X.Org BoD meeting minutes 2015-07-23

[Luc Verhaegen]

On Fri, Aug 07, 2015 at 11:24:31AM +1000, Peter Hutterer wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 06, 2015 at 07:33:43PM +0200, Luc Verhaegen wrote:
> > On Thu, Aug 06, 2015 at 10:21:55AM -0700, Alan Coopersmith wrote:
> > > On 08/ 6/15 06:10 AM, Luc Verhaegen wrote:
> > >> Perhaps the election committee should be more active in
> > >> pursuing potential candidates. I suggest several almost every year (i
> > >> seem to be the only one who even bothers to do so), only this year it
> > >> actually worked as Egbert actively went and poked those that i had
> > >> suggested.
> > >
> > > Every year I was on the election committee we got nominations from
> > > multiple people, not just you, and every year we contacted every single
> > > person nominated, and most of them declined.
> > 
> > So why did it work so well this year? Why were there (from memory) no 
> > new board members last year when i did not bother to nominate anyone.
> 
> correlation != causation

Let's get back to the original point.

I asked "Why" twice above, yet noone seems willing to analyse this or to
provide solid data. I hereby invite the boardmembers who were on the    
elections committees these last few years to disclose how nominations   
went and how nominations were accepted.

Why is the removal of company membership limitation to 25% of the 
board (yes, 1 in 4) deemed to be the only way to improve xorg foundation 
board nominations and acceptance? Why is this now suddenly an issue at a 
time where some fresh blood was finally available for the board? Why are 
other options or this past experience not properly analysed in this 
thread? And, rhethorically, why is this discussion instead being 
actively sidetracked?

Let's recap, from Peter's email:

> Couple of minor changes discussed to the bylaws. We currently have a 
> maximum of 2 board members from the same company, this has on a few 
> occasions in the ppast been too small. Option to change it to 3 
> discussed (5 yay 1 nay), we'll discuss again when Keith/Egbert are 
> back.
>
> This limit was put in place when companies had more influence on 
> X.Org's (technical) direction than now, it is unlikely to be an issue 
> now

First off, this is not at all a minor change. I am amazed that this is 
being downplayed like this.

Secondly, a very nice example of how individual developers are not at 
all independent of their company is the intel driver and mir story of a 
few years ago. "it is unlikely to be an issue now" is not definitely not 
true, which explains the weak formulation of the above sentence. (And 
yes, i know that the intel+mir was about something technical and the 
board is not technical, but that is besides the point here and it is 
futile to further try to divert this topic into something else, again)

And besides... The above is like stating "since obama is not 
warmongering as much as some previous presidents once did, perhaps we 
should adjust the constitution to allow him a third term". First off, 
what assurance is there that the next one is not a warmonger? And it is 
a very slippery slope from there to a pure dictatorship.

At the end of the day: this is the first year that we got a lot of new 
board members, without too much hassle (and i like to thank the guys 
who accepted their nominations and ran, and also those who then took up 
their respective positions). Why does this exactly this change to 
the bylaws have to be pushed through now?

Luc Verhaegen.