Re: [steering-discuss] Suggested blog about MC work and philosophy

Hi André,
On 23/04/2011 21:58, André Schnabel wrote:
> Hi SC/MC members,
>
> I'd like to blog about the start of the Membership process.
>
> Althoug I'd do this in my private blog, I'd like you to verify some of 
> my comments in the lower part of the post. It targets some questions 
> that we received and might be of interest for a broader audience.  
> It's about our philosophy of merit and how we acnowledge contributing 
> members.
>
> (btw. sorry for the rather long text hope you can get through it 
> before falling asleep).
I felt asleep, but it was not because of your text ;)
> regards,
>
> André
>
> **********************************
>
>
> TDF has new members
>
> The opening of the membership process has been announced last Tuesday 
> (http://blog.documentfoundation.org/2011/04/19/the-document-foundation-is-open-for-members/) 
> and we already received lots of applications. Sophie did a great job 
> scanning those and preparing the list for our first Membership 
> Commitee meeting.
Thanks :)
> So - on Friday we processed 59 applications (roughly all we received 
> until Thursday midnight). We are very pleased that we could directly 
> approve 23 applications. For 22 more applications we need to have a 
> closer look. We will ask the contacts named in the applications for 
> verification, scan our systems like git, pootle, wiki, mailing lists 
> for visible contributions and the like. Please bear with us while we 
> are collecting the information for our decision.
>
> Unfortunately we had to decline 14 applications - almost all because 
> no information about current contributions were given. Anyway - these 
> people are welcome to send in a new application with appropriate 
> information.
I would insist on the necessity of the details, this is very important 
because all the process is only base on that. Even if we know the 
people, I think any applicant should do as if we don't know him.
> All applicants will be informed within the next days about the status 
> of their application (we are just preparing some mail templates for 
> this). We will also set up a list of accepted TDF members at our website.
>
> What we learned from some of the comments and mails that came in is 
> that we will have to review our application form. Some phrases are not 
> very clear (like the "contact information") and we should provide a 
> link to our bylaws, so that you can check membership criteria as well 
> as rights and responsibilities of our members.
yes, it's often considered as information about the applicant when it's 
about the person of reference.
> We also received some mails, asking why we need a membership 
> application at all. Let me try to answer to some of those comments.
>
> > Does the mean that unless we are "members" of the "Community" we are 
> not allow to work trade shows, promote, or provide support to users?
>
> This is indeed not the case. Everyone is welcome to contribute to 
> LibreOffice and TDF. And this can be done in various ways. Our bylaws 
> list some ways to contribute, but this list is not totally fixed. The 
> Membership Committee will also value other ways to contribute (we 
> envision that there are many other ways that we even did not think of 
> yet).
>
> So - everyone is welcome to contribute and the official membership is 
> our way to acknowledge these contributions.
>
>
> > Before the fork members of the Community Council were elected by the 
> members of the community. The only requirement to be a member was to 
> have created an account on the OOo web site.
>
> There are two things two consider.
>
> 1st - only one seat at the OOo Community Council was directly elected 
> by the community (defined as above). The majority of seats was elected 
> by project leads who had to be elected or appointed before. So the OOo 
> process is also not open to everyone. Even worse - the OOo process did 
> not give equal rights to contributing members, because of the 
> egalitarian system of project leads. We at TDF clearly stick to the 
> rule, that there is no difference among the accepted members.
>
> 2nd - If we would allow anyone to get voting power with "just a click" 
> this would completely invalidate our philosophy of merit. Why should 
> anybody work hard and give continuous user support and then just see, 
> that his voice will be overruled by people who "just found the right 
> button"?
> This does indeed not mean that we will ignore the voices of our user 
> base. Especially those people who give support and are in close 
> contact to end user are encouraged to represent user concerns.
>
>
> > I also refuse to apply for membership in the community. I do not 
> feel that anyone has the right to judge me when they know nothing 
> about me.
>
> This is indeed very unfortunate and a misunderstanding what we as 
> Membership Committee are heading for. We are trying to get to know you 
> to correctly process your application. The information we ask is to 
> help us with this task. My experience is that everybody who is 
> contributing to a community is known within this community. Our 
> obligation as MC is to seek counsel from the community to find the 
> right decision.
Yes, you are right to emphasize this part of our work, and by the way 
this is also what makes this work interesting for us :-)
> The next meeting of the Membership Committee will be in about a week. 
> We are looking forward to receive your applications :)
thanks Andre, it's a great blog.

Kind regards
Sophie

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