[Evergreen-governance-l] Basic rules of governance draft

[Galen Charlton]

Hi Dan,

On Feb 25, 2011, at 4:31 PM, Dan Scott wrote:
> As promised at the last Governance Committee meeting, I've drafted a
> Rules of Governance document that attempts to reflect our current
> reality (we're bootstrapping an Oversight Board for the Evergreen
> software project so that we can join the Software Conservancy as a
> member in a fiscal sponsorship agreement) with some additional structure
> (Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary) and some minimalist rules for how the
> rules of governance can be amended. This draft also asserts that the
> Board is is responsible for the overall policy and direction of the
> Project, and that the Board does not generally implement practices, but
> instead relies on the recognized community leadership within the
> Project to do so. (I've adapted some of this text from the Fedora
> Project board document, as noted in the license statement at the
> bottom).

Thank you for putting this together.  As a minimalistic set of rules that would allow us to enjoy the benefits of membership in the SFC while giving us (and more importantly, members of the Evergreen Project as as whole) time to hash out the broader governance issues, I think your proposal provides a way forward.  However, I do think it it is important to ensure that there is a deadline given for that discussion, as otherwise the board in theory could perpetuate itself indefinitely without settling those issues or being subject to any kind of election by the broader membership of the project, however it gets defined in the end.

Consequently, I propose the following new section:

"2.10 Transition to General Rules of Governance and General Elections

By the end of the 2012 Evergreen International Conference or 30 April 2012, whichever comes sooner, the Board will have promulgated rules of governance for this Board and the Evergreen Project to be presented for approval by the general membership of the Evergreen Project during the conference.  At that same time, the board will designate at least 1/3 of its seats to be filled by general election at the 2012 conference."

Also, as a nitpick, I think the proposed meeting notice period of 36 hours is a bit too short.  I think 72 hours would be better, as it gives adequate notice if there is some emergency that requires a meeting to be called for a Monday.

Regards,

Galen
--
Galen Charlton
VP, Data Services
Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
email:  gmc at esilibrary.com
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