Well, there's a lot of history there. I was directly involved in bringing Google to the OIDF, and I felt strongly about the importance of OpenID to the web, so at the time I was a natural fit to represent Google on the board. But it was outside my day to day responsibilities at Google -- I did it more as an individual that happened to be filling a corporate seat sponsored by Google.<br>
<br>Eric, on the other hand, was thinking about and working on these types of things full time for his job at Google, and he was making quite an impression on the community in the process, so he not surprisingly was elected to hold a community seat when we held the elections. After a certain point it was clear to everyone that since Eric was doing this as part of his real job at Google, and I wasn't, the most natural thing to do was hand the Google seat to him.<br>
<br>I might even have run for a community seat myself, but I've been focusing my spare-time energy elsewhere of late (like the Open Web Foundation), and didn't want to run for a seat if I didn't think I could contribute enough.<br>
<br>If people feel strongly about this, change the bylaws to say that a community seat can't be filled by an employee of a company already on the board. Though this has risks, too -- it would be a shame to lose good people simply because of the signature on their paycheck. Probably better to simply elect community representatives that we feel are acting in the interest of the community first, and not worry so much about their employer (which as we've seen with several representatives already, is a temporary state anyway).<br>
<br>-DeWitt<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 9:27 AM, Eddy Nigg (StartCom Ltd.) <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:eddy_nigg@startcom.org">eddy_nigg@startcom.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff">
On 06/03/2009 07:22 PM, Carsten Pötter:
<div class="im"><blockquote type="cite">
<pre>On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 11:41 PM, Luke Shepard <a href="mailto:lshepard@facebook.com" target="_blank"><lshepard@facebook.com></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>Also, with the exception of Allen Tom (who has long been a community
advocate since before Yahoo became a provider), none of the community
members are currently also corporate members.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>I guess that's not really addressing the problem Eddy mentioned. Take
Google for example: DeWitt Clinton was representing Google as a
corporate board member while Eric Sachs was elected as a community
member of the board. Recently DeWitt resigned and Eric took his place.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br></div>
So my impression wasn't all that wrong. Thanks for clarifying that!<div class="im"><br>
<br>
<br>
<div>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">Regards </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Signer: </td>
<td>Eddy Nigg, <a href="http://www.startcom.org" target="_blank">StartCom Ltd.</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Jabber: </td>
<td><a>startcom@startcom.org</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Blog: </td>
<td><a href="http://blog.startcom.org" target="_blank">Join the Revolution!</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Phone: </td>
<td>+1.213.341.0390</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"> </td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<br>
</div></div>
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<br></blockquote></div><br>