Membership Process 2016

Approved by board vote in August 2016.

= General Process =

Each year new charter members are nominated and elected by existing OSGeo charter members, in a process operated by the Chief Returning Officer (CRO).

Previously:


 * Membership Process 2014 Approved by board vote in July 2014.

Nominations

 * 1) The nominations period should be roughly 2 weeks, and should be announced by the CRO on the OSGeo announce and discuss lists.
 * 2) * A person may ask a charter member who can vouch for the Positive Attributes of the person to nominate them.
 * 3) An existing charter member can nominate potential new Charter Member(s).
 * 4) * Nominees should meet the Membership_Process for Charter Members.
 * 5) * Please confirm with the nominated person first!
 * 6) * Please email cro@osgeo.org with their name, contact email and paragraph describing why you are recommending this person as a Charter Member
 * 7) CRO will verify with the nominee that they are willing to stand for nomination
 * 8) * The CRO will include an explanation of Membership_Process.
 * 9) * The CRO will invite new charter members to update/create their OSGeo Advocate profile, as per: OSGeo_Advocate.
 * 10) * Once confirmed by the nominee the CRO will send the nomination to discuss@osgeo.org
 * 11) A nomination must be seconded by at least one other charter member
 * 12) * CRO will gather nominations into a candidates list to be presented to the OSGeo board
 * 13) Candidate review
 * 14) * All OSGeo members (members as well as charter members) are encouraged to discuss candidates on the discuss list.
 * 15) * A veto may be raised by any OSGeo charter member by sending a private e-mail to the CRO (at cro@osgeo.org)
 * 16) Once all the nominations close
 * 17) * CRO will gather any and all vetos for the OSGeo board for an anonymous review
 * 18) * If the veto is accepted by the board, then the CRO shall reply to the public discuss@osgeo.org and the nomination is removed from the CROs candidates list
 * 19) * A summary of charter candidates will be prepared and presented by the CRO to the OSGeo board
 * 20) * When approved by the OSGeo board the candidates will be added as charter members and posted to the OSGeo discuss list.

= Positive Attributes =

Recommended membership selection criteria include:


 * Members should believe in the general goals of the Foundation. To support and promote the use of free and open source geospatial software, education and data in a collaborative manner.
 * Previous participation in or support of OSGeo activities
 * The person should already have made a contribution to free and open source geospatial software, education or open data.
 * The person should be willing to put in time and effort on the Foundation, perhaps joining committee(s), or volunteering in some other way that gets the Foundation going.
 * Members should be prepared to work constructively and positively towards the goals of the Foundation. Good teamwork skills are an asset.

Membership nominations should strive to promote diversity:


 * Nominate members representing a diversity of geographic regions, diversity of projects, diversity of programming languages.
 * Nominate members representing and diversity of interests (e.g., corporate, hobbyist, educational, scientific).
 * Nominate members representing a diversity of humanity including gender and race

= Responsibilities =

Official responsibilities for charter members are important, but relatively light. As of August 2014, they include:
 * 1) Annually vote for OSGeo Board members.
 * 2) Annually vote for new OSGeo Charter members.
 * 3) Be aware of and protect against a takeover of OSGeo by single group or viewpoint. This threat is incredibly low but has been known to occur in other volunteer organisations.

= Questions =

The following questions have been asked during the election process, if you have a question please reach out to the discuss@osgeo.org email list.


 * Q: What is meant by hostile takeover
 * Charter Members have the responsibility of voting responsibly "preserving the integrity" of the OSGeo Foundation. A takeover in this context would be a change of management, without the consent of the members resulting in a new direction of the organization.


 * Q: Where are people to send nominations?
 * Please email your nomination to cro@osgeo.org as outlined above, the chief returning officer will email discuss@osgeo.org after updating the wiki page of nominations.
 * Be careful about emailing the discuss@osgeo directly, your candidate may be missed!


 * Q: Will the nominated person who has been vetoed be publicly named (this might be seen as insensitive and might be best to inform them privately).
 * The board motion calls for transparency in this manner, it may be enough to indicate that the nomination was unsuccessful.


 * Q: Will the person sending the veto be named?
 * The review is conducted blind by the board.


 * Q: Will the board member votes be made public?
 * Yes (The board publish minuets of all meetings)


 * Q: Will the reasons someone has been excluded be made public?
 * Reasons will be discussed as part of the blind review process.