Bylaws WG Agenda for January 24, 2014
Contents
Adding a Reporting Rule to the Bylaws
Given the recent discussions on the members list, I think we *do* have to add a reporting rule to the bylaws to address the communication problems, so I think that we should add this wording back into the bylaws WG section.
**Section 7.x. Reports** Working Groups must must send monthly activity reports to the Board of Directors. These reports may be used to compile report summaries for the PSF members.
Proposed by MarcAndreLemburg.
Adding a WG Policy to the Bylaws
We should make it more explicit that the board needs to get information about what is going on in the working groups, otherwise, the directors don't have a chance to monitor and correct the work done in the working groups.
**Section 7.x. Work Group Policies** The Board of Directors may setup policies which specify the Working Group processes, from time to time. Policies may be created for single or groups of Working Groups. The chairpersons of the Working Groups are responsible for implementing and adhering to the policies which apply to them.
Just relying on the section 7.4 "Subject to the direction of the Board..." may otherwise create problems, since not only the board can create WGs, the voting members can as well; and the voting members don't necessarily check all requirements the board might have w/r to reporting, accountability, flow of information, etc.
The above 7.x will make it obvious that the board can apply such requirements after the WG creation and may also override principles set forth in the WGs charta, if needed.
All this may seem unnecessary, but IMO it's better to spell these things out, even if redundant, to have something to point to in case things go wrong. (Been there, would like to avoid this in the future.)
Proposed by MarcAndreLemburg.
Transitioning Associate Members
Apart from the WG policy change request below, I think we also need to think about how to transition the existing associate members into the new model. The natural choice would be the "Supporting Member" class, but we do need to formalize this in some way, by getting their written consent. Some may prefer to turn their membership into the basic membership or apply for managing/contributing member status.
Proposed by MarcAndreLemburg.
Higher Mem Levels Inheriting Membership Rights
We need to add wording that all higher membership levels also inherit the basic membership rights, e.g. the ability to attend meetings.
Proposed by MarcAndreLemburg.
Section 4.2
Section 4.2: ... voting privileges revoked pursuant to Section 4.11. This needs to be fixed to read "Section 4.12". We should do a final review of the section references before going final.
Proposed by MarcAndreLemburg.
Rewording Section 4.8
All, I took a glance at the draft PSF bylaws, and I found myself slightly confused about some of the material in Section 4.8 (Contributing Members). That section reads as follows: > To be eligible for membership as a Contributing Member […] such person must > commit to spending at least five hours per month working on projects relating > to the creation or maintenance of open source software available to the > public at no charge." This section seems extraordinarily broad. On my initial read I expected that this section applied only to those who contribute to the nebulous set of projects I'd call "core Python projects": python-core itself, pip, etc. However, not only does that section not say that, it doesn't even seem to require that the open-source project in question be written-in or related to Python. I wanted to know whether this section was actually intended to be that broad, or if there was a plan to restrict the scope of that section. Proposed by Cory Benfield
Section 4.9
Section 4.9: ... Fellowship does not continue during any extension of life by non-natural means, such as zombification or vampirism. ...Should we leave this in ?
Proposed by MarcAndreLemburg.
Committing Section 5.9
Forgot a check-in from the discussions we had about section 5.9 in out conf call last week: the section still reads "one (1) or more directors", but we agreed to have this read "three (1) or more directors".
Proposed by MarcAndreLemburg.