EOSSF: Articles of Associations & By Laws

Since we are through STEP 1, we now have to register the articles and memorandum of association.

Just posting the By Laws of Linux Foundation as a template. Please let us know if you have any thoughts.

Edits: Some comments:

  1. We need to identify the different classes of memberships.
  2. We need to define the “Board of Directors” and how can we work within the current legal framework. (i.e The “official” BoD can only be from Frappé or Indian citizens). I think we can define a concept like a BoD, but all it differently and let all the executive power be with the new BoD, let’s call it “Executive Council” (EC) and instead of “Director”, let’s call it “Council Member”
  3. Once we have filed taxes for 3 years, I think we can apply for additional permissions that will make it official, till then we will have to work via the EC and not BoD
  4. There should be a plantinum plan that directly gets a council seat. How much should that amount be and how many council members should there be (7) there be?
  5. The rest of the council members should be elected by paying members ($99 per individual membership?)
  6. The officers (voluntary or paid) can be selected by the EC
  7. Frappe, being the founding org, should be allowed to nominate 2 of the 7 EC members

Please share your thoughts

7 Likes

@rmehta
That is great!
Below are my thoughts:

  1. On point 7 is lets the vote be 50% that means, out of 7 if anyone get 4 votes that means s/he is eligible.
  2. All members should be active participants, which means if anyone has joined and is not active from last say 6 months, then s/she should have to get himself/herself re-activated by paying some nominal fees.
  3. Also, there should be a limit for number of people in the foundation.

Regards
Ruchin Sharma

Here are some of specific comments.

Question 1. We need to identify the different classes of memberships.
Please read: https://www.openstack.org/join/
this covers questions 1, 4, 5, 6, 7

Question 2.
2016 Board Election - OpenStack is open source software for creating private and public clouds.

Regarding EC or Board Seat

  1. Frappe can appoint two members, 2
  2. Foundation Board, 3 members, Get Elected by Foundational Members
  3. Glod/Platinum sponsors appoint 2, Again by Voting among those sponsors

Totally it is 2+3+2 = 7. This ensure no single group can get a majority and decisions are democratic. also paid members are happy, free contributors are also happy and Frappe is happy.

I really appreciate OpenStacks Bylaws, and one of the best I have seen.

1 Like

to 1)
There should be at least three different memberships:
Foundation: Paid and Right to elect
Honor: Unpaid and right to elect, appointed and dismissed from EC
Follower: Unpaid without Right to elect

I also strongly believe that membership should not be only a thing of paying, the minimum activity is to elect, maybe at a later point it can be combined with a scoring system…

Best

Michael

Update: We are still waiting to get a draft of the Articles of Association from the consultant who is helping us file for this. Will post once we get them and post here. Hoping to get something done this week.

now with the main legal issues out of the way (this at least is my understanding) and with the idea to have the Foundation operational during the ERPNconf2016 (which I believe is happening in October) I guess it’s time to proceed with speed in this. This issue seems to be the best place driving this matter forward

technicalities are key right now I’d say? I think those are …

  1. bylaws & founding documents … should be defined and made publicly available. As far as I know we where looking at Linux Foundation & Openstack bylaws to lean on. More opinions and suggestions are to be found in this topic here
  2. Membership would be a good thing whether the foundation stated to have some members, so how can we make progress with this? I guess it depends on 1. where various kinds of membership are to be defined
  3. Election of Board Members

at present the discussion is spread over various topics (this one, another one, blogposts … maybe the first thing would be to choose central spot. In my eyes a github repository (wiki & issues) might be a good place (in regards to infrastructure) … @rmehta if you agree, would you take lead and make one?

I know this is a dead thead and maybe there has already been a decision but i believe that these would work great. GitHub - red-hat-people-team/open-decision-framework: A community version of the Open Decision Framework

I guess you mean that this is a framework for decision making you recommend to follow. correct?
Even though I am sure it’s an interesting read and something to consider it looks a little too complex to utilize short term to be honest

@vrms From what i read the ERPNext team already does a majority of these. In my option ERPNext would not be as successful as it is if they have not.

1 Like