On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 5:40 AM, Dave Neary
<dneary@redhat.com> wrote:
Hi,
On 11/18/2012 05:42 PM, Mark McLoughlin wrote:
<snip>
In retrospect what I really find odd is the way we have a bunch of
engaged, constructive and interested people actively discussing ideas on
the mailing list. Then a completely different group goes off and
discusses ideas privately and, a month later, comes back with a
conclusion giving the original group mere days to give feedback.
I guess from the perspective of members of the board, you've seen the
issue taken seriously and actively worked to a conclusion. From the
perspective of not being on the board, I see little engagement from the
board in the original discussion, silence and then a big reveal. It's
not the kind of open, collaborative process I'd hope for.
Then again, no-one else seems to be taking issue with the process so
it'd be fair to count me as one of the "No matter what we do, there will
be people who object" crowd :)
Add me as one of the people thinking that this could have been approached differently.
I believe everyone is acting in good faith, and I believe that the outcome is the best that could be achieved for the upcoming election.
However, the process is probably just as important as the outcome, and as Mark has pointed out, a number of people seemed ready to put time and effort into improving the situation.
A suggestion for the future: I have seen non-profits like the OpenStack Foundation fall into the trap of having all the Foundation "stuff" be done by foundation staff and board members. It's happened in the GNOME Foundation for a few years, and we regretted it. One of the things which allowed us to improve was to have board members tasked with ensuring something happened, and inviting people from the broader community who cared about that thing to do the heavy lifting: whether that was hiring an executive director (we invited people with hiring experience to be on the hiring committee), running hackfests (where we decided a budget at board level, and delegated totally the organisation of hackfests to foundation members), the successful Outreach Program for Women, whatever...
The MO has been: provide resources and support to help the members achieve what is in the best interests of the foundation. I would hope that the OpenStack Foundation ends up having a similar MO - we can achieve more if we push the power to the edges, and have the central organisation be a good place to keep everyone informed about what's going on, provide leadership and direction, and providing resources.
+1
The Python Software Foundation is organized similarly around focused committees with one member (not necessarily a board member) appointed by the board to lead. For example, I served for 2 years as Communications Director, building up a small group of people to help disseminate foundation news through the blog, wiki, and mailing lists.
Doug
Cheers,
Dave.
--
Dave Neary - Community Action and Impact
Open Source and Standards, Red Hat - http://community.redhat.com
Ph: +33 9 50 71 55 62 / Cell: +33 6 77 01 92 13