Foundation Membership Proposal
Eran Hammer-Lahav
* The foundation will ask anyone interested to fill a short self-nomination questionnaire. I think it is important that people will step forward and ask to be part of the initial membership to ensure the right level of commitment. The form will include some basic information such as past community work, membership in related organization, main area of interest / contribution, list the top 2 goals they have for the organization, and names of other community members who they have worked with. It should take less than 10 minutes to fill the form. Submissions will be private.
* The initial group of 8 directors will review the full list and each will mark the names of people they would like to see as members. There will be no ability to vote against anyone, just list the people they support. The votes for each person will then be counted and the top 22 people will be made members, in addition to the 8 directors. This will seed the membership with an initial 30 members.
* The 30 members will then continue to a second round, in which members will vote (for or against) all the remaining applicants. The votes will be confidential (both who the nominee was, how each member voted, and the exact results), and will only result in a list of additional members who passed the vote. The reason for the second round is to remove any appearance or bias of a group of 8 individuals selecting their close friends. The two rounds reduces the ability to control the membership.
* The foundation will hold elections for a new board from among its members.
I would like to see this process completed before the 1 year anniversary of announcing the Open Web Foundation at OSCON 2008 (July 24th 2009). I would like to suggest the following timeline:
* Form an Election Committee: 4/17
* Create self-nomination form and tools: 4/21
* Open window for applications: 4/22 - 5/8
* Directors review applications and submit votes: 5/22
* Initial 30 members announced: 5/27
* Review remaining applicants and submit votes: 6/12
* Announce full membership: 6/19
* Open nomination for the board: 6/23-7/3
* Review nominations and submit votes: 7/17
* Announce new board: 7/22
* New board meets: 7/24
This requires the plan to be presented to the board by 4/8 and approved by 4/10 to have enough time to execute. It gives us a week to discuss it on this list. I believe it is very practical and am going to invest as much time needed to see it execute successfully.
Comments, suggestions, bashing, counter-proposals?
EHL
DeWitt Clinton
(The two rounds of votes is clever and sounds like it would work, but is perhaps overkill? I don't feel strongly about this either way though.)
Thanks for writing this down and taking the lead, Eran.
-DeWitt
Ben Laurie
>
> EHL
>
> >
>
Peter Ferne
On 2 Apr 2009, at 08:17, Eran Hammer-Lahav wrote:
> Comments, suggestions, bashing, counter-proposals?
I like it. Two rounds seems like it would add legitimacy. The
timescales are perhaps optimistic but doable. Thanks for the
initiative.
--
Peter Ferne, +44 (0)7970 942 261, peter...@gmail.com
Jiva Technology, http://jivatechnology.com, http://hth.im
Brendan Quinn
This proposal makes it sound like you're looking for individuals to join the foundation, as opposed to organisations. Is that correct?
Brendan (BBC)
Simon Phipps
On Apr 2, 2009, at 08:17, Eran Hammer-Lahav wrote:
>
> The following is my proposal (to be present to the board for a vote
> by 4/8 if it will receive positive feedback):
>
> * The foundation will ask anyone interested to fill a short self-
> nomination questionnaire. I think it is important that people will
> step forward and ask to be part of the initial membership to ensure
> the right level of commitment. The form will include some basic
> information such as past community work, membership in related
> organization, main area of interest / contribution, list the top 2
> goals they have for the organization, and names of other community
> members who they have worked with. It should take less than 10
> minutes to fill the form. Submissions will be private.
>
> * The initial group of 8 directors will review the full list and
> each will mark the names of people they would like to see as
> members. There will be no ability to vote against anyone, just list
> the people they support. The votes for each person will then be
> counted and the top 22 people will be made members, in addition to
> the 8 directors. This will seed the membership with an initial 30
> members.
Is this a public or private ballot?
> * The 30 members will then continue to a second round, in which
> members will vote (for or against) all the remaining applicants. The
> votes will be confidential (both who the nominee was, how each
> member voted, and the exact results), and will only result in a list
> of additional members who passed the vote. The reason for the second
> round is to remove any appearance or bias of a group of 8
> individuals selecting their close friends. The two rounds reduces
> the ability to control the membership.
