[part 2] Article 3: Membership

>From the discussions it seems that people favor the two tiered membership
approach, so here's an initial whack at the bylaws article.

Note that I'm _not_ discussing voting in here... that's the next topic for
the other bylaws article. This is _just_ for the details of what
membership is, and what rights and obligations etc. _other_ than voting it
entails.

Right now it's written in a chopped up form to make it easier to read...
as the discussion draws to a close, I'll put it in a more 'readable'
paragraph form.

IWJ- your points I have considered and included in this mail

Lynn- your points are regarding voting and committee service- both of
these articles will be discussed later (I already have started rewriting
the committee one. Which members can serve where should be defined in
there.)

Everyone else- thanks for your comments. I've read them all over prior to
writing this and think I've included most concerns.

Nils.

ps. an aside- let's get this done quickly if possible, then we can get a
membership and have committees to take care of things like OS and LPF etc.
This would take a LOT of strain off the current board members.

General
-------
[this section is for information that applies to all members]

[The membership should/will control SPI, and SPI's board and ultimately
everyone that acts for SPI will be held accountable to the membership.
--iwj email]
[somehow I'd like to phrase this into a good sentence. Suggestions? :)]

- There are contributing and non-contributing membership available within
this organization. All membership applications will be reviewed by the
Membership Committee.
[where do we state the complete list of membership criteria? Here? In
the charter for the membership committee? What should the criteria be?]

- all members agree to the general goals principles of SPI and agree to
help support the organization.
[This wording is ugly. Basically, I want to say that members should
(must?) agree with what SPI stands for and is trying to achieve.]

- members may leave the organization at any time by notifying the
membership committee of their desire for the membership to be terminated.

Contributing Members
--------------------

- becoming a contributing member
The applicant must apply for a contributing membership and include a
list of projects or free software related activities that they have
participated in (including what they have done) within the last two years
(more may be included if desired). This will be reviewed by the
membership committee.
[should we define more tangible criteria here (or in the membership
committee charter) or leave it a little open ended? how significant a
contribution should it be (point from iwj email)??]

- term of membership
The contributing membership will expire two years from the date of
issue of the membership. It may be renewed. If it is not renewed, the
member will be downgraded to a non-contributing member. To again become a
contributing member at a later time, the person can simply follow the
renewal procedure.
[I think 2 years is reasonable, and the downgrading is also a feasible
idea for handling the memberships.]

- renewal of membership
The member will be notified one month ahead of time that the membership
is due to expire and will be asked to send a renewal application with a
list of projects or free software related activities that they have
participated in within the last two years. This will be reviewed by the
membership committee.
[I like this approach... easily automated too]

- board members
Board members, by virtue of their office, are automatically
contributing members.
[board members are working for SPI so by definition are contributing.]

Non-contributing Membership
---------------------------
[this section seems short, but then again, I don't think it should be that
hard to become a non contributing member. Look at javalobby.org- all
members do is basically support the 'write once, run anywhere' concept.
I'm picturing the same for SPI- non contrib members just support the
principles of SPI.]

- becoming a non-contributing member
The applicant must apply for a non-contributing membership. The
application will be reviewed by the membership committee.

- term of membership
The membership will not expire.

On Wed, Mar 24, 1999 at 05:22:13PM -0500, Nils Lohner wrote:
> General
> -------
> [this section is for information that applies to all members]
>
> [The membership should/will control SPI, and SPI's board and ultimately
> everyone that acts for SPI will be held accountable to the membership.
> --iwj email]
> [somehow I'd like to phrase this into a good sentence. Suggestions? :)]
I'm not totally sure what you're driving at... on the surface, it's obvious
that the membership controls the organization.. ultimatly. Surely you are
not talking about the day to day business. Do you want to list member
resposiblities? Why we have members? I've tried 7 or 8 suggested sentance
but none fit because I don't know where you want the introduction to lead.
That being said... here's something that seems to fit with the rest of the
letter...

Members are the ultimate controlling body of SPI, Inc. Although the
day-to-day business is carried out by the Board of Directors and their
committees, the members have the responsibility to oversee the Board and
make sure it functions within the goals and principles of SPI as set forth
in this document (and the root of SPI should be here or in the articles of
Inc.).

> - There are contributing and non-contributing membership available within
> this organization. All membership applications will be reviewed by the
> Membership Committee.
> [where do we state the complete list of membership criteria? Here? In
> the charter for the membership committee? What should the criteria be?]
That depends on how "fluid" you want the membership requirements to be.
Something defined in the bylaws should be harder to change than something
defined in a "lesser" document. The way it's harder to change our
constitution than it is the change the Laws of U.S.A.

