
>On Thu, Mar 18, 1999 at 05:38:29PM -0500, Nils Lohner wrote:
>> I have had several discussions with Ian, Joey, and Dale about this, and
>> this will be the first time those thoughts are really put down in
writing.
>> Eventually it would be nice to have a document that contains all of the
>> rationales behind the articles- that way people can see the 'spirit of
the
>> law' as well as the letter.
>>
>> Actually, before the real 'writing' I'd like to outline a few possible
>> scenarios. I'm not sure which one makes most sense... all have their
>> advantages and drawbacks. I'm somewhat torn between scenarios 1&2- I'm
>> not sure which is better suited to SPIs goals.
>>
>> I'd like to figure out which scenario makes the most sense (and why!!)
and
>> then figure out the details, and then actually write the bylaws
article.
>> When commenting on this, please don't just ask questions- also try to
>> propose solutions at the same time.
>>
>> Discussion season is open.
>>
>> Nils.
>--
>__________________________________________________________________
>Ean Schuessler A guy running Linux
>Novare International Inc. A company running Linux
>*** WARNING: This signature may contain jokes.
>

On Fri, Mar 19, 1999 at 10:12:07AM -0500, Nils Lohner wrote:
> The current discussion is about the general purpose of membership and
> its structure- we're not discussing voting etc. yet. Please keep this in
> mind and bring it up again when we discuss the voting after the basic
> membership issues have been decided on. Do you have any comments
> regarding membership and the three scenarios I proposed?

I don't think that the issues are distinct. Usually, when there are
distinct "levels" in a governmental organization the distinctive attributes
of those levels are their roles in voting processes. What is the purpose
of separating the membership into these various functional components? I
saw this as an effort to create focused groups of well informed members
that could carry out decisions on particular key areas without requiring
a vote of the complete body of members. I was suggesting the veto action
as a method for integrating the opinion of the larger membership body into
the actions of these smaller groups.

It seems to me that the mechanisms for arriving at consensus (voting, etc.)
are the primary motivator for making functional divisions within
the voting body.

Does that make sense?

--
___________________________________________________________________
Ean Schuessler An oderless programmer work-a-like
Novare International Inc. Silent and motionless
*** WARNING: This signature may contain jokes.