Will this be a public or private ballot?
> * The foundation will hold elections for a new board from among its
> members.
Will these be by secret ballot?
S.
Eran Hammer-Lahav
Yes. You can state who you are affiliated with. Who you speak for only becomes an issue for legal matters.
We will have a role for organizations later on.
EHL
Krishna Sankar
membership in an "open" forum ? Why can't we accept all who want to
participate ? Remember, the process (we are establishing now) has to be
published and so we need to make sure that we can answer all potential
questions.
Second, as we all know we need diversity and self selection (even by a large
group) might not be the right forum. Even though the two rounds make it more
refined.
Third, what happens after the second round ? Will the membership be frozen
or will there be another process for additional membership ?
Fourth, what are we asking from the members in terms of commitments and
activities ?
Fifth, I assume the membership is free, in which case how would the
foundation fund itself ?
Cheers
<k/>
Eran Hammer-Lahav
Board votes will work similar to how Apache elects its board. There is an old thread on this list with some ideas. I will dig it out and post some suggestions. We have a bit more time for that one.
The general idea is to allow people to vote without having to worry about the position of their employer.
EHL
> -----Original Message-----
> From: open-web...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-web-
> dis...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Simon Phipps
> Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 6:10 AM
> To: open-web...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: Foundation Membership Proposal
>
>
>
Simon Phipps
On Apr 2, 2009, at 15:24, Eran Hammer-Lahav wrote:
>
> Membership votes are all private ballot. Only voting members
> (directors) get to see the list of nominees. Only the election
> committee gets to see the actual votes casted, but all votes are
> anonymous. The only published results are those who got elected in
> each cycle.
OK, thanks. I think that is good - I just wanted it to be clear since
you specified the privacy of nominations but not of voting in committee.
> Board votes will work similar to how Apache elects its board. There
> is an old thread on this list with some ideas. I will dig it out and
> post some suggestions. We have a bit more time for that one.
>
> The general idea is to allow people to vote without having to worry
> about the position of their employer.
While that is good, it cuts both ways. The influence of large patent-
holding corporations can also go untracked in that context. I think
secret ballot is generally best but it's no panacea. Even the most
charming and co-operative people can turn out to be acting in their
employer's interest :-)
S.
Steve Repetti
seats on the board), our governance model provided for an open
nomination period (nominees must be members of the plenary), an
opportunity for the "candidates" to explain why they should be
elected, and then an election by the plenary.
Our goal was to maintain openness and transparency so everything was
public. What we learned from that experience was (a) the nomination
process worked fine, (b) the "explain" part could have been better (I
really like the Q&A component under discussion in this thread), (c)
and the "publicly viewable" voting did not work well.
As a result of our expereinces, we have undertaken a task force effort
to fine tune this process for our next elections that will likely
include public nomination and candidate discussion, however use a
verified private voting mechanism much like the recent one used by
OpenID in their board elections.
Hope this helps,
Steve Repetti
www.radwebtech.com
www.dataportability.org
www.twitter.com/steverepetti
>
> - Show quoted text -
Eran Hammer-Lahav
> -----Original Message-----
> dis...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Krishna Sankar
> Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 7:21 AM
>
> Can I ask a simple question ? Why ballots and cascading voting schemes
> for
> membership in an "open" forum ? Why can't we accept all who want to
> participate ? Remember, the process (we are establishing now) has to be
> published and so we need to make sure that we can answer all potential
> questions.
We have always made it public that we are basing this organization on Apache. Membership is based on merit and active contribution.
> Second, as we all know we need diversity and self selection (even by a
> large
> group) might not be the right forum. Even though the two rounds make it
> more
> refined.
Diversity is important and hopefully will be achieved. But personally I am against applying "affirmative action" when very small numbers are involved. I would vote based on merit. But that's just me.
> Third, what happens after the second round ? Will the membership be
> frozen
> or will there be another process for additional membership ?
I would expect the same or similar process to repeat (just the second round) once or twice a year, but it is up to the new membership to decide. Take a look at how Apache does it for clues.
