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#61
A few random points:

- Maemo should be capitalised everywhere except maemo.org.
- "as defined by the Open Software Foundation": the OSF is something else entirely, I think this means the FSF or OSI?
- "to continue the community website of www.maemo.org": seems too constrained, perhaps rephrase as "community infrastructure of maemo.org"?
- Part X: what happens in a perpetual not-enough-nominees situation?
 

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#62
Originally Posted by woody14619 View Post
As promised, the latest version of the bylaws for review. I've included a PDF and OpenDoc version of the latest version (V5), and a PDF that shows the deltas from V4 to V5 for those that have been following along.

Please comment on these! We need to have this nailed down soon, specifically by October 12th (end of Board elections). Again, these are gziped because of the crazy-small restrictions of document sizes.
and where is the constitution, please?

just kidding
but i mean, if you are going to give us the whole history, why not going to the roots, huh?

good work!
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#63
Another thing (I can't believe I almost missed it):

Foundation Council elections shall be for five (5) members, unless fewer than six (6) members are
nominated for a Foundation Council election, in which case only three (3) members shall be chosen
in that election. Board of Director elections shall be for seven (7) members, unless less than nine (9)
members are nominated for the Board of Directors, in which case only five (5) members shall be in
that election. If there are fewer than six (6) members are nominated for the Board of Directors, only
three (3) members shall be chosen in that election. If at any time fewer than three (3) nominations
are received during the nomination period for either the Foundation Council or the Board of
Directors, the nomination period shall be extended to twenty one (21) days, and a second
announcement of election shall be made, noting the extension of the nomination period.
Can we make the 3-member cases require at least 4 candidates, so that we can't have unelected boards or councils again?
 

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#64
In light of recent events, there's this little bit which I didn't pay attention to before but could become significant now:

Any vacancy may be filled by a successor chosen by a majority of the remaining Directors, who shall hold office for the unexpired term in respect of which such vacancy occurred.
Could you elaborate on the intent behind this? At first sight it looks like a loophole for inserting unelected directors via the back door, but perhaps I'm misreading it.
 

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#65
Small fix of omitted word added in bold below:
Foundation Council elections shall be for five (5) members, unless fewer than six (6) members are
nominated for a Foundation Council election, in which case only three (3) members shall be chosen
in that election. Board of Director elections shall be for seven (7) members, unless less than nine (9)
members are nominated for the Board of Directors, in which case only five (5) members shall be chosen in
that election. If there are fewer than six (6) members...
[Edit: in case it's not clear, because the words "only five members shall be in that election" is, strictly speaking, a completely different and undesired meaning, even if it is obvious what was intended. Plus, the word 'chosen' is used in the same spot in all other such statements in the same section, leading me to the conclusion that it's most likely a word-omitted typo]
 

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#66
Also, given the recent commotion regarding joerg_rw withdrawing, I think it would benefit everyone if we inserted specific language into the bylaws that stated what happens if a candidate stops being in the running after the nominations close (whether intentionally withdrawing, or due to some disqualifying factor arising, or some unforseen circumstance such as death).
 

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#67
It's not too clear who is supposed to announce the elections for the Board:
Elections for the Foundation Council must be announced by that body no less than five (5) months from the start of the current term. Elections for the Board of Directors must be announced no less than eleven (11) months from the start of the current term. If either entity fails to announce and/or start the election cycle within the proper time frame, ...
The above quote makes it clear that the elections for the council must be announced by 'that body' (logically this means the council itself). But it doesn't say who has to announce the elections for the Board. The last line quoted DOES suggest that this is intended be the board, by saying "if either entity fails to announce...". If that's the case, and Council/Board start their elections respectively, then the phrase 'that body' should be inserted into the sentence, to make it absolutely clear, I think?

However, personally, from a balance-of-power perspective, I think that initiating the board re-elections might be better as a Council duty as well. It would be nice if the shorter-term, thus-more-responsive-to-community-desires council, had the capacity to initiate Board reelections (while the bylaws force the board to be re-elected every year anyway, if the community wants a re-election to happen sooner, they're more likely to get the Council to trigger an early election for the Board, then get the Board itself to do the same thing - assuming of course the same people aren't largely in both bodies).

If I'm reading the next section correctly, though, it seems a council can still take the board 'out with them' at the end of their term, by NOT announcing/starting their own re-election, though, and perhaps this is intentional, with the same intent as my suggestion above?

I'm referring to this:
If either entity fails to announce and/or start the election cycle within the proper time frame, or upon unanimous agreement by all Directors of the Foundation Council or the Board of Directors, an election cycle may be forcibly started and announced for both entities in unison.
Does this mean that if a council fails to start its own election on time, a re-election of the board is forced as well? Which shouldn't matter for council as much because the council serves half-year terms, but it does matter for the board, if the 'mid-(board-)term' council election doesn't get announced, until this condition of the bylaws is triggered - because then an outgoing council could merely choose to not announce its own re-election, and thus force a board re-election only halfway into the current board's term.

As an aside, ideally, I would like to see some sort of capacity for the members, and not the council/board, to initiate a recall of individual members of the board and/or council (and that this capacity be worded in such a way, that if a person is both a councilmember and a directory, they can be recalled easily from either just one or both positions). Yes, you could argue that the board/council can expel their own members if needed, but this assumes that for any given election cycle, there isn't a possibility of people being, for whatever reason, unwilling to follow the desires of the community in asking the members to stand down. I would, however, institute the requirement for such a recall in a way that's requires a relatively strong majority - for example, requiring that either the amount of votes in favor of a recall need to be 50% of ALL members of the foundation (rather than just the ones that voted) - this might need some tweaking to account for cases of a large subset of the membership that is inactive, in practice.

Finally:
The bylaws may be amended in any way via this process, except that the requirement that software must be freely available under an open source license as defined by ...
The 'prepare for the worst eventualities just in case' part of me really bristles at this. I would be weary of making it possible, even if it's extremely unlikely, for the bylaws to get amended in such a way that over time, the community looses its ability to keep the board and council accountable to them - especially since as written, the only real way for the community to keep a board or council member accountable, is to not vote for them if they run for reelection later. [Edit: correction, IF the bylaws are breached by a Board director, my understanding is they can be sued by the members - correct me if I'm wrong, as always. I'm not sure if this applies to the council, though. But either way, this doesn't address the issue I'm voicing concern about]

Last edited by Mentalist Traceur; 2012-10-06 at 17:58.
 

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#68
Originally Posted by lma View Post
In light of recent events, there's this little bit which I didn't pay attention to before but could become significant now:



Could you elaborate on the intent behind this? At first sight it looks like a loophole for inserting unelected directors via the back door, but perhaps I'm misreading it.
Maybe it would be better to specify that the next candidate with more number of votes might be able to access to Board if a majority of Board agrees.
 

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#69
Next candidate(s) with highest number of votes.
Then agreed, at least from my side

Or to make it more complicated, council needs to agree too (if there is no election memeber left) to choose any Maemo member?
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#70
Wait. Have we ever decided what will happen in just a scant couple of months in regards to hosting, the repositories or is that still in discussion?

This upcoming board will have to communicate that in a way that the layman will understand. It's a huge task and the people that are handling/discussing that need to be more forward facing.
 
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