> - all members agree to the general goals principles of SPI and agree to
> help support the organization.
> [This wording is ugly. Basically, I want to say that members should
> (must?) agree with what SPI stands for and is trying to achieve.]
Members agree to support SPI's goals.

This give a little out. "Joe" might not agree 100% with everything (he
doesn't like the GPL because it's a virus in his eyes) but SPI supports it
so he'll also support it, but not use it in his own code.

> Contributing Members
> --------------------
>
> - becoming a contributing member
> The applicant must apply for a contributing membership and include a
> list of projects or free software related activities that they have
> participated in (including what they have done) within the last two years
> (more may be included if desired). This will be reviewed by the
> membership committee.
> [should we define more tangible criteria here (or in the membership
> committee charter) or leave it a little open ended? how significant a
> contribution should it be (point from iwj email)??]
See above....

> - renewal of membership
> The member will be notified one month ahead of time that the membership
> is due to expire and will be asked to send a renewal application with a
> list of projects or free software related activities that they have
> participated in within the last two years. This will be reviewed by the
> membership committee.
> [I like this approach... easily automated too]
I agree :)

> - board members
> Board members, by virtue of their office, are automatically
> contributing members.
> [board members are working for SPI so by definition are contributing.]
Why? Why not "Only contributing members can be board members" Is the job
of being a board member going to be so full they won't have time to
contribute to another project?

> Non-contributing Membership
> ---------------------------
> [this section seems short, but then again, I don't think it should be that
> hard to become a non contributing member. Look at javalobby.org- all
> members do is basically support the 'write once, run anywhere' concept.
> I'm picturing the same for SPI- non contrib members just support the
> principles of SPI.]
>
> - becoming a non-contributing member
> The applicant must apply for a non-contributing membership. The
> application will be reviewed by the membership committee.
The applicaton must apply for non-contributing membership stating they
support the principles of SPI.

Just for clarity and balance. Otherwise, it's not needed.

>
> - term of membership
> The membership will not expire.
I'd have it expire in 2 years also... basicly a ping to take them off the
email lists if they don't respond...

--
Please cc all mailing list replies to me, also.
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> > [somehow I'd like to phrase this into a good sentence. Suggestions? :)]
> I'm not totally sure what you're driving at... on the surface, it's obvious
> that the membership controls the organization.. ultimatly. Surely you are
Well, it'd be nice to make the distinction that "the _members_ control
SPI", not "the board controls SPI". At the moment, it is (on the
surface) the other way around.

> > [where do we state the complete list of membership criteria? Here? In
> > the charter for the membership committee? What should the criteria be?]
How about just like we do for Debian:

A member must meet the criteria set forth by the Membership
Committee acting on behalf of the Company.

That way, the membership requirements can be more flexible. We could
even set it up so that the membership committee, in circumstances of
extreme uncertainty, can thus query the current membership and say "We're
sitting on the fence. Should 'Joe' be a member?"

Will

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On Wed, Mar 24, 1999 at 11:07:05PM -0500, Will Lowe wrote:
> > > [somehow I'd like to phrase this into a good sentence. Suggestions? :)]
> > I'm not totally sure what you're driving at... on the surface, it's obvious
> > that the membership controls the organization.. ultimatly. Surely you are
> Well, it'd be nice to make the distinction that "the _members_ control
> SPI", not "the board controls SPI". At the moment, it is (on the
> surface) the other way around.
Except in the broadest terms, that's for a membership section of this
document. It's spelled out, maybe in a section that defines the board or a
section that defines voting, *how* the board is controled...
>
> > > [where do we state the complete list of membership criteria? Here? In
> > > the charter for the membership committee? What should the criteria be?]
> How about just like we do for Debian:
>
> A member must meet the criteria set forth by the Membership
> Committee acting on behalf of the Company.
>
> That way, the membership requirements can be more flexible. We could
> even set it up so that the membership committee, in circumstances of
> extreme uncertainty, can thus query the current membership and say "We're
> sitting on the fence. Should 'Joe' be a member?"
That might work -- it'd be an interesting experiment -- but it's usually
good in the "entity" world (SPI is a legal entity/"person") to have atleast
*some* guidelines so the outside world can look on and see that all is well
(such as policies of non-discrimination, for example)
>
>

> > A member must meet the criteria set forth by the Membership
> > Committee acting on behalf of the Company.
> That might work -- it'd be an interesting experiment -- but it's usually
> good in the "entity" world (SPI is a legal entity/"person") to have atleast
> *some* guidelines so the outside world can look on and see that all is well
> (such as policies of non-discrimination, for example)

Ok, how about:
"A person desiring [active/voting] membership must be determined
to have made significant contribution to the Free Software community or to
another activity or project directly relating to the [published] goals and
ideals of SPI. This determination will be made by the Membership
Committee acting on behalf of the membership of SPI."

