[OpenID] Board membership limited?

[tom calthrop]

Hi Peter,

You can ask the board for the articles of incorporation and the bylaws. 
They are obliged by law to present them to you. These documents require 
that the process of board election are documented and adhered to. They 
will additionally state decision making processes and requirements for 
membership.

The foundation cannot represent the community, but only it's membership 
- "the community" has no legal identifier (unlike a member whom has 
stated rights under the bylaws). At Barnraiser we reduce this barrier by 
stating that anyone that connects to our web site using OpenID is 
automatically a non voting member. Under our bylaws a member can raise a 
question / issue in a preset way as defined by those bylaws. We 
supplement this by limiting the decision powers of the board except 
through consensus building within the membership (hence in reality "our 
community") hence not only "information flow", but open and inclusive 
decision making processes can be achieved.

The foundation can claim to represent the community, but in fact cannot 
unless each member of the community has a say in a decision making 
process other than by influencing the membership/board.

The board are legally obligued to work towards the mission of the 
foundation which is "to protect OpenID so that it may be used by any and 
all that want to". Given this they work for the the membership under the 
mission to, for instance, protect OpenID against IPR issues that may 
affect OpenID negatively.

The legal framework for organisations/foundation has been with us for 
many years. I am absolutely sure that each member of the board 
understands their obligations and to my mind they are more than 
fulfilling them.


Tom




Peter Williams wrote:
> Foundation membership is not the same as Board seat.
>  
> Some folk (folks who presumably paying members) decided on the current Board power structure, with some kind of ratification process. We already see a clearly architected division : corporate vs community. If you believe the tone, the corporate side is motivated by mutual covenants to address patent paranoia. We will see. 
>  
> It will be fun to see (a) how much of the architecture and policy work is disclosed (i.e. who decided all that Board structure, the NDA rules, and REALLY why?) (b) which of the corporate function and conversations are disclosed to members, such as the details of the individual corporate "contributions" (c) what if any of this is disclosed to the wider openid community contributing IP (or not) who are not paidup Foundation members.
>  
> Probably fair to say that the right to know what going on requires at least paying the Foundation member dues, to at least peon grade. Knowing such Foundations and their political processes, I would not expect too much information flow to the peon rank.But, every formal organization needs cash flow!
>  
> Governance is always a pain, in grassroots-based initiatives. But, at least folks are trying ...and thus _learning_ to govern what will hopefully continue to be rancorous trade association.
>  
> OpenID cannot do any worse that the SSL community's CA/PKI governance (sheer, unadulerated, corporate bias) - the yardstick stick Im going to use when measuring the OpenID Foundations progress cover the next year. Necessarily, I will do this as a NON Foundation member. I will however see if I can pursuade the National Association of Realtors (NAR) to maintain a paid-up liason-promoting membership, tho - on behalf of all the many folks who make up the realty universe. 
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: general-bounces at openid.net on behalf of Eddy Nigg (StartCom Ltd.)
> Sent: Fri 2/8/2008 8:08 PMg
> To: Dick Hardt
> Cc: general at openid.net
> Subject: Re: [OpenID] Board membership limited?
>
>
> Hi Dick,
>
> Dick Hardt wrote: 
>
> 	Hi Eddy 
>
> 	Both statements are accurate.
>
> 	Anyone is welcome to run for the community board seats when they come up for re-election. 
>
> 	The community board members want to ensure that the Foundation represents the community, so would like to limit the Corporate board membership, or at least ensure that community board seats balance the corporate board seats -- so adding additional corporate board members is not out of the question, it would require careful consideration by the board.
>
> Is there some documentation on this or is it just an unspoken rule? What about balancing the corporate members a little bit with smaller organizations and individuals? I'd view this to be at least an interesting thought, to balance the steering role even further and guaranty a wider representation. Also most community board members are affiliated with various interested parties too, so this perhaps this isn't the most balanced setup anyway? Just some food for thoughts from me...
>
>
>
> 	-- Dick
>
> 	On 8-Feb-08, at 6:07 PM, Eddy Nigg (StartCom Ltd.) wrote:
>
>
> 		Reading yet another nice article at http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3726771/OpenID+Gets+Star+Power.htm I picked up the following:
> 		
> 		"Washburn said that although the foundation will continue recruiting companies of all sizes to support the OpenID standard, it is not likely to add any more board members."
> 		
> 		Why is that? Just a week ago I was visiting the page at http://openid.net/foundation/join/ which invites to join the foundation, from student up to the kind of cooperations which just joined? A week ago there was a big emptiness at the "Corporate Board Members" section...
> 		
> 		Can somebody clarify what the official position is?
> 		
> 		
> 		-- 
> 		
> Regards 	
>  	
> Signer: 	 Eddy Nigg, StartCom Ltd. <http://www.startcom.org/> 	
> Jabber: 	 startcom at startcom.org	
> Blog: 	 Join the Revolution! <http://blog.startcom.org/> 	
> Phone: 	 +1.213.341.0390	
>  	
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