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

[Oksana Kurysheva]

How difficult is to find a right solution :)

Richard,

I agree with such dividing voting for different questions. Of course
Alfresco employees should not take a part in governing the Order. But their
(your) opinion is very important when we speak about a list of technical
requirements for add-ons or similar questions, because we may vote for the
criteria (requirements) with which we can add our add-ons to the list. And
you know the best practices of Alfresco customization and development and
can vote for the more correct decision.

By the way, it concerns not only Alfresco employees. I think that it's
correct not to give freelancers and employees of Systems Integrators to be
a members of the group to form a list of proven freelancers and Systems
Integrators. Developers of supportable (paid) add-ons should not be a part
of a group of members who select add-ons for our collection and so on.
Maybe we should add this pattern to by-laws in some way.

Jeff,

> Someone who is very active developing add-ons and writing posts is a
valuable Alfresco community member. And if they choose to show their
support for us they are a valuable non-voting member of the Order. But if
they aren't putting time in on a committee they would not become a voting
member. That's not a bad thing, it's just how it works.

Alfresco community contribution and the Order contribution is too close
sometimes. If a person develops an add-on for Alfresco that works on
Honeycomb, then he contributes to the Order. If a person translates
Alfresco to his native language, and we include the translation to the
Honeycomb, can he vote? There can be people who help us without being a
part of any committee. And in the same time there will be people in the
committees who just post several "+1" in committees' discussions. Are they
active members?

Order doesn't work on Honeycomb edition development only. There are a lot
of activities that are not relate to it. We are not an elite club with 5
voting members. On the one hand you say "anyone can join", but on the other
hand you want to say "working on Alfresco localization? You don't put your
time in on a committee, you are not an active members and cannot vote". A
little bit strange, no? Or we can organize special committees for
translators, writers etc. Just to publish active translators and writers as
members, because they don't coordinate with each other to develop a
strategy of translation or road map of blog posts. Or maybe I don't
understand the idea of the committee...

I fully support an idea that Ole and Boriss mentioned yesterday about the
membership. If you are willing to contribute (to Alfresco Community or to
the Order) - you are welcome. "The order is not a replacement for the
Alfresco Community, it’s an addition to coordinate efforts. If you like our
work and want to show your support? Follow us on twitter, buy some
t-shirts, beers etc."




On Fri, Sep 5, 2014 at 1:23 AM, Richard Esplin <richard.esplin at alfresco.com>
wrote:

