[IAEP] [SLOBS] [Fwd: Follow-Up on: " looking for two groups of volunteers"]

[David Farning]

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 9:34 AM, Sebastian Dziallas<sebastian at when.com> wrote:
> (fwd'ing to SLOBs, keeping IAEP in CC)
>
> Walter Bender wrote:
>> We decided on two actions in today's Sugar Oversight Board meeting
>> (See the transcript at
>> http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/sugar-meeting.log.20090710_0905.html):
>>
>> (1) form a committee to oversee the board election in August;
>> (2) form a committee to review and make recommendations regarding our
>> trademark policy.
>>
>> Please contact me if you have interest in participating in either committee.
>>
>> thanks.
>>
>> -walter
>
> Walter has posted this several weeks ago about founding such a
> committee, for which I volunteered. So here's the thing. Has SLOBs given
> this committee the power to make a decision? If it has, I'd like to get
> confirmation that SLOBs is going to back up the decisions made by this
> committee.

Hey Sebastian,

This is normally the type of thing I work on.  But, it would be very
good good for the project if someone else stood up and did this.
Primarily because it eliminates me as a bottle neck for project
consensus building.

The basic process:
SLOBs has very little decision making power over technical or
community aspects of the project.  They act as the group responsible
for financial matters and appoint the Executive Director.  The
Executive Director has the 'power' to make final decisions in cases of
disputes within the project and represents the project to outside
organizations.

It would be up to the committee or individuals involved to make a plan
and then build consensus for that plan.  In working through something
like this I would start thinking about the end goal and then working
backwards.

1. Set a date for the election.  The actually date is pretty
arbitrary, but expect some bike shedding.
2. Set a election method. This is a solved problem.  Many other
project have annual votes for decision making bodies.  It is just a
matter of leverage their experience and processes.  Again expect a bit
of bike shedding.  But, in reality if Sugar Labs has a strong culture
of mutual respect (which it does) the key will be to be technically
fair.  The rest will work out.
3. Set date membership date.  The actually date is pretty arbitrary,
but expect some bike shedding.
4. Set a membership policy for eligible voters.

To implement the plan, I would present the entire plan for consensus
on iaep and wait a week or so to let it ferment.  If it looked like we
achieved consensus, I would announce on iaep that we achieve consensus
and start presenting plans, working backwards for 4-1, for each step.

The interesting thing about administrative stuff like this that at the
time it can seem urgent.  But, once a working process is established
it sinks into the background never to be thought of again.

I will help anyone interested in work on this, but I would rather not
do it myself.

david