[OpenID board] Further discussion ...

Martin Atkins mart at degeneration.co.uk
Sat Apr 7 10:36:10 UTC 2007


Dick Hardt wrote:
> While I was not a party to the telephone call with David and I  
> respect and will stand behind Bill and Scott's decision to change  
> plans, I am concerned about the organization operating according to  
> standard organizational process.
> 
[snip]
> 
> 2) The board made a decision (April 5) on how to move forward with  
> the proposal. All board members were aware of the proposal. The  
> agenda for the meeting clearly stated the board was going to deal  
> with the issue. No alternative proposal had been provided, although  
> two weeks had elapsed. No request had been made to extend the time to  
> create an alternative proposal. The board looked at all available  
> information and made a decision. This decision is now being changed.  
> I'm assuming there was some extraordinary new information that led  
> Scott and Bill to change the decision after talking to David.
> 

My understanding was that we decided we were going to post something 
along the lines of Dick's proposal to the general list to see how people 
reacted to it. There was no decision to actually use that stuff yet, but 
merely to gauge community reaction to it, and use any objections or 
ideas as a basis for further discussion. Though we didn't actually vote 
on it on the call, I got the impression that those present were agreed 
that this was the correct course of action as long as those not present 
were given a heads-up and a short period of time to make any refinements 
to what we're going to post to "file off the sharp edges".

I strongly suggest that we move forward with this, as getting community 
feedback will be a useful aid in breaking the almost-deadlock we've 
found ourselves in where we've found ourselves unable to make progress 
with board discussions alone.

As long as it's clear that what we're posting is a *potential* set of 
rules and that they are up for discussion and debate, I don't see any 
reason not to go ahead with this. I'm strongly for following the same 
process as is followed for specifications for OpenID foundation 
proposals: throw a first effort out there and let people tear it down, 
then refine iteratively.




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