Re: [tdf-discuss] [SC] How to define "Membership" within TDF?

Hi,

> Von: Sebastian Spaeth <Sebastian@SSpaeth.de>

> On Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:39:29 +0200, Gianluca Turconi
> <ml@letturefantastiche.com> wrote:
> > I see: The Document Foundation (members: Charles-H. Schulz, Google, 
> > whoever-you-want) with its steering committee/council;
> >
> > While it seem you and others see: The Document Foundation + Google + 
> > Whoever-you-want that collaborate with each other and have a common 
> > council for the most important decisions.
>
> There is no reason why there could not be a proper foundation that acts
> as custodian for e.g. technical infrastructure, and holds eventual
> trademarks and decides on licensing policies for these etc. and a wider
> council that is composed of all contributors.

Indeed this should be the picture. 
Maybe I am thinking to much in terms of German (foundation) law already,
where:
- the foundation is an legal entity that has no members (but may have 
staff)
- the foundation is bound to it's bylaws
- the foundation is directed by a board (which has to be defined in the 
byaws)

So the board of the foundation is the "ultimate decision making entity".
(Very likely to be the current SC for the first time.)

There will be a wider council of contributors. What we currently discuss
is how this council is established.

At the same time I don't want to have the SC separated from the wider 
council. If we do so, we would again have the situation, that contributing
members have no power on decisions of the foundation's board.

I may be wrong with this - maybe someone can explain a better way.


> Again, compare with the OpenStreetMap foundation
> (http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/OSMF:About) with about 250 members
> (that makes the eligable to elect the steering committee for example),
> yet the recent relicensing campaign is decided by all x-thousand
> contributors.

Again - It was not the intention to have a board of the foundation
that consist of all the >1000 contributors. But I don't see the benefit
of having a set of contributors working for the projects that a foundation
supports and a nother set of people that just can "by a seat" in the 
foundation and then have voting powers. This would result in something
like the "MS bought ISO" story.


> But as I am no lawyer and don't plan to implement governance things, I
> am going to shut up now :).

Well - we just want to make sure that you are happy and does not find
your contributions are misused. So - I just try to understand.


André
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