[OpenID] What election?

[Pat Cappelaere]

Eran,

You just made me join the foundation.

And I voted :)

Thanks for the kick in the ass.

Pat Cappelaere.

On Dec 2, 2008, at 7:56 PM, Eran Hammer-Lahav wrote:

> The OpenID Foundation community election (which you might not know is
> happening) is a joke. A 100 or so members are going to choose 7  
> people to
> seat on the board. There are currently 12 people running which means  
> each
> person have a little over 50% chance of winning. Not much for a  
> democracy.
>
> I have been arguing for lower membership fees for about a year now,  
> and
> finally, but embarrassingly secretive, the fees were dropped from  
> $100 to
> $25. It is still not free, but at $25 it is very hard to argue about  
> it.
> Still, the sum of advertising for the current election can be summed  
> up in a
> single email sent to this list. The election of community members is  
> the
> single real benefit members have. This is the first election and so  
> the
> first time there is a reason for people to join.
>
> When were the elections announced? The day nomination started... Was  
> there a
> membership drive associated? No. Were bloggers contacted about this  
> event
> and the election and membership drive advertised (note the amount of  
> bad
> press OpenID is getting this week because of Facebook Connect)? Not  
> that I
> can tell.
>
> I have friends on the current board but that does not stop me from  
> declaring
> it incompetent. I don't need to go after the big failures of how  
> this board
> is unable to get anything done (other than establish itself). I can  
> just
> point to how this election process is being (miss) managed to make  
> my case.
>
> If we can't get 1000 people to join as members, even with a $25 ticket
> price, why do we have a foundation? It is *not* too much to expect  
> 1000
> people to care enough about OpenID to join. Is the foundation there  
> simply
> to make a bunch of large corporation feel more in control over this
> enterprise? (And yes, one of those companies is my employer).
>
> This board had a long meeting at the recent IIW, but ironically,  
> there was
> no membership drive outside the secret meeting room. Is there any more
> relevant group of people to sign up? IIW had more than twice  
> participants
> than OpenID has members. I am sure the foundation could have doubled  
> its
> size right there. Or even ask the IIW organizers to add an option to  
> the
> event registration to also join the OpenID foundation (since people  
> are
> already paying a couple hundred dollars which they are likely to  
> expense).
>
> I am running for a community board seat in the upcoming elections,  
> and this
> is the kind of stuff that drives me nuts and motivated me to run in  
> the
> first place, so consider this me campaigning. I'm not running on a  
> message
> of change. I'm running on a message of a strong kick in the ass.
>
> EHL
>
> Ps. Knowing my gift to piss people off, I am going to do my part in  
> helping
> increase the membership count. If you want to make sure I am not on  
> the
> board, go to http://openid.net/foundation/, spend $25, and vote for  
> someone
> else.
>
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