[Mageia-discuss] [board-public] Board dissolution proposal

[Romain d'Alverny]

Nothing's perfect. Ever.

On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 22:49, Michael Scherer <misc at zarb.org> wrote:
> given the fact that we basically never use the board for anything
> ( there was no meeting in 1 year, almost no mail, ie, everything was
> done by council ),

The board is made of/for the association direction body: president,
secretary, treasurer (all three required for the legal structure),
deputies to help those before, and other specific roles, on proposal.
Now indeed, 3 is a minimum, 6 was good (so there is support available
for the 3 main functions - remember the financial report for
instance?).

To say that it is useless because it doesn't get much used explicitely
* after only this short time is pretty appalling. And it did got
needed in some occasions, be it only conflict management (ok, we
certainly fucked it up too, but not because of a structural reason
here).

* for many possible reasons:
 - because it happens that all board members are council members,
mostly, at this time - so their action as board members may be
confused with them being council members;
 - or because most of its actions are apparently silent;
 - or because the focus is not there yet.

> and given the fact that basically, we do not even respect our own procedure
> (ie what the use for me to keep track of who is member of the association
> if we vote on irc without checking quorum or anything ),

This is your job, as a secretary, to check quorum, and validate. How
it happens on IRC, mail, with whatever tool, or none, is a practical
matter that's also yours, as a secretary, to take care of. If it
didn't happen as you think it should have, you can oppose it, that's
your right and your role. Or you can resign.

> I would suggest that we massively simplify the whole
> organisation by removing the board altogether.
> Ie, we just keep the council, and that's all.

That's disregarding that we designed two bodies for specific reasons:
 - council is outside the associative legal structure, with rather
flexible governance and election rules to be enforced and controlled
by the board; this helps coordinating teams and discerning who can
take a lead in the project;
 - board is inside and in charge of the legal structure, and of the
actual direction of the project (deciding it, assuming and defending
it).

Furthermore, these two bodies are meant to avoid a quick, undesired or
too brutal take over of the direction of the project.

It has been explained since its inception, and repeated. Very
obviously, this failed or is not enough. But that's also board members
tasks to publicize and explain that. It won't just fall on everyone.

Now, you don't either candidate and join the board to have a title.
You do if you have a clear project in your mind for what you will do,
if you think you can make it happen and if you get elected.

> We did nothing of what we said we would,

Mageia is still here. 1 got released pretty well. 2 is on its path. So
please be more specific about the rest.

> no one seems to bother enough or to understand the difference
> between board and council, or is motivated to keep them separate.

"no one" is a generality that discards your argument.

That some may not bother or understand or be motivated is not a reason
to give up in itself. It's a signal that something should change, yes:
education about these, their structure, or the people inside it. It's
not a signal that you should cut a full leg.

> I would like to immediately resign from my position of secretary,
> my position on board and on council as packager representative.

There no "would like to" for that matter. You do, or you don't. No
one's going to forbid you to. So it is.