[OpenStack Foundation] Board discussing how to improve the Individual Director election process, community input wanted

Tim Bell Tim.Bell at cern.ch
Sun Nov 18 14:47:03 UTC 2012


Mark,

The proposals for actions to be taken for the 2013 individual elections were
prepared by Tristan, Hui and myself.  We are individual board members but do
not have any affiliation with companies who have platinum or gold member
seats (which is where the concern has been expressed).  This is as Johnathan
communicated on November 2nd
(http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/foundation/2012-November/001237.html)
- "Discussed options for updates to the election process. Tim Bell, Hui
Cheng and Tristan Goode are pulling together some recommendations that they
will be sharing with the mailing list for feedback before the election
period opens with nominations on November 26."

Given that the board meeting to propose the sub-committee was only agreed on
Nov 2nd, we were pleased to get the letter published on the 13th for the
board meeting on the 16th.  The time zone differences between Europe and
Australia didn't make it easy to do it faster.

Rob, Toby and Troy were also involved in the brainstorming prior to that to
cover possibilities for both (as shown in the etherpad  at
https://etherpad.openstack.org/Board-2012-VotingProposals). Many of these
proposals were  extracted from ideas on the mailing list. The 4
possibilities proposed for the 2013 elections were those where the bylaws
permitted us to change within the timescales available. The other options
can be debated during 2013 and proposals can then be prepared to be voted on
according to the bylaws.

Tim

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark McLoughlin [mailto:markmc at redhat.com]
> Sent: 17 November 2012 17:27
> To: Alan Clark
> Cc: foundation at lists.openstack.org
> Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Board discussing how to improve the
> Individual Director election process, community input wanted
> 
> On Tue, 2012-11-13 at 06:17 -0700, Alan Clark wrote:
> > Informal conversations after the Summit led the Board, as a first
> > step, to establish a sub-committee composed of primarily Individual
> > Members.
> 
> AFAICT, this sub-committee was composed of Tristan Goode, Tim Bell, Rob
> Hirschfeld, Hui Cheng, Toby Ford and Troy Toman.
> 
> Concerns have been expressed about the election process since August and
> our response has been to:
> 
>   * have the board appoint a sub-committee consisting of directors who
>     were elected using the current election process
> 
>   * not make the existence of that sub-committee publicly known
> 
>   * not invite any of those community members who worked to make
>     constructive suggestions about the issue on this list in the past
> 
>   * publish the proposals mere days before they were to be adopted
> 
> I'm personally not into conspiracy theories and always assume good faith,
but
> is it not obvious to everyone how bad this looks?
> 
> It would have been quite straightforward to look over these archives:
> 
>   http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/foundation/2012-October/thread.html
> 
> then ask those making constructive contributions whether they want to
> participate in the sub-committee, publish the etherpad from the very start
> and encourage the sub-committee to involve the mailing list in the
discussion
> at all stages.
> 
> > An etherpad detailing all of the potential options explored and
> > discussed is at
> > https://etherpad.openstack.org/Board-2012-VotingProposals.
> 
> Regardless of the above, thanks and kudos to those who worked on this.
> It looks like you worked hard to include all proposals made on the mailing
list
> and weight them carefully.
> 
> > Firstly, for the August 2012 election, four questions were produced
> > from mailing list input and put to each election candidate, some of
> > whom responded and some did not. It is the Board's recommendation that
> > we develop this into a compulsory procedure where a nominated
> > candidate is required to make a clear statement of the candidate's
> > contribution to OpenStack.
> 
> Very positive but IMHO is, at first glance, orthogonal to the concerns
about
> voter behaviour.
> 
> In the previous election, only Yujie Du and Rob Hirschfeld were elected
> without answering those questions (although Rob did blog about his
> candidacy).
> 
> Perhaps the concern we're trying to address is that if a candidate is
elected
> without making it clear what they're standing for, it becomes hard for
> everyone to understand post-election why they were elected?
> 
> > Secondly, the Board would like to more clearly inform the electorate
> > on the reasons for individual members of the Board and explain their
> > role, the importance of diversity on the Board, be that international,
> > cultural, technological, gender or otherwise, the role of the
> > Individual members for who and or what they represent, and provide
> > guidance for members to use these criteria to assess their voting
> > choice.
> >
> > Thirdly, the Board asks that all organisations act honourably, be
> > respectful and demonstrate responsibility and guide their staff to
> > vote according to the best interests of the Community, and not their
> > organisation. OpenStack's life blood is the Community.
> 
> Great. Let's make sure to have an open discussion about both sets of
> guidelines in advance of the election.
> 
> ...
> > Fourthly, the Board is exploring options not requiring by-law changes
> > and that fall within the current cumulative voting structure which
> > will help to create a balanced representation of candidates from
> > affiliated organisations, independents and minorities.
> 
> This is confusing. The board is exploring options other than those
proposed
> by the sub-committee?
> 
> Cheers,
> Mark.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Foundation mailing list
> Foundation at lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation
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