> I have decided that I do not have a strong opinion about membership
> standards.
> I think both approaches could work fine.
>
> I discussed voting criteria a bit with Jeff, and wanted to share my
> reasoning
> with the list.
>
> Jeff pointed out that the current by-laws only discuss voting for the
> Board,
> and voting within a committee. I think we need to define the concept of a
> general vote.
>
> The Board will be making most decisions without needing a vote. Committees
> will be making most decisions without needing a vote, and when they do
> vote,
> it would likely be in the context of their specific committee. But some
> decisions by the Board or by a Committee should be ratified by a vote of
> the
> general membership. And some disagreements will only be resolvable by a
> vote
> of the general membership. I expect these to be rare, but important. These
> are
> the types of votes where the Order needs to be independent of Alfresco
> corporate.
>
> An example would be how we change the by-laws.
>
> I think it makes sense for Alfresco employees to be excluded from these
> types
> of votes (though they can participate in the discussion).
>
> However, I think it is important that all members of a committee
> participate
> equally in the voting within the committee. In Jeff's draft of the
> by-laws, he
> offers two examples to explain when voting is needed within a committee.
> Your
> second example about eliminating a section of the web site illustrates my
> concern about excluding Alfresco employees who are contributing on a
> committee. If I am on the web committee and trying to help maintain a
> section
> of the site, and there is a discussion about my section, I would feel very
> bad
> to be excluded from the vote that determines the future of that effort.
> Instead
> of potentially facing that scenario, it would be easier to not participate
> in
> the first place.
>
> This problem is the worst on the smaller committees where we already
> struggle
> to find contributors and most need employees to assist.
>
> I don't see how voting specific to a committee would compromise the
> independence of the Order, especially if there was a process for a
> questionable committee decision to be brought to a vote of the general
> membership where Alfresco employees would not have a vote.
>
> I think this is an interesting conversation, and I have enjoyed seeing the
> various opinions about the goals and future of the Order. I'm glad we are
> being patient as we seek consensus.
>
> Richard
>
> --
> Richard Esplin
> Head of Community
> Tel: +1 801 855 0866
> Mobile: +1 801 735 4220
> Skype: esplinr
>
> Alfresco
> Simple + Smart
>
> alfresco.com | twitter.com/alfresco | facebook.com/alfrescosoftware |
> blogs.alfresco.com | linkedin.com/company/alfresco |
> youtube.com/alfresco101
>
> Join us at Alfresco Summit | San Francisco, Sep 23-25 | London, Oct 7-9 |
> http://summit.alfresco.com
>
>
> On Thursday, September 04, 2014 22:24:26 Boriss Mejias wrote:
> > Hi bees,
> >
> > We had a very nice and constructive discussion today in the channel, and
> > Ole made a good summary of it. Here are my two cents about membership and
> > voting:
> >
> > 1. Membership: I like the idea that we are going to accept membership of
> > everyone who is willing to contribute. I don't see the Order of the Bee
> as
> > the Hall of Fame of Community members that has already contributed, but I
> > see it as the best place to make a contribution to the Alfresco
> community.
> > That implies that we need to reward members who contribute more that
> > others. One way is the voting mechanism.
> >
> > 2. Voting: If we allow the voting of Alfresco employees with a limited %
> of
> > participation, we raise another issue. Let's say we limit their
> > participation to 33%, and there are x Alfresco employees being members of
> > the order. Let's say that those x members represent more than 33%. How
> are
> > we going to decide which Alfresco employee can vote, and which one
> cannot?
> > Maybe they will have to organize themselves to decide who uses the
> > available "seats". If they do that, the members holding a seat will be
> the
> > "representatives" of the Alfresco employees in the order, and in a way,
> > representatives of Alfresco Inc. And there it goes our statement of
> > independent organization.
> >
> > Something else, the amount of voting members will vary over time, meaning
> > that we will need to ask the Alfresco employees to select new
> > representatives, or drop some. I think it complicates the overall thing.
> > Hence, we need to decide whether every Alfresco employee can vote or not.
> > In such case, I prefer that they can't vote to avoid problems, and also
> to
> > protect them from the opinion Alfresco Inc can have on them: "Oh, so you
> > voted on something for the order that is actually bad for the company!"
> >
> > Regarding voting within a committee, it's also complicated, because the
> > work on the committees is crucial for the overall result of the order.
> > Also, everyone can participate in the discussions and proposals for
> > solutions. Voting is only we can't get an agreement. I would say that
> > Alfresco employees are free from any responsibility of voting, to
> guarantee
> > the independence of the order, and to prevent them from having issues
> with
> > Alfresco Inc.
> >
> > 3. How do we reward Alfresco employees if they can't vote. We need to
> have
> > a sort of public acknowledgement of contributors, independent of the
> voting
> > system. Being publicly acknowledge will probably work better as a
> motivator
> > than getting voting rights/responsibilities.
> >
> > That's my opinion
> > cheers
> > Boriss
> > aka Bee Mejias
> <snip>
> _______________________________________________
> OOTB-hive mailing list
> OOTB-hive at xtreamlab.net
> http://www.xtreamlab.net/mailman/listinfo/ootb-hive
>



-- 
С уважением,
Оксана Курышева
<okurysheva at gmail.com>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.xtreamlab.net/pipermail/ootb-hive/attachments/20140905/ae892d9a/attachment.html>