Difference between revisions of "Community Council/Items/call for nominations 20091013"

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For this cycle, two standing Council members need to be replaced and one fresh member to be elected.
 
For this cycle, two standing Council members need to be replaced and one fresh member to be elected.
  
* Sophie Gautier and André Schnabel, both exemplary contributors to the Project and Council and membersofOpenOffice.org almost since its inception, have resigned, effective upon their replacement. I do not think that we, the Council and the Community, can thank them enough for their achievements in makingOpenOffice.org the community and global force that it is. My thanks to them both.
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* Sophie Gautier and André Schnabel, both exemplary contributors to the Project and Council and members of OpenOffice.org almost since its inception, have resigned, effective upon their replacement. I do not think that we, the Council and the Community, can thank them enough for their achievements in making OpenOffice.org the community and global force that it is. My thanks to them both.
 
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== Rules ==
 
== Rules ==

Revision as of 11:09, 31 October 2009

All:

A new election cycle for the Community Council begins now. We, the Council members, hope that we can meet the new members in Orvieto, Italy, at OOoCon 2009 early this November. To do that, however, we may have to bend the timing rules a little and accelerate things when possible. But for now.....

This election cycle inaugurates a new Community Council. Not only will we have one more member (to 10) but what we do has changed over the year and we have now a greater ability to promote OpenOffice.org around the world. Being part of the Council is to be part of the governing board of what is widely understood to be one of the most important Free and Open Source Software projects in the world. We urge you to join us.


Call for Nominations

On behalf of the Community Council, I would like to announce the new round of elections for the Council and start the process by asking the OpenOffice.org Community members to nominate those they think would best contribute both to the Council and to the OpenOffice.org Community.

You may nominate yourself. We define membership in our Guidelines. [0] This election cycle, one of several, begins with this call for nominations. After a week, candidates will present themselves and then we will vote. We detail all this in the Election Process wiki.

A copy of this message will be posted to http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/council/items/call_for_nominations_20091013.


  • The period for nominations ends 24:00 UTC 20 October.

About the Council

The Council is our governing board and among other things, it helps resolve conflict among projects and people and develop guidelines for the smooth operation and growth of the Community. Our charter explains what we can and cannot do.[1] The current members are lighted on the Council's home page. [2]

Until now, the Council's work has been fairly quiet and its scope limited. But as the OOo project has matured and grown, our focus has evolved. For instance, we now have in place procedures for budgeting and allocating funds for a variety of Community-sponsored events and doings. (These funds derive from donations given by users as they download OpenOffice.org or otherwise independent expressions of support and satisfaction; the funds are the Community's, held in trust by the Council.)

For this cycle, two standing Council members need to be replaced and one fresh member to be elected.

  • Sophie Gautier and André Schnabel, both exemplary contributors to the Project and Council and members of OpenOffice.org almost since its inception, have resigned, effective upon their replacement. I do not think that we, the Council and the Community, can thank them enough for their achievements in making OpenOffice.org the community and global force that it is. My thanks to them both.

Rules

The rules for the process are detailed in a wiki on the subject. [3] This election inaugurates a new Council, as the number of members has changed, from nine to ten, as has their characterization.

Several categories of OpenOffice.org contributors make up the Council membership. Those categories cover the breadth of OpenOffice.org. All but one, the permanent Sun representative, are elected by community vote. In this cycle, one of the Native Language Confederation Representative (aka "Lang") seats (there are two) is up for election. As well, we are asking for nominations for one Code Contributor Representative and one Product Development Representative.

  • The point of the categories of representatives is to ensure that the breadth of OpenOffice.org is represented and that its key constituencies find a voice on the Council. We are not saying nor do we wish to imply that you can only nominate and vote for someone in your constituency. Rather, we hope and anticipate that the work done by developers, marketers, translators, document writers, localizers, and so many of the other contributors constituting our varied constituencies is represented on the Council. We will thus strive to promote the election process on the relevant lists, as I detail below.

The nomination process starts now and ends 20 October (24:00 UTC). Nominations and the attendant discussions should be conducted on popular public lists, such as discuss@openoffice.org, dev@openoffice.org and so on.

We will be using tried and true technology for the actual voting: the Survey machine; only Community Members will be allowed to vote. Results will be posted in accordance with the published Election Process; the address will be on the Council wiki, as well as sent to the various lists below.

The details for the process demand attention and we ask that you spend some time going over the Election Process wiki.

  • As I mentioned above, we are hoping to conclude this cycle by early November. That will mean shortening part of the process a little, but which part has not been determined yet. If we cannot shorten the process and still keep everything satisfactory, then we won't.
  • Note: We have yet to identify our observers but for the purposes of this election, I shall serve as commissary.

This announcement will be posted to the relevant public lists, as detailed in the Election Process wiki:dev@openoffice.org, dev@nativ_lang.openoffice.org, discuss@openoffice.org as well as dev@l10n.openoffice.organd project_leads@openoffice.org.


Regards,

Louis

 [0] http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/guidelines.html
 [1] http://council.openoffice.org/councilcharter12.html#PowersoftheCouncil
 [2] http://council.openoffice.org/councilcharter12.html#CouncilMembers
 [3] http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Community_Council/Items/Election_Process_Proposal


--

 Louis Suarez-Potts, PhD
 