Well, it have been more than two weeks already, so I feel entitled to repeat my unanswered question - when should we expect referendum?

Disbanding Council and replacing it by Foundation's Board of Directors is a big change, especially, that proposed bylaws grant Board of Directors much more "elevated permissions", than current Council have.

I'm absolutely sure, that it's as good as changing Council's statute, so it require referendum. I have seen some misty comments from current chair, that "referendum isn't good idea, because it require much time", so please, clarify Council's opinion about it.

/Estel

Unfortunately, we haven't been able to post Bylaws proposal for Community feedback here in TMO and Council blog yet. Due to summer holidays and busy work, SD69 hasn't been able to do a second review of the document with the feedback already received from mailing list.

You can see that this topic has been present in all Council meetings and that if it's not solved soon, we will simply publish the Bylaws proposal in current state to, at least, start talking about it.

Please note that Bylaws is a draft document. It's not closed in any way, so your assumption that next Council will self elevate his permissions is incorrect.

Council has the duty to present this initiative to the Community for further discussion.

Once the document has received enough love and we were sure that it's reflecting what Community really wants for the future, we will need to decide how to progress on approval of the document and next elections.

There are many possibilities here and no decision has been made. For example:
- One single voting for next Council members + Referendum on Bylaws
- Two voting (one for Council and one for Board of Directors) + Referendum on Bylaws
- First do a referendum, then elect a Board of Directors, with no new Council.
etc, etc.

So it depends on input from people, calendar and even technical restrictions.

Thanks for clarification, ivgalvez.

Where we disagree, though, is that, in Your words, it's yet to be decided if separate referendum for closing Council project and moving everything into hildon/maemo foundation and it's Board of Directors is needed.

As per my understanding of current statute, such big changes (and even much smaller ones) are *required* to be decided by referendum.

OTOH, making single vote, where people vote for both approval of change *and* Board of Directors at the same time, is terribly wrong idea. First of all, it looks like "already decided" thing, just to be stamped - it doesn't leave good taste. Second, what with people that would like to vote "no" for changes, but in case of majority deciding to agree, would like to vote for BoD, anyway?

Last but not least, without knowing if bylaws (etc) are accepted by Community, people can't judge Board of Directors candidates properly - after all, how to choose someone, if You don't know responsibilities he will have (yet)? Again, such scenario would look like "fasade voting".
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Disclaimer:
I'm not trying to convince people, that they should reject bylaws and/or upcoming foundation. In fact, I'm probably going to do the opposite. My all concerns are about doing it properly, i.e. via proper referendum.

I understand, that Council (as a whole) haven't made up mind about this yet, but comments expressed by few "individuals" amongst Councilors (about referendum being unnecessary time consuming thing), were worrying.

/Estel

This is not completely correct. Council doesn't have the power to decide, only to propose. Obviously, we'll try to propose something useful, but the proposal will be open to everyone in the community to comment and improve.

As said, current Council can't decide on a big number of questions. We, for example, cannot get control over maemo.org domain, even if Nokia has offered to hand it or make any funding operation to pay for infrastructure. A legal entity will be needed for all that stuff.

That's a question that will be discussed later. I think you are running a bit too fast in this point, let's first discuss how should be the bylaws (please wait for its publishing and proper thread of discussion).

Of course - but, moving things like maemo.org domain, repository and (probably) forum database, other databases (wiki) - basically, Community "belongings" - under wings of legal entity with *any* bylaws, should be accepted by Community, via referendum. Agreed?

As for other points, we totally agree.

/Estel

I go away on vacation for a week...

Especially when that's not at all what's being done.

If you read the meeting minutes, or the logs, you would have seen several statements that we're trying to time things so that the upcoming elections can run in parallel, for two separate entities: Council and the board of the NFP being proposed. Council is not being disbanded, nor is it's role in any way changing. Council will still be the link between the community and the service providers, be that Nokia, or Reggie, or the new NFP.

We would prefer to do the election at the same time for the simplicity of being able to setup the voting machine once. This is a concept you clearly have not been able to grasp, with this constant mantra of having a "referendum" on everything under the sun. I've pointed out the logistical reasons it's difficult to hold elections every other day in a separate post, and won't repeat those here.

