Proposed SPI Bylaws Amendment

[Ean Schuessler]

I agree with Ted. There is no reason to go overboard trying to solve
this problem.

I have just returned from a business trip and should now have some time
to draft a polite resignation request. The main people I am concerned
about are Ian and Nils. Wichert is around pretty much continuously on
IRC and other channels but is obviously just busy with lots of other
stuff. Ian and Nils, however, are more truly MIA. Now that Manoj is back
we can probably actually get a quorum to move things forward.

On Mon, 2002-12-16 at 08:53, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> As I think someone has already pointed out, the number of new board
> members is constrained by the bylaws, and it's not clear that
> increasing the number of board members past 12 will necessarily result
> in an effective board.  In fact, my experience with boards is that 12
> is already a bit on the unwieldy side, and that boards at that size
> generaly need to have an executive committee where the real work
> happens, and the normal board merely acts as a rubber stamp.  
> 
> So the bottom line is that there appears to be a situation where many
> of the board members are neglecting their duties, and have apparently
> been refusing to step down, thus forcing this particular crisis.
> There are a number of solutions, roughly in the order of desireability
> (in my humble opinion, at least):
> 
> (1) Board members could start attending meetings regularly, fulfilling
> the expectations of the membership of a board more active than its
> present level of commitment.  (It may be that there is a disconnect
> between what is expected by the membership and what board members
> expected when they signed on, although at least showing up to
> meetings, or explaining why they can't make meetings, would seem to me
> to a bare minimum of what should be expected.)
> 
> (2) Board members who can not meet these obligations should resign,
> and make way for those who can.
> 
> (3) The membership could start circulating a petition that specific
> board members take up their responsibilities and resign, and post the
> result of such a petition at various public mailing lists, for public
> shame value (i.e., debian-devel for those that are involved in the
> debian project, etc.)
> 
> (4) The bylaws could be modified to allow the membership to recall
> board members for mis-, mal-, or non-feasance, so that new board
> members could be appointed.  
> 
> (5) The bylaws could be modified to automatically make inactive board
> members who miss more than some number of consecutive board meetings.
> Said board members would then no longer count towards a quorum.  
> 
> (6) The bylaws could be modified to change the number of board members.
> 
> (7) The bylaws could be modified to change the quorum requirement.
> 
> So while I did second the proposal to adjust the quorum requirement,
> there a number of other solutions which I believe are superior to that
> proposed solution.  The reason why I seconded it is because at least
> someone cared enough to formally draft a proposal as first steps
> towards solving the current conundrum, and I thought that deserved
> support.  
 
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________
Ean Schuessler                                      ean at brainfood.com
Chief Technology Officer                           214-720-0700 x 315
Brainfood, Inc.                              http://www.brainfood.com