2024 X.Org Foundation Membership deadline for voting in the election

[Ricardo Garcia]

On Mon, 2024-04-01 at 00:48 +0300, Laurent Pinchart wrote:
> Hi Ricardo,
> 
> On Sun, Mar 31, 2024 at 10:24:00PM +0200, Ricardo Garcia wrote:
> > Hello Jonathan, Laurent:
> > 
> > Part of the "spam" that you received today was likely me going over
> > several x.org mailing lists making sure no old legitimate messages were
> > being blocked in their queues.
> 
> This is the part I commented about in my reply. Mails being held in
> queues for a long time has happened multiple times in the past, and has
> result in at least one occasion in people not being notified in time
> about membership renewal and elections. I don't know what happens behind
> the scene, but a delay of two months doesn't seem normal to me.
> Something needs to be fixed to make sure such problems will not occur
> again.

Yes, thanks for the feedback again. We have a wiki page where the
election process is documented in detail and that's what we use as a
guide every year (this is important, as the person in charge of running
the elections changes frequently).

However, thanks to your feedback we've improved a couple of points in it
and, hopefully, that will lead to similar situations not repeating in
the future. In particular:

- We've made it clear not every member or potential member knows
memberships only last one year and should be renewed. We'd like to
solidify the use of month numbers in membership period names to
underline this fact (like we did this year) so this will no longer be
confusing.

- We've added details about reviewing some mailing list queues to make
sure messages are not blocked there. People running the election process
are usually subscribed to multiple mailing lists so it's easy to lose
track of which messages made or didn't make it through, and this can be
critical since some foundation members or potential members may only be
subscribed to a handful of them, or maybe only to the events list, for
example.

Naturally, we're humans and may still make mistakes following a set of
documented steps, but hopefully the instructions are a bit better now.

Best regards,
-Ricardo

> 
> > I know some people got a bit tired of
> > receiving multiple emails with the same topic today, so sorry about
> > that.
> > 
> > The reason for me going over the mailing lists is that this year the
> > number of people who have renewed or applied for their x.org membership
> > is strangely low, so I wanted to make sure every message (even old ones)
> > reached every subscriber and, at the risk of being slightly annoying,
> > certainly they would catch many eyes.
> > 
> > Answering your questions: X.Org memberships last 1 year, so if you want
> > to continue being an X.Org Foundation member you have to renew every
> > year.
> > 
> > What does being a member get you? You can vote in elections to the board
> > of directors and sometimes in other matters. For example, last year we
> > also voted to change the fiscal sponsorship from SPI to SFC (this was
> > accepted), and to make a small change to one of the bylaws (this was
> > rejected). The current version of the bylaws can be found here:
> > 
> > https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorgfoundation/bylaws/blob/master/bylaws.pdf
> > 
> > Normally, we start the membership renewal process just before the
> > elections, so that people renew and are more or less immediately able to
> > vote.
> > 
> > If you want to know what the X.Org Foundation does or what are the
> > duties of the board of directors, let me shamelessly point you to my own
> > blog, because I wrote a post about that not long ago:
> > 
> > https://rg3.name/202305240752.html
> > 
> > Note this is just a personal post, not anything official coming from the
> > board. In any case, I hope you find the information there useful, but do
> > let us know if you have any other questions.
> > 
> > Again, sorry for the spam today and best regards,
> > 
> > -Ricardo
> > 
> > On Sun, 2024-03-31 at 05:26 -0700, Jonathan Martin wrote:
> > > To X.org:
> > > 
> > > I have also received these emails with no distinction as to whether
> > > I need to renew. I’ve only just arrived to this cohort and so far I
> > > can’t tell what it does except offer a parliamentary hello.
> > > 
> > > ~Jonathan
> > > 
> > > > On Mar 31, 2024, at 5:13 AM, Laurent Pinchart wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > Hello Christopher,
> > > > 
> > > > (Trimming the CC list)
> > > > 
> > > > I've just received a total of 7 e-mails sent to the events at lists.x.org
> > > > list related to this topic in one go, with the oldest one dating from
> > > > February the 7th. This issue keeps repeating year after year, and while
> > > > it didn't impact me this time as I received the news through other
> > > > lists, it really calls for a structural solution.
> > > > 
> > > > On Wed, Feb 07, 2024 at 05:38:26AM -0500, Christopher Michael wrote:
> > > > > The 2024 X.Org Foundation elections are rapidly approaching. We will be 
> > > > > forwarding the election schedule and nominating process to the 
> > > > > membership shortly.
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > Please note that only current members can vote in the upcoming election, 
> > > > > and that the deadline for new memberships or renewals to vote in the 
> > > > > upcoming election is 26 February 2024 at 23:59 UTC.
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > If you are interested in joining the X.Org Foundation or in renewing 
> > > > > your membership, please visit the membership system site at: 
> > > > > https://members.x.org/
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > Christopher Michael, on behalf of the X.Org elections committee
>