[maemo-community] By-Laws for Hildonfoundation

[From: robert bauer]

On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 7:25 PM, gregor herrmann <
gregor+maemo at comodo.priv.at> wrote:

> On Fri, 24 Aug 2012 19:37:01 -0000, Community Council: Niel Nielsen wrote:
>
> > Therefore the feedback after review is necessary from community
> > members and a final acceptance of the community is needed in order
> > to establish a legal entity to be responsible for carrying out the
> > Maemo.org infrastructure.
>
> Some thoughts:
>
> 1) General
>
> I don't see the necessity for creating a foundation instead of using
> the services of e.g. SPI [0] or the SF Conservancy [1] in the USA or
> FFIS e.V. [2] in Europe. Has this been considered, and if yes, why
> were these options discarded?
>

SF Conservancy was approached.  They were discouraged by the number of
closed source packages in maemo.  SPI requires a referral and we might
approach them if we have one.  To my knowledge, FFIS e.V. has not been
approached.


>
> 2) On the text of the by-laws draft
>
> | The Foundation shall maintain a community with open membership
> | having minimal criteria for membership
>
> Which criteria? Shouldn't they be spelled out in the by-laws?
>

The criteria for community membership should not be in the by-laws.  This
is somewhat like stating what membership fees (which we probably will never
have) should be, which should never be made inflexible by stating them in
the bylaws.  The reason there is mention of the community is to try to show
that we are not trying to change maemo from what it is now.


>
> | No member may be removed from the community except for violating
> | procedures and rules that the community shall subsequently adopt.
>
> s/community/Foundation/ I guess.
> (The "community" doesn't exist legally so removal or admission isn't
> possible.)
>
> Well, all of the bylaws apply once the Foundation is established.  Again,
this is something to show that we are trying to be inclusive as we are now.
I don't object to taking these two sentences out of the bylaws.


> | Within one year, the initial Board shall determine the criteria and
> | method for the selection of subsequent Board of Directors.
>
> I don't think that's a good idea. From my understanding of the nature
> of by-laws, clarifying how officers are (s)elected is one of the
> crucial things to have.
>
>
> Sure.  Do you have a proposal?  This is one of those catch 22 issues
implied by your previous query - how do we select the initial Board for an
organization that doesn't exist yet?  I'll add to that - how do we allow
for having someone from Nokia or Jolla on the Board (if we want to do that)?


> Thanks for your hard work on securing the future of maemo!
>
>
Rob (SD69)
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