[IAEP] membership definitions

[Greg Dekoenigsberg]

On Mon, 8 Sep 2008, Polychronis Ypodimatopoulos wrote:

> Greg Dekoenigsberg wrote:
>> Yes... but why build a complicated membership management structure to do 
>> that?
>> 
>> There's a reason I'm asking.  Keeping track of who is and isn't a "member" 
>> can turn out to be surprisingly acrimonious and political, and will take 
>> more overhead to properly manage.
>> 
>> IMHO, there's little reason not to extend some privileges to basically 
>> whomever asks.  Email address?  Sure.  Logo usage, within clearly 
>> circumscribed guidelines?  Sure! 
>
> Your suggestion resonates well with me. What is the model that existing 
> organization follow, such as Fedora, Debian, etc.?
>
>> Voting for the board?  Sure!
>
> I'm not really sure about this. Maybe you need to be involved in the project 
> for some time until you get a vote. Say, you can have a voting right <some 
> arbitrary number of months> after your application -during which time you 
> will have all the above that you mentioned-.

In the latest Fedora board election, we had about 10% of our entire 
membership vote.  It's really easy to get lost in the vagaries of voting, 
but in my experience, most people just aren't going to be that interested.

I mean, what's the fear?  That a bunch of M$ employees will storm the 
membership system, take control of numbers, and vote in a bunch of free 
software hating stooges?  Having a SABDFL can help mitigate this.  Give 
Walter a Big Hammer, with the understanding that he will only use it 
during the most extreme circumstances.

--g