[Spi-private] Bruce's Platform

[John Goerzen]

On Thu, Jul 13, 2006 at 08:26:14PM -0700, Bruce Perens wrote:

> I wish you'd step back a bit and cool off. I recognize that I can get 
> people annoyed, thus I'll apologize. I also wish you had taken up this 
> discussion when we could have done something about it, instead of 
> bottling it up to use in slamming the door as you depart. Can't we try 
> this again in a more civil tone?

Bruce, you know as well as I that this is nowhere near the first time
that most of the matters I've raised have been discussed.  And, in fact,
most of the discussion was in private, on the -board list or similar.
Since they were in private, I did not feel comfortable releasing details
here.

You got a far more civil tone than you deserved.

> Without discounting your concern, I should note in my defense that some 
> of those missed meetings were due to things like visiting the U.S. 
> patent office or speaking to the U.N. or the European parliament in 

You know what?  That's not relevant at all.

You made a commitment to SPI and you failed to follow through.  You
didn't even have the decency to tell us that you wouldn't be there most
of the time.

If your other activities take up too much of your time so that you can't
be involved with SPI, then you shouldn't be involved with SPI.  That is
my point.

> Regarding my "few people" statement, one should not be meek about their 
> own accomplishments in a political campaign or a resume. At the same 
> time, I do not mean to belittle anyone's efforts. Indeed, the other 

Well, the purpose of listing accomplishments in a campaign is to help
voters anticipate what a candidate will do in the elected office by
looking at their past, right?

In this case, you've had three years of past with SPI, and you didn't
list any accomplishments with SPI.  That is telling.

> folks who are campaigning seem to be meritorious, and I am going to vote 
> for Josh because he's volunteering to be TREASURER. That's wonderful. 
> I'm not sure, Josh, if you understand the 0% success record of SPI 
> treasurers. You have my admiration for taking it on, and no doubt you'll 

You know, I agree completely that SPI's bookkeeping isn't where it
should be.  But at the same time, SPI has made *tremendous* improvement
in this area in the past couple of years.  Coming from the huge mess
that we had before, I think it is tremendously disrespectful -- and
completely inaccurate -- to say that there has been a 0% success record
on the part of the SPI treasurers.

> But back to the political policy thing. None of the other folks who are 
> campaigning chose to say anything about the big issues that concern us. 

Neither did you, while you were on the board.

> that. Remember when I represented SPI on the W3C patent policy board, 
> back when W3C was about to go to patent royalties on web standards? We 
> got something very important done then. You could be proud to be in the 
> organization. Now that the embarassing money issues are mostly solved, I 
> can do more of that as SPI rather than as Bruce operating alone.

Hmm, how are the issues mostly solved if the treasurers had a 0% success
rate?

> >I have no more need to be overly diplomatic about this.
> >  
> Well, I thought that as secretary, you were in charge of the election. 

I am neither secretary nor in charge of the election.

> >I would also dispute the assertion that most of the real business at
> >SPI is on a mailing list.
> Actually, I wish _all_ of the business was on the mailing list. I would 

Many wish that, but the desire doesn't change the fact.

> lists. We haven't taken on important stuff while the money issues were 
> being worked out.

Some of us would consider that important.

-- John