Hi,
again, sorry for stepping in so late - it seems that I finally find some
more time also for this, being rather busy with doing lots of other TDF
things the last weeks. So, if something has already been discussed,
just ignore it.
Some other things I noted:
- Sometimes, we are refering to "bye-laws". Shouldn't it be "bylaws"?
- The governance of the Foundation are mentioned to be in legal
statutes. However, talking of the Board of Directory and a Chairman,
isn't that some sort of even legally accredited governance? That
paragraph respective statement might be misleading...
- I don't think it will be important in the near future, but in general,
members and contributors can not only be unpaid/volunteers, or employed
by sponsors. They might also be directly employed by TDF or its
subsidies. I guess we should mention that in the bylaws. If someone
works for TDF contracted, he or she shouldn't lose the membership
status. The officers section talks about them as members, but the
membership paragraph doesn't.
- Can an individual, who personally pays a lot of money, also get the
sponsor status? I'd say yes, and that should be mentioned in the bylaws,
effectively either removing the distinction between donors and sponsors,
or giving them the same privileges. If a billionaire spends a hell lot
of money for us on a regular basis, he might have earned his place in
the advisory board. I however see, that this might bear a larger risk
than if a corporation becomes part.
- Now it gets a bit complicated: Talking about a project being only a
software development project... does that make sense? How strict do we
have to read the Bylaws? If someone likes to bring 1.000 DVDs with
LibreOffice to Africa, I'm happy to support this as a project, even if
strictly spoken, it is not developing software itself. On the other
hand, it is at least part of the software development project (like
marketing and the like), so maybe I'm just too weird here.
- I'd include, for the final version, the next decade manifesto in the
bylaws. It's easier if the vision is directly embedded in the bylaws,
rather then just refering to them.
- "Nonetheless" must be "Nontheless" (governance paragraph).
- Board of Directors: Shall we limit the number of deputies per seat to
one, making it mandatory that one deputy can only be there for one seat?
At the moment, it's quite openly formulated...
- Is it safe to make four officers on a paid/remunerated basis
necessary? If we have to hire four people at the beginning, it will be
quite expensive... I'm not at all against paying people for their work,
but at least for a transitional phase at the beginning, this might get
complicated without money.
- I'd make the term of the BoD more clear. "Approximately half the BoD a
year" is not very transparent. I'd make a fixed period of one or two
year terms, after which a re-election has to take place. Re-election of
existing seats is, as previously discussed, allowed infinitely. For the
very first BoD, we have to - outside of the bylaws - find an agreement
that half of the BoD steps back after 6 or 12 months, so we can re-elect
half of the BoD for the next cycles.
- As the BoD can appoint and nominate officers, shall we make clear the
way how voting goes?
- Instead of "trademark ownership" as BoD duty, we should use
"management of trademark ownership". Otherwise, it might look like, as
if the BoD was the TM owner, but actually the foundation is.
- The ESC can be placed under BoD administration, and then the BoD can
appoint a new ESC. Why "can be placed" - I guess the BoD can always
appoint a new ESC, without preconditions?
- Under which conditions can seats in the advisory board be
re-appointed? I guess we should make this more clear.
- I'd say for the BoD and AB, it is "at least" recommended to hold one
"physical" meeting per year. Legally, it doesn't change anything, as it
is just a recommendation, but it makes more clear what we want. Personal
meetings when possible, and virtual ones regularly.
- Regarding the conflict of interest: If we have some day lots of people
employed directly by the Foundation, shall the conflict of interest rule
also apply to them, i.e. only a percentage of TDF-employed people are
eligible to sit in the board? I see pros and cons for that, no dedicated
opinion right now.
- Is it on purpose that no Officer may be in the board? I see that there
might occur conflicts of interest, but you can also see it a different
way: When we have good and engaged people, it would be desirable to have
them as Officers maybe. Shall they be excluded from decision making just
because they are an Officer? Okay, maybe I'm too naive here, don't have
much experience with Foundations and boards. Yes, we should avoid that
all Officers sit in the board, but generally excluding that? I don't
know... Imagine we have a pretty good developer, we would like to
appoint as Development Officer or the like. Shall he really not be
allowed to be part of the ESC? This means to either chose someone
"worse" as officer, or someone "worse" for the ESC.
That being said, I doubt we will soon be in a situation to hire lots of
people, so these concerns are mainly theoretical right now. Anyways, as
we're talking about our bylaws, I wanted to raise them...
- For clarity, shall we add that members are not paid per se?
- 90 days is rather long for informing about elections. Maybe 45 or 60
days are enough?
That being said, thanks a lot for the great work, I really like it -
even if my mail is rather long, no major changes included. And
again, sorry for stepping in so late!
Florian