> Fourth, what are we asking from the members in terms of commitments and
> activities ?
At this point, it is mostly based on the members to shape the foundation and their role. I will post some ideas on that, but hope others will do as well.
> Fifth, I assume the membership is free, in which case how would the
> foundation fund itself ?
Yes, Free. We will figure that out when we actually need money. So far we didn't.
EHL
Eran Hammer-Lahav
Krishna Sankar
As a note, by "diversity" I *didn't* mean "affirmative action" (interesting
that you saw it that way !) but in the sense used in "Wisdom of Crowds". The
foundation needs to make sure it gets different viewpoints and not a
self-selected self-fulfilling group. The use of "merit" a few times bothers
me - lest the group become elitist (and leave people like me behind ;o)) -
otoh, it might just be my perception. I am not complaining, just a POV.
Cheers
<k/>
-----Original Message-----
From: open-web...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:open-web...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Eran Hammer-Lahav
DeWitt Clinton
Art Botterell
beholders, so relying on a limited community of beholders leads pretty
inevitably to a limited appreciation of merit.
Which isn't necessarily be a bad thing, if the goal is to promote a
particular perspective or value system... closely-held corporations
frequently use that sort of internal election process. But it might
not appear altogether consistent with use of the term "open."
Depends on whether other folks' perceptions are a concern, I guess.
- Art
Art Botterell
> Merit is almost entirely a measure of contribution.
Which regrettably is somewhat circular, since one person's
contribution is often another person's nonsense, depending on the
interpreter's sense of what has merit. Again, it begs the questions
of by what standard, and by whom, "contribution" would be measured.
DeWitt Clinton
And would be a good showing of contribution. : )
-DeWitt
Art Botterell
"member." As the work progresses the community will self-select.
Defer betting sidetracked on organizational formalities until the last
possible moment.
- Art
Eran Hammer-Lahav
Two years ago no one knew who I was. I spent 9 years working in banking and was not at all part of any web community. When I wanted to be part of OAuth, I started by simply participating in the mailing list, editing specifications, organizing community activities, and writing/blogging. The merit of my participation was judged purely based on my contributions, not my employer, friends, influence, or any other criteria. It was the only thing anyone really knew about me. I was also based on NJ at the time, not the Bay Area.
The quality and significance of a contribution is based on how it help move the community closer to achieving its goals. Yes, "merit" is subjective, but it has been my experience that people that help make progress are almost always obvious to spot.
EHL
> -----Original Message-----
> From: open-web...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-web-
> dis...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Art Botterell
> Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 9:02 AM
> To: open-web...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: Foundation Membership Proposal
>
>
Eran Hammer-Lahav
EHL
> -----Original Message-----
> From: open-web...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-web-
> dis...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Art Botterell
> Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 9:15 AM
> To: open-web...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: Foundation Membership Proposal
>
>
Dan Brickley
> Yes. Get on with the work and don't waste time worrying about who's a
> "member." As the work progresses the community will self-select.
> Defer betting sidetracked on organizational formalities until the last
> possible moment.
>
A good reason for having an individual membership / contributor system
is fear that openly created standards and standards-like systems will be
shot down due to intellectual property concerns. Having everyone state
up front who they are and what they agree to, rather than chasing it
years later, is very sane.
Dan
DeWitt Clinton
We want a membership so we have a electorate to replace the current self-selected temporary board. We want an elected board so that the ratification of the forthcoming specification license has some objective meaning.
As far as bootstrapping processes go, I'd say this one is working out reasonably well. Or at least, we haven't heard too many ways to improve on it.
But as always, other actionable proposals are solicited, appreciated, and frequently, acted upon.
-DeWitt
David Recordon
We always planned to seed the initial membership with a group of under
50 people and as Eran said, we seem to be getting very close to a
point where we actually have a deliverable to vote on which we should
do in a meritocratic fashion.