Council, as it stands, is not changing, or taking on ownership of anything. You saying so many times on TMO or on IRC does not make it true. The only "elevation" for Council would be to temporarily act as interim Board,if there is a gap between when the entity is legally established and when the election occurs. Right now, it looks like that gap will not exist, given the delay on bylaw updates and reviews from vacations and other summer issues.

To be so sure of something that is not at all reality... That's been the root of just about all the "issues" you've had the past few months.

My position has now been spelled out, hopefully in a way that you can comprehend. I believe that this is the understanding and agreed will of the Council in general. But if any of them feels differently, or there has been a change in thought during my absence that I was unaware of, I trust they will speak up.

What I see now is a need for input on the current bylaws, so that they can be solidified and nailed down before the next election cycle. If we're lucky, we may actually be able to establish the entity by the end of September, allowing the next Council and the newly formed Board a few months time to establish a fund and transition things as needed.

For those "worried" about funds being "misused" and what not: I've already stated, in an open Council meeting, that I personally will donate the fees for filing the needed forms to establish the legal entity. We have someone else volunteering their time to make sure the paperwork is all in order, which of course we will be reviewing before submission. To date, I've seen no one else putting their money where their mouth is. To the contrary, I've seen instead abuse of "status" to get things for free on the "community's behalf" in order to further their own private projects, by the very person suggesting the current Council is in some way untrustworthy.

On a more personal note: I find great humor in Estel's IRC chat during my absense. He feels Council is "taking things over", while at the same time not taking action. Never mind that Council is trying to setup a completely separate legal entity specifically so that it doesn't have those "powers" or responsibilities.

Ironically, the very things he accuses us of trying to do now (take over management of the servers, etc) are things he openly argued he as Chair, and we as Council, needed to do during the first weeks of our term. Anyone dis-believe me? Look at the meeting minutes, or, if you're afraid I'm "manipulating" the minutes, read the raw channel transcripts. See who was pushing during those meetings to get IRC ops, and to "take control" of things, and who was arguing that we as Council don't need nor should we want that level of control.

Both then, and now, none of the four people currently in Council wants to manage servers, be IRC ops, or "control" everything with an iron fist. None of us wants to be in charge of maintaining TMO or the repos or any other such thing. (Well, Ivan may want it for a few minutes to promote packages to Extras, but that's the exception. ) And more importantly, none of us is trying to "take over" anything. If anything, we're trying to setup a framework to prevent that from happening in the future.

Phew... I think I need another vacation.

Bylaws proposal has been published.

Everyone please, take a few minutes to read it carefully and provide your feedback in that thread.

Geez folks take it down a few notches, all the posts I've seen of Estel's have seemed like reasonable qns/concerns, then again I'm not active in the mail-lists or IRC, so maybe I'm not getting a full picture.
Anyway this needs to stop being about egos or personality conflicts, & all about coming to a truly community-driven consensus on the best ways forward, which you all seem to be doing a great job pursuing.
Try to keep the entire process accessible to everyone is my only 2-cents, many users (vast majority) are not heavy mail-list or IRC lurkers, but they still love this community...

When you realize that his questions and concerns have been addressed several times, and that he still persists in spreading FUD about what's going on (see IRC log and above), you'll see the reason for the level of bluntness here. Especially when you realize his intent is personal, and about personal elevation instead of helping the community.

Correcting a misunderstanding is reasonable. Doing so repeatedly, only to have the same instigator continue to repeat non-factual things as if they are fact, is not.

It's in cases like this, where I'm forced to repeat myself to the same person several times, that I tend to become more blunt. I do so in hopes that spelling things out in simpler terms will make the point that much clearer. It's not the prettiest method of doing things, but I've found it to be far more effective than any other alternative (including "gently" repeating myself).

TBH I'm not seeing that in this thread, but as stated I haven't followed discussions on the ML or IRC.
Perhaps his intent is merely to bring the discussions had elsewhere to TMO, I dont know, I can't speak for him.