[Members] Re: Member/Board Interactivity

[Barton C Massey]

In message <1161695612.6871.14.camel at localhost.localdomain> you wrote:
> 	One response (from B Massey) to this member/board interactivity
> question included making board committees to target specific areas of
> concern, and subcommittees to solve specific problems in those areas.

Sorry, no communications cookie for me---I didn't mean more
than one level.  I think my "subcommittees" are isomorphic
to Egbert's "working groups"; I should have used his term,
which is better.  It's also what you suggest:

> Maybe just a set of committees, each started as an issue
> is decided important enough by the board, with mixed
> board/member membership.

JG expressed the concern that working groups are too big a
hammer for the kind of nails that X.org has to drive, and
that they tend to take on a life of their own and get out of
control.  This is a legitimate concern, although I think our
conception of a working group is a lot more lowercase than
the ISO-type structures that JG may have in mind.  I agree
with JG that working groups should arise out of concerns
expressed to the committee by the Board, and should have a
carefully chosen charter, milestones, and sunset period.  I
think they're necessary, though---the Board has neither the
time nor the charge to micro-manage work on specific
concerns.

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