Then you can put the standard "SPI will not discriminate
on the basis of race, color, age, sex, sexual preference, species or
anything else" clause at the bottom of the whole document.

Will

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On Wed, Mar 24, 1999 at 05:22:13PM -0500, Nils Lohner wrote:
> >From the discussions it seems that people favor the two tiered membership
> approach, so here's an initial whack at the bylaws article.

Actually I oppose it if there is any alternative to be found. It would
cause the higher tier of membership to become a status symbol. I think
anyone familiar with my rants about GNOME of late should be well aware
that I feel the GNOME project is doing poorly if their goal is to produce
good software because the people running the project are too busy
building their own egos to actually build anything useful.

As a result GNOME is at any given point half broken, bloated, and
generally unusable if you need something that works now. I'd rather not
see this happen with SPI, though it may be necessary for the reasons
others have cited. I'm just very leery about letting any one or any
small group determine if someone's contribution to the community is
"worthy" of being allowed into the upper ranks. I'm worried this is
likely to push anyone but those who have published and popular code out
of consideration, even if they have done other things that are extremely
important.

Forgive me if my faith in the community is not all that strong in this
regard. I hear all the time that we need more people to pick up the
non-code areas which are being ignored. People to write docs and howtos,
people to advocate for Free Software in positive ways, that sort of
thing. Yet where is the notoriety in these things? Nobody knows who
these people are and their work is taken for granted. The more we try to
limit ourselves to the elite, the more it's going to simply become a
popularity contest and the more these people who are probably most
responsible for where we are now are going to be excluded.

[..]
> ps. an aside- let's get this done quickly if possible, then we can get a
> membership and have committees to take care of things like OS and LPF etc.
> This would take a LOT of strain off the current board members.

Hehe! I won't argue.

[..]
> [The membership should/will control SPI, and SPI's board and ultimately
> everyone that acts for SPI will be held accountable to the membership.
> --iwj email]
> [somehow I'd like to phrase this into a good sentence. Suggestions? :)]

Try two, for readability:

The membership shall control SPI and the SPI board. All who act on SPI's
behalf will untimately be held accountable to the membership.

> - There are contributing and non-contributing membership available within
> this organization. All membership applications will be reviewed by the
> Membership Committee.
> [where do we state the complete list of membership criteria? Here? In
> the charter for the membership committee? What should the criteria be?]

I would say membership charter. See above for my concerns as to the
criteria I've heard voiced of "significant contribution to the community"
differenciating the "non-contributing" and the "contributing" members. I
don't think the criteria for becoming a non-contributing member should be
too discriminative if we're going to have this tier setup. If it's
reasonable to go with a flat membership and we do so, we'll need to be a
bit more careful about who we let in the door, so to speak.

> - all members agree to the general goals principles of SPI and agree to
> help support the organization.
> [This wording is ugly. Basically, I want to say that members should
> (must?) agree with what SPI stands for and is trying to achieve.]

Aren't these spelled out in a mission statement? Why not simply refer to
that?

> - becoming a contributing member
> The applicant must apply for a contributing membership and include a
> list of projects or free software related activities that they have
> participated in (including what they have done) within the last two years
> (more may be included if desired). This will be reviewed by the
> membership committee.
> [should we define more tangible criteria here (or in the membership
> committee charter) or leave it a little open ended? how significant a
> contribution should it be (point from iwj email)??]

I'm really more interested in who decides what is "significant" if we
leave it open ended. I think perhaps reference to another document might
be good here as well--not so much because of the chance of revision but
because of the likelyhood this will be read over the Internet on a web
page and if we are going to have hyperlinks we may as well use them in a
way which is going to promote readability of the finished product.

> - term of membership
[..]
> - renewal of membership
[..]

I think this is a good idea, actually. Do you think two years is a good
time length or is one year a better time frame? Either one is fine with
me.

> [this section seems short, but then again, I don't think it should be that
> hard to become a non contributing member. Look at javalobby.org- all
> members do is basically support the 'write once, run anywhere' concept.
> I'm picturing the same for SPI- non contrib members just support the
> principles of SPI.]
[..]

I think you have the right idea here.

--
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd(at)debian(dot)org> Debian GNU/Linux developer
PGP: E8D68481E3A8BB77 8EE22996C9445FBE The Source Comes First!
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