[OOTB-hive] [GOV] Draft by-laws

Thu Sep 4 08:56:41 BST 2014

Hi Jeff,

Sorry, but I still disagree with our policy of approving new members.

> (1) We allow anyone to become a member. If they found out about us
yesterday and do nothing else but submit the form, they can be added to the
list of members with no questions asked. They will be non-voting members
but they will be members. This will help us grow our community and make our
supporters visible without granting casual participants any power at all.
This also gives people a "ramp" for participating in the community. It's a
low barrier to entry (with a corresponding low level of power).

As I remember our first messages in this mailing list, the idea of the
Order was to unite people who contribute to the community. How people, who
just installed Alfresco, can guarantee the existence of the Alfresco
Community as a free open source product?

We have a large community (anyone can join it), but the Order is an
organization that makes something valuable for the community, so I don't
understand why should person who just installed Alfresco yesterday join us.
Do you really want to have hundreds of photos on the
http://orderofthebee.org/about/#members page? I understand the positioning
of "so we can have more people in the Order", but I would prefer smaller
Order, but when all people contribute.

Another reason I don't like it is that managing of the members require time
and energy. Now I add new members to the website and give them access to
Github. Also I track changing of the positions/companies of the members and
new photos. I'm not ready to do it on the everyday basis, if we add
everyone who wants to be added, I cannot spend 8 hours a day searching for
photos, resizing them, adding new elements to our JSON with members,
reformulate a list of contributions and summary for publishing. If you want
to say "ask them to send you all needed information", then I can reply that
it will never work.

But I'm ready to work on it, if these people are valuable for the
community. They may organize meetups, write tutorials, develop add-ons and
so on. They are valuable for the community, and I want to be valuable for
the Order and maintain our list of members in the actual state. If you find
someone who will work with "inactive" members, who does not contribute, but
we still should spend a lot of time working with them (not only publishing
information but also collaborate with them to see how they can contribute
and where can we help them), then ok, let's approve all requests.

> (2) Everyone starts as a non-voting member. A voting member can propose
that a non-voting member be changed to a voting member once they've proven
themselves by working on a committee. The voting member does this by
sending an email to a list that is private to existing voting members. The
existing voting members discuss whether or not that person has made enough
contributions to the Order (not only to the Alfresco community, but to the
Order, specifically) to be made into voting members and they hold a vote on
the private list. If this vote passes, they are now voting members. This is
basically the Apache process.

Two questions from my side:
- who decide to denude voting rights?
- What to do if a person is very active in developing add-ons, writing
posts in blog, but he doesn't like all this politics, so he doesn't join
any committee? I don't think that be listed in some committee members list
is a good reason to give a person voting right. You can be added to a
committee and don't do anything for a long time, because there are too many
members in the committee and nobody controls you.

> Alfresco employees

I think that "having contributions in the last year or two" requirement to
join the Order partially solve our question with Alfresco employees. I
don't think that it's so important to be a voting member. We are not going
to vote every day. The most of the questions should be solved without
voting. But if all members are valuable for the community, then the fact of
publishing information about a person on the website is a rewarding - you
are one of people, who work on doing this world better, you don't only
consume, but you invest and create something new, people know about your
contributions and appreciate it.

Best regards,
Oksana

On Thu, Sep 4, 2014 at 10:23 AM, Tahir Malik <tahir.malik at contezza.nl>
wrote:

