Membership Process

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Approved by board vote in August 2016 and amended in 2018 to extend the use of electronic voting to charter members to reduce the email traffic on discuss lists.

General Process

The annual additional charter members are added by a nomination process operated by the Chief Returning Officer (CRO).

Previously:

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. They include:

  1. Annually vote for OSGeo Board members.
  2. Annually vote for new OSGeo Charter members.