Membership Process 2014

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

To be approved at XXX board meeting

General Process

Each year some number of new charter members are nominated and elected by the OSGeo charter members, in a process operated by the Chief Returning Officer (CRO). The number of new members will be between 10% and one third of the existing charter membership count, with a proportion allocated for recognised OSGeo Community Leaders, and a proportion available for other candidates, as decided by the board. Read more about the charter membership role ...

Positions for recognised OSGeo Community Leaders

OSGeo aims to provide OSGeo Charter Membership to all recognised OSGeo community leaders who apply. Hopefully, sufficient positions are available. If there are more candidates than available, then membership will be allocated to the first to apply. 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, where the voting community includes at least 3 OSGeo charter members.

Acceptable roles are currently limited to:

• Project Steering Committee member of a Graduated OSGeo Project
• Chair of Official Local Chapter
• Chair of an OSGeo committee

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. 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 candidate may wish to create or update their profile beforehand.)
3. Anyone can nominate a Charter Member.
4. Anyone who is not already a charter member is a potential nominee.
5. 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.
6. All OSGeo members (members as well as charter members) are encouraged to discuss candidates on the discuss list.
7. Once all the nominations close, a summary of charter candidates will be prepared and posted by the CRO to the OSGeo discuss list.

Voting

Until 2013 elections were a completely manual process. For the 2014 elections we intend to introduce an Electronic Voting process to automatize some of the tasks involved.

1. Voting occurs roughly over the next week after nominations close.
2. 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.
3. Each charter member will have as much votes as candidates.
4. Each charter member will receive an email with a personalized url to access the Electronic Voting system.
5. Charter members may apply all their votes to a single person or distribute them in integral amounts over multiple candidates.
6. After a successful registration of the vote, an email will be sent to the Charter Member to confirm the vote has been registered.
7. The voting period is roughly 1 week long.
8. Once the voting period is over, the CRO tallies votes and the new charter membership are assigned to the candidates with the most votes.
9. In case of a vote tie, the CRO will use some suitable random method to select from the tied candidates to fill the new positions.
10. 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.
    • Update the board-priv alias on the OSGeo mail server

Positive Attributes

Suggested (but unofficial) 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. 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.