> I agree with the proposed.
>
> I want to add that we're still very small, so this shouldn't be the
> definition for the 2 years term.
>
> Met vriendelijke groet,
>
> Tahir Shazad Malik
> ------------------------------
> From: Martin Cosgrave <martin at ocretail.com>
> Sent: ‎04/‎09/‎2014 08:21
> To: ootb-hive at xtreamlab.net
> Subject: Re: [OOTB-hive] [GOV] Draft by-laws
>
>
> Thanks for the excellent post Jeff
>
> I'm pretty much in total agreement with it. In terms of length of term of
> board members, I'm not sure what I think yet, and I don't think we've
> really had much debate or argument around this point.
>
> I'm in agreement with your point that alfresco employees should not be
> allowed to vote within the organisation. Their role, if they choose to have
> one, should be of (honoured) advisor.
>
> Martin
>
> On 04/09/2014 6:41, Jeff Potts wrote:
>
>    I am going to try to address everyone's questions/feedback in a single
> email...
>
>
> *Voting Eligibility of Alfresco Employees *
>  The mission of this organization is to be the *independent* Alfresco
> community. There is no way that can happen if Alfresco employees are voting
> members. We already have an Alfresco community where decisions get made in
> a commercial context. This new one we are building is free of that context.
> It's a core tenant of the Order.
>
>  I know there are employees who care deeply about the community. But there
> will be times during the life of the organization when decisions have to be
> made that may benefit one side at the expense of the other. I have seen
> those first-hand when I worked for Alfresco. When there is a trade-off to
> be made, it only makes sense that people who depend on the company for
> their paycheck will vote to defend their paycheck. I don't want to put
> those people in that difficult situation and I don't want to second-guess
> anyone's motivation.
>
> I have heard from no employees who say they would be less likely to
> contribute if they were not voting members. I have heard from at least one
> who says they will gladly participate even if they are not voting members.
>
> Personally, as a non-employee, I would be much less likely to participate
> if this organization is not truly independent.
>
>  We cannot use job title as a filter. The conflict exists regardless of
> title. I can think of individuals at Alfresco in all job titles and
> departments who are passionate community supporters and I can think of
> individuals in all job titles and departments who are fair-weather
> supporters, to put it kindly.
>
>  I have seen a proposal that Alfresco employees should be able to vote,
> but not be on the Board. The problem with that is that the Board has no
> real power, by design. It is mostly administrative. So preventing an
> employee from being on the Board does nothing once they are voting members.
>
>  This organization must be able to make decisions without caring at all
> about how those decisions impact the profits of Alfresco Software. It's
> really that simple.
>
>  *Who Can Join*
>
>  Thoughts on who can join the Order:
>  * I do not think we should have a litmus test for people who want to be
> considered members. We need all of the help we can get.
>  * I agree that we do not want to risk losing control of the organization
> to people with bad motives or those who actually don't care that much about
> the mission.
>  * I don't think it is possible to define an objective membership criteria
> that can be applied by a single person that will result in decisions that
> we all agree with.
>  * I don't want to discourage people from publicly showing their support.
>   * We need help but we have very little to give in return. One thing we
> do have that is valuable is the ability to give someone a vote. An
> individual who can vote has the power to influence the destiny of the
> organization. But they should only be granted that power in trade for what
> we value: their time and energy.
>
>  So I propose the following:
>
>  (1) We allow anyone to become a member. If they found out about us
> yesterday and do nothing else but submit the form, they can be added to the
> list of members with no questions asked. They will be non-voting members
> but they will be members. This will help us grow our community and make our
> supporters visible without granting casual participants any power at all.
> This also gives people a "ramp" for participating in the community. It's a
> low barrier to entry (with a corresponding low level of power).
>
>  (2) Everyone starts as a non-voting member. A voting member can propose
> that a non-voting member be changed to a voting member once they've proven
> themselves by working on a committee. The voting member does this by
> sending an email to a list that is private to existing voting members. The
> existing voting members discuss whether or not that person has made enough
> contributions to the Order (not only to the Alfresco community, but to the
> Order, specifically) to be made into voting members and they hold a vote on
> the private list. If this vote passes, they are now voting members. This is
> basically the Apache process.
>
>  Over time we'll grow into a scalability problem with this approach. When
> that happens, we'll delegate membership voting to each committee.
>
>  (3) Right now we should consider the list of voting members to be the
> Board. The Board can vote on each of the members who have already signed up
> which will expand the list of voting members to include those who have been
> working hard on their committees thus far. Then we will continue to have
> membership votes as needed as the committees grow and more people start to
> contribute.
>
>  *The 2/3 Majority Rule*
>
>  If we go with the idea that everyone starts as a non-voting member, and
> people are made voting members only after they make multiple contributions
> to the Order, I think the 2/3 majority rule concern raised by Bindu is
> addressed. Voting members will not be spammers, lurkers or casual
