Re: Outsiders, insiders, transparency, action (was Re: [OSCOM] Re: Michi resigns from OSCOM [Fwd: [Board] OSCOM ordinary meeting of members minutes])

Michael Wechner <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.cms.oscom
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Boris Kraft wrote:

> On 28.02.2006, at 16:01, Seth Gottlieb wrote:
>
>> For me, the perception of outsiders and insiders comes from reading  the
>> bylaws:
>>
>>    To be eligible for membership, a person or entity must be nominated
>>    by a current member of the association. The Board decides on  
>> admission.
>>    Any membership decision made by the Board can be challenged by  
>> any member
>>    of the association, whereupon the next Meeting of Members will then
>>    decide on that person's membership.
>>
>> Plus the fact that Become a Member link on the Get Involved page is  
>> unlinked.
>> The list of members on
>> http://www.oscom.org/get-involved/organization/members.html is  small 
>> implying
>> that it is a small group.
>

I don't think it's unlinked:

http://www.oscom.org/get-involved/organization/

>>
>> It kind of feels like becoming a member of ASF, rather than a  
>> membership
>> organization.  That may in intentional and I don't see anything  
>> wrong with
>> that.  However, it does appear that you need to jump through some  
>> hoops and
>> make the right friends to get into the club.
>>
>> Not complaining, just explaining.
>
>
>
> Well put, Seth, as so often.
>
> Thats (s.o.) exactly the point. I never even knew if I was a member  
> or not (thanks for the link, I now know I am not ).


without sounding cynical, but did you really think you are a member?

This is exactly why bylaws existed from the second conference on (at 
Berkeley):
http://www.oscom.org/get-involved/organization/bylaws.html

to make this transparent (which might explain to you why I was asking
so stubbornly on the Magnolia mailing list where the bylaws are).

But yes I agree, one could make this link more prominent
and explain it certainly much better (as is true for many FOSS CMS 
projects ;-)

>
> OSCOM might have a value proposition to its members - this should be  
> worked out.
>
> Does anyone know of similar constellations in other areas of life? I  
> mean, if it comes down to it, competition in the OS world is at least  
> as hard as in the closed source world. We all need to pay the rent,  
> and with current OS business models that works for very few people.  
> Then there are those that maybe just do it for fun - do those people  
> have anything in common with the former group? Is commercial open  
> source evil in the eyes of theose that preach pure-play?


everyone needs to make a living and I don't think that there are many people
within the FOSS CMS environment which are doing this for pure fun.
So, being commercially interested isn't a problem at all.

>
> There are many questions... OSCOM needs to think about what it wants  
> to by to whome, and why.


write into the Wiki (which doesn't exist at the moment) what you think OSCOM
should stand for.

>
> Any you don't need OSCOM to have cross project collab.


why not?

> Thats already  happening through all OS-infrastructure projects out 
> there anyways.


don't you think the [email protected] helps?

>
>
> Questions on my mind are:
> a) how can I make a living (in the OS world),


just being curious, but why does it need to be the OS world for you?

> raise kids and pay  their school tuition
> b) how can I reduce my workload

>
> If OSCOM can help me answer these, then I am interested


I do have similar issues, but don't believe that OSCOM will solve and
should solve these problems for me.

Seriously, I think you need to answer these questions yourself, but people
within OSCOM might be able to give you some hints.

Michi

> - Boris
>
>
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-- 
Michael Wechner
Wyona      -   Open Source Content Management   -    Apache Lenya
http://www.wyona.com                      http://lenya.apache.org
[email protected]                        [email protected]
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