For those who haven't been following as closely, the three current
deliverables (in order) are 1) a license that can be applied to a
finalized specification by all of its authors 2) a "contributor
license agreement" style document which can be used in the creation of
a specification to have authors agree to apply the license from #1
when the work is complete and 3) an incubation process similar to that
of the Apache Software Foundation but rather focused on creating
specifications over source code.
Eran, as for what you said in your blog post, "there are other areas
where we could expand such as evangelism, education, resources, and
building a home for people to discuss these topics" I agree in
principal but want to see us remain focused and follow through on our
current work taking on more.
--David
Art Botterell
significant number of folks adopt it. A few folks chanting "so say we
all" is a club, not a standard.
As for the work that's been progressing... where's that been going on,
and what's the product so far? I haven't seen much sign of it here,
and this list has been my only visibility into the effort.
Which goes to the "West Coast" issue. There's this Internet thing
that might be helpful on that. It's been used before.
And regarding intellectual property, seems like that might be less of
an issue in the development of a license, which is sort of meta-IP,
than in the case of actual standards development. SDOs like OASIS
have done fairly well with a sort of click-wrap arrangement, where
public inputs are channeled through a subscription email list with
Terms of Service that release or require disclosure of any IP claim.
The real danger comes from after-the-fact claims by non-participants
on material the participants didn't own and didn't know were out
there. The best defense against that seems to be aggressively
transparent and visible during the development process so no one can
claim they were unaware of the effort.
- Art
David Recordon
Art Botterell
> Agreed with DeWitt.
>
> We always planned to seed the initial membership with a group of under
OK, thanks and best of luck!
- Art
Dan Peterson
The following is my proposal (to be present to the board for a vote by 4/8 if it will receive positive feedback):
* The foundation will ask anyone interested to fill a short self-nomination questionnaire. I think it is important that people will step forward and ask to be part of the initial membership to ensure the right level of commitment. The form will include some basic information such as past community work, membership in related organization, main area of interest / contribution, list the top 2 goals they have for the organization, and names of other community members who they have worked with. It should take less than 10 minutes to fill the form. Submissions will be private.
* The initial group of 8 directors will review the full list and each will mark the names of people they would like to see as members. There will be no ability to vote against anyone, just list the people they support. The votes for each person will then be counted and the top 22 people will be made members, in addition to the 8 directors. This will seed the membership with an initial 30 members.
* The 30 members will then continue to a second round, in which members will vote (for or against) all the remaining applicants. The votes will be confidential (both who the nominee was, how each member voted, and the exact results), and will only result in a list of additional members who passed the vote. The reason for the second round is to remove any appearance or bias of a group of 8 individuals selecting their close friends. The two rounds reduces the ability to control the membership.
* The foundation will hold elections for a new board from among its members.
Eran Hammer-Lahav
> Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 9:49 AM
> Eran, as for what you said in your blog post, "there are other areas
> where we could expand such as evangelism, education, resources, and
> building a home for people to discuss these topics" I agree in
> principal but want to see us remain focused and follow through on our
> current work taking on more.
I completely agree, but with the caveat that it will be what "we" focus on (we being the people currently spending their time and energy). I think there are other people who don't have much to contribute to the legal framework or even to the development of standards but can (and have been) help move the vision of the Open Web as a platform forward.
As one concrete example, I would like to find ways to engage many of the people working on HTML5 and related technologies in this organization. Not for the standards stuff (which is being handled by W3C, IETF, and others), but for the evangelism side (as well as coordination on other efforts). At some point, open specs needs to be implemented and to get there, we need a support system.
In other words, we need to clone more Recordons and Messinas to scale this work. I believe this is in line with the vision of this organization and can be invested in without losing focus.
EHL
Eran Hammer-Lahav
8 isn’t likely to remain the number.
I would like to see a bigger board, like 9-15. I think the decision on the board size should be based on the interest of people to serve on it…
I expect this to be the first change to the bylaws made by the new membership…
EHL
From:
open-web...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-web...@googlegroups.com] On
Behalf Of Dan Peterson
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 10:25 AM
To: open-web...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Foundation Membership Proposal
This sounds like a very well thought out process proposal for growing OWF membership. I especially like that the membership will elect the entire new board.