Membership Process 2014

Text sourced from http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process

To be approved at XXX board meeting

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).

Positions for recognised OSGeo Community Leaders

OSGeo aims to provide OSGeo Charter Membership to all recognised OSGeo community leaders who are nominated. Hopefully, sufficient positions are available. If there are more candidates than available, then membership will be allocated to the first to be nominated. Remaining nominees will be automatically offered to go through the standard voting process.

Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders are defined as people who have been voted into a position of authority within official OSGeo projects and committees. (This may refer to a current or previously held position).

Acceptable roles are currently limited to:

• Project Steering Committee member of a Graduated OSGeo Project
• Chair of Official Local Chapter, where the voting community includes at least 3 OSGeo charter members
• Chair of an OSGeo committee, where the voting community includes at least 3 OSGeo charter members

The application process for recognised OSGeo Community Leaders is the same as for other nominees.

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. An existing Charter Member can nominate potential new Charter Member(s).
3. Nominees should meet the [#Positive_Attributes Positive Attributes for Charter Members].
4. A person may ask a Charter Member who can vouch for the Positive Attributes of the person to nominate them.
5. Nominations for charter membership should be sent to the CRO (at cro@osgeo.org). The nomination may reference a candidate's OSGeo Advocate profile if it exists. (The nominee may wish to create or update their profile beforehand).
6. Anyone who is not already a charter member is a potential nominee.
7. The CRO should verify with the nominee that they are willing to stand for the election. This should include an explanation of charter membership responsibilities. Once confirmed, the CRO should forward the nomination to the OSGeo discuss list. No seconder is required.
8. All OSGeo members (members as well as charter members) are encouraged to discuss candidates on the discuss list.
9. Once all the nominations close, a summary of charter candidates will be prepared and posted by the CRO to the OSGeo discuss list.

Voting

Up to 2013 elections were a completely manual process. From 2014 elections made use of an Electronic Voting process to automate some of the tasks.

1. Voting occurs for approximately one week, following the closing of nominations.
2. The CRO will allocate up to available positions for recognised OSGeo Community Leaders.
3. The CRO should ensure that all charter members receive the voting announcement - the OSGeo Secretary can provide a charter member list with contact info. This will happen before the voting period starts.
4. Each charter member will have as many votes as available positions.
5. Each charter member will receive an email with a personalized url to access the Electronic Voting system.
6. Charter members may apply all their votes to a single person or distribute them in integral amounts over multiple candidates.
7. After a successful registration of the vote, an email will be sent to the Charter Member to confirm the vote has been registered.
8. The voting period is approximately 1 week long.
9. Once the voting period is over, the CRO tallies votes and assigns (charter or board) membership to the candidates with the most votes (depending on the positions being voted on).
10. In case of a vote tie, the CRO will use a suitable random method to select from the tied candidates to fill the new positions.
11. The CRO will announce the selected charter members on discuss@lists.osgeo.org, update the official list with the Secretary, and update the following web pages:
    • OSGeo web site
    • Board of Directors Wiki page
    • Publish the results on the corresponding Category:Elections results page.
    • After the board vote, Update the board-priv alias on the OSGeo mail server to reflect the new board.

Resolving tied votes

1. A nominee who receives no votes shall not be offered a position. (This is unlikely to happen, as you would expect at least one vote from the person who nominated the candidate).
2. In the case of a tied vote for final charter member positions:
   • If there are sufficient positions available, as per OSGeo charter, then all tied nominees will all be accepted.
   • If there are insufficient positions, then the CRO's vote will count as 1.5 times a normal vote, in order to resolve the tie break.
3. In the case of a tied vote for board member positions:
   • The CRO's vote will count as 1.5 times a normal vote, in order to resolve the tie break.

Positive Attributes

Recommended membership selection criteria include:

• 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 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.
• Members selected should provide a diversity of geographic representation in the Foundation.
• Members selected should provide representation of a diversity of projects and cross section of languages. We don't want the membership dominated by folks from just one project.
• Members selected should provide representation of a diversity of interests (e.g., corporate, hobbyist, educational, scientific).
• Members should be prepared to work constructively and positively towards the goals of the Foundation. Good teamwork skills are an asset.