Member/Board Interactivity (was: Re: [Members] DRAFT airlie)

[Barton C Massey]

In message <1161619900.15899.8.camel at localhost.localdomain> you wrote:
> 	These issues indicate a broader process problem
> limiting the current Foundation operations. X.org has
> members, a board/chief, sponsors, and a budget. None of
> them are being used to their maximum capacity (or near
> it). The solution of course is the board planning more
> Foundation activities for members (and associates), then
> spending budget on those activities. Which in turn will
> help the Foundation raise even more money, on the strength
> of productive activities rather than the potential of the
> organization.

I agree that we need to make more efficient use of the
resources X.org has, and you are quite right to point out
that funding is only one of them.

I don't see growing the funding of the organization as a
legitimate goal in and of itself, though.  We should
identify what X.org needs to do and can help with, and then
make sure we have the right amount of money, structure, and
people to make it happen.  In particular, I've several times
see good community projects die of an over-infusion of money
and its concommitant changes.

> 	This election will pick a new leader of the
> foundation. Practically everyone involved is "part-time",
> with even secondary responsibilities in other work, so
> delegating "production" work to members, coordinated and
> led by the board and its leader, is the only way to manage
> the community. As the new leader, how will you get the
> community to contribute proposals for which activities the
> board should decide to spend money on? A better cycle of
> member proposals and board decisions will not only better
> use the time and money budgeted. It will also invigorate
> the membership, and attract new/better members.

I think a key element, which this election has already
spurred, is to make sure the communication channels between
the Board and the members are fully open and high bandwidth.
(A "secret" board email address?  Uggh.  Thanks much to
Daniel and Egbert for fixing this.)

However, as I said above, I think the "proposal" process is
a little ahead of where we want to be.  I think the first
step is identifying specific key problems around X
development, and then crafting solutions that use our
structure, people, and funds in effective ways to solve
those problems.  In detail, I can imagine the process
working something like this:

  * Board and/or community members identify a specific
    problem that X.org can help with, and petitions Board to
    address the problem.

  * Board agrees, and creates Subcommittee (a group of Board
    and community members) to address the problem.

  * Subcommittee drafts a proposal to solve the problem with
    the help and feedback of community in a fully open
    process.

  * If the proposal involves expenditure of funds or other
    resources under X.org control, Board approves or
    dissaproves the use of these resources.

  * Proposal is implemented.

This workflow mostly gets most of the Board "out of the
loop", and gives the Subcommittee and the community impetus
to solve the problem in creative ways.

    Bart Massey
    Assoc. Prof. Computer Science
    Portland State University
    bart at cs.pdx.edu