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

[Ole Hejlskov]

On 04 Sep 2014, at 09:56, Oksana Kurysheva <okurysheva at gmail.com> wrote:

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

TL;DR:
 - We allow anyone to join IF they intend to actively participate (or haven’t already done so)
 - We’re not a replacement for the Alfresco community, we’re an addition. No need be a huge list of inactive members
 - We implement non-voting members and voting members (you need to be vouched for to become a voting member)
 - Alfresco Inc. employees can vote, but 50% of the total votes cannot be from Alfresco Inc. (I don’t feel strongly about this one)


First of all, thank you, Jeff, for writing up the by-laws.

After a lengthy discussion on IRC I finally managed to make up my mind about the issue Oksana raised:

It’s not that we don’t want members. We love members. BUT we do expect our members to participate in the Order. It’s nice to have supporters, but we can have that on social media, and they are of course free to follow the list. If you’re a supporter who is following the list or a committee and want to participate in the discussions or help out.. Wup wup, you’re a member! 

We’re not saying you have to be a hardcore developer or devote your life to the bees to join.
Blogging about Alfresco? You’re in. 
Helping out on the forums? Oh yeah. 
Hanging out on IRC helping people out? Oh yeah.
Participating in the discussions/committees? Oh yeah.

Each year or so we iterate through the members activities. If you haven’t been active for X amount of time (a year, or whatever) we ping you to ask about your current status. This will avoid the list of members to become outdated and obsolete. People change jobs, get new responsibilities etc. We need to keep the list current. 

I propose that we implement non-voting members and voting members. I think we all agree on this, at least I haven’t spotted anyone against the idea that not everyone should be allowed to vote. Be(e)ing a member does not mean you’re allowed to vote. You need to be vouched for. If you’re a new contributor it will be very easy to request being vouched for, simply talk to some of the people in the order and we’ll vouch for you.

I think we should change the mindset about accepting members from “Anyone can join!” to something like: 

"You can join the Order Of The Bee if you have experience with Alfresco and feel you can be an active participant of the order. We expect activity from all our members in one way or another”
This way, you can still join even if you haven’t contributed yet but really want to get going, but we really want to encourage people to participate.

It’s nice to have a big and cosy community, but the idea of the order is to coordinate the efforts of the community. If you don’t plan on contributing then you’re not a member. If you’re working with Alfresco and just want to hang out with people, well we already have a place for this, and it’s the Alfresco Community (forums, IRC etc), and all the bees are already there. 

The order is not a replacement for the Alfresco Community, it’s an addition to coordinate efforts. OOTB is not the place you go to ask your questions about installing Alfresco. Go to the community, we’ll still help you out. If you like our work and want to show your support? Follow us on twitter, buy some t-shirts, beers etc.

We currently have 55 members and more coming every day. I think it’s OK to expect activity from those members otherwise the order is just a list of people who “might know something about Alfresco”.

As for the whole Alfresco members being allowed to vote, I don’t feel strongly about this. If they are part of a committee then they’re free to vote within them. 
As for “global” votes, I don’t have any issue with Alfresco employees being able to vote, as long as 50% of the total voters are not from Alfresco Inc. 

/Ole