[Evergreen-governance-l] Proposed New Governance Changes

[Lori Bowen Ayre]

Amy,

You said "........sometimes it's better to have somebody putting out
guidelines for the community - right now we're all making it up as we go
along and sometimes we're getting it wrong - and it repeats itself because
we're all coming at it from different angles and there's no cohesion yet."

As you know, and I will remind folks with this email, the Communication
Committee does see its role as coming up with some guidelines about how to
effectively communicate with the EG Community who may be relying on any
number of communications vehicles: IRC, wiki, Blog, email lists, small email
groups, private emails.

Recognizing that that is an issue and helping to clarify what to post where
depending on who you are trying to reach (for example) is a perfect task for
our small, nimble, just-in-time committee.  We certainly don't need a
Foundation to to control that sort of thing.  And I agree with Galen that it
is important to figure this stuff out somewhat slowly and not make a big
disruption in something that is generally working pretty well.

And back to the core issue at hand....I think it is important to emphasize
the point that the Foundation can be established in its limited role and we
will continue to build appropriate instruments for communicating,
organizing, and building.  Having a limited role for the initial Foundation
won't stop us.  It simply gets one very important piece done.

Someone (or two) pointed out the help we could get from the Conservancy on
issues like "is that software product infringing on our GPL license" seem
critical.  That exactly the kind of thing we need them for and why we also
need a Foundation with an Oversight Board (can we just call it a Board,
Oversight Board makes it sound like someone messed something up).

Someone pointed out that once we have the Foundation, we can accept
donations.  I know my organization (aka me) would donate and perhaps even
donate annually or monthly!

Someone else pointed out that many of these larger issues of dues,
membership fees, and user groups should be taken to the larger community.
 Certainly seems consistent with every bit of feedback I've ever received in
my efforts to contribute to this community!  Talking at the Evergreen Conf
seems like a perfect way to advance some of those other issues while drawing
in more of the community into the discussion.

In other words, I think the limited role of the Foundation is a good
compromise.  It gets us quite far down the Evergreen infrastructure road and
provides immediate benefits.  All of the other work that is underway will
continue to build also.  And that certainly seems like a good thing.

Lori

On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 8:24 AM, Amy Terlaga <terlaga at biblio.org> wrote:

> ....sometimes it's better to have somebody putting out guidelines for the
> community - right now we're all making it up as we go along and sometimes
> we're getting it wrong - and it repeats itself because we're all coming at
> it from different angles and there's no cohesion yet:
>
>
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