> participants. They will have demonstrated a willingness to work hard for
> the Order. If they leave they can request a leave of absence or "emeritus"
> status (again, similar to Apache) which will keep the list of voting
> members clean and we can use the 2/3 majority rule for a small number of
> extremely important types of votes as specified in the by-laws.
>
>  *Board, Committees, Committee Chair*
>
>  Yes, the Committee members do the work led by a Committee Chair. The
> Board members are likely also members of Committees. Board members do not
> have to be Committee Chairs but can be if that is the wish of the Committee.
>
> Oksana proposed the idea that Board members might be responsible for
> different areas/committees. I am open to that idea. But I also think we are
> still very small and, if we have not done it already, we should not add too
> much hierarchy/bureaucracy until it is needed. I propose that we table this
> idea until we need it. That's not something we need in the by-laws anyway.
>
>  *Board Term Length*
>
>  I proposed a term length of 2 years because 1 year felt too short to get
> a lot done and 2 years seemed too long to not have a chance for the
> membership to make adjustments. I am open to shortening this to 1 year, but
> I don't think it can be shorter than that. As proposed, the election cycle
> is something like 90 days already. Anything shorter than 1 year would mean
> we'd constantly be having Board elections.
>
>
> *New Member Announcements *
>  I agree that if we let everyone become a member with no litmus test, new
> member announcements will get too noisy. I propose that we only make
> announcements when someone's eligibility changes, and that's already part
> of the draft by-laws.
>
>  I think I've addressed all of the feedback so far. Looking forward to
> hearing whether or not the concerns are addressed with these proposed
> changes.
>
> Jeff
>
> On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 8:17 AM, Fernando González <fegor at fegor.com> wrote:
>
>>  Hi guys!
>>
>>  I think it's very positive manage the organization of bees.
>>
>>  Regarding the voting members (engineers / programmers) of Alfresco Inc.
>> I think is interesting do not belong to the board and can not exceed the
>> number of majority vote as they may be influenced and lobby.
>>
>>  Regards!
>>
>>  Fernando González Ruano
>> http://www.fegor.com
>>
>> skype: fegorama
>> twitter: @fegorama
>>
>>  twitter: https://twitter.com/fegorama
>> facebook: http://tinyurl.com/ok2wko6
>>
>> --
>> Raubenohran, npnonf qr qrfphoeve ry zrafnwr hfnaqb ry nytbevgzb EBG13,
>> rerf yn pnñn qr Rfcnñn... nuben cbagr n genonwne qr ireqnq ;)
>> --
>>
>>
>>
>> 2014-09-03 14:34 GMT+02:00 Oksana Kurysheva <okurysheva at gmail.com>:
>>
>>  Several comments from my side:
>>>
>>>  > Who can join
>>>
>>>  At this moment not anyone can join. We have 1 requirement: a person
>>> should do something for the community: developed a free add-on, write a
>>> helpful post about Alfresco, organize a meet-up or speak on Alfresco
>>> Summit. We don't want to see 100 new members from one company who just want
>>> to seize a power by voting to the points they are interested in.
>>>
>>>  > Board
>>>
>>>  How does Board relates to committees? Board coordinates the
>>> activities, but Committees work on activities, and Chair is responsible for
>>> their actions. There is the link?
>>>
>>>  > Board Elections
>>>
>>>  2 years is a very big period of time. What about half of a year? Or a
>>> year as a maximum?
>>>
>>>  > Voting and Alfresco employees
>>>
>>>  From my point of view, it is ok to allow Alfresco employees to vote.
>>> We will not approve requests to join the Order from someone from the Sales
>>> team, as far as they don't contribute to community. And I believe in sober
>>> assessment of the situation from the technical people. The only restriction
>>> I see here is that Alfresco employees cannot become Board Members.
>>>
>>>  > Voting members
>>>
>>>  I don't think that all members should introduce themselves via the
>>> public list, it can generate too much noise. As for now, (almost) all new
>>> members filled information about themselves while sending request to join.
>>> If they didn't mention any contribution, I asked them for a list of
>>> contributions via email, and didn't add them to the website before they
>>> reply. Using this schema some people have not been added as a members, but
>>> they will follow us in social networks until they make some contributions.
>>> Everyone understands and like the idea of "contributions as a requirement
>>> to join".
>>>
>>>
>>>  One more idea about Board Election. Maybe it's crazy and we should not
>>> follow it:
>>> We elect 5 independent members that should communicate a lot with each
>>> other and collaborate in many activities. Together they should cover all
>>> our activities and committees. I afraid of the situation when all members
>>> will be specialists in the same area.
>>> Sample:
>>> If there are 6 candidates:
>>> 4 of them work on add-ons
>>> 1 - for Gov committee and
>>> 1 - for events organization
>>> Many members like add-ons, so 4 members from the Add-ons committee will
>>> be elected easily. And let's imagine that voting members chose 1 candidate
>>> from Gov as fifth Board Member. After that we don't have any control in
>>> coordination on meetups and conferences, because all Board members are not
>>> interested in this topic.
>>> What about electing a full Board (team of 5 people)? Campaigning phase
>>> can be a time then nominates tell not only about their activities and who
>>> are they, but also how can they coordinate with each other and how will
>>> they work as a Board? So we should vote not for 1 person, but for the team
>>> of 5 peop
>>>
>>
> [The entire original message is not included.]
>
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-- 
С уважением,
Оксана Курышева
<okurysheva at gmail.com>
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