[part 2] Article 3: Membership

[Dale Scheetz]

Sorry to take so long to reply, but the tooth came out on Friday, and I'm 
"much better now" ;-)

On Thu, 25 Mar 1999, Darren O. Benham wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 25, 1999 at 10:39:25PM -0500, Dale Scheetz wrote:
> > Why should membership have a duration?
> How about to just keep the rolls (or atleast the "all important"
> contributing member rolls) down to people who are active?  If nobody every
> expired, and people just dropped out (it happens a lot) we could end up
> with way too many people to satisfy any quorum...  
> 
Keeping up with "active" members is much easier than deciding whether or
not they have met "qualification requirements" for each year they "claim"
membership.

I simple membership list ping, before meetings, would determine who was
active and who wasn't. If they can be reached, they should still have the
opportunity to vote.

> Just a thought.  I'd have to think if I actually believe it's a real
> problem on an imagined one.
> 
> > Does the value of a contribution deminish over time?
> of course not... but availability does.  If we had a "sure fire" way to
> make sure people didn't just "disappear" like happens from time to time
> with Debian... either way, it'll be some amount of work for someone(s).
> The expiration way is more automatable.

But if they "just disapear", so what? 

I had the impression that the increased management of members was intended
to make sure that all participants were "qualified" in some way, and not
just casual (or malicious) interlopers with a mistaken interest in the
organization.

Once you "qualify" as a member, your active participation is a positive
thing, but I don't see that your, possibly temporary, lack of
participation indicates a "drag" on SPI resourses that must be rectified
by removal of the non-participant member.

Until a member doesn't want their name on the membership rolls, I see no
reason to remove them.

> 
> > Are we considering any other conditions that would "remove" a member?
> Violation of the goals and such of SPI, I suppose.. but that could be
> specified in the Membership Committee Charter...
> 
As with Debian, I see no reason to go beyond gaining assurances at the
beginning that the applicant does, in fact, agree with the principles of
the organization. I have participated in "discussions" with other Debian
developers where my belief in the principles of Free Software became
questioned because of a position I took in opposition to the PC one being
promoted. I would hate to fear expulsion for displaying unpopular ideas in
an SPI member forum.

If we do not allow deviations from the pre-defined course of SPI, then the
ship will only go in one direction, and can never be changed. This would
be a drastic mistake from my POV.

Luck,

Dwarf
--
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aka   Dale Scheetz                   Phone:   1 (850) 656-9769
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      e-mail:  dwarf at polaris.net     Tallahassee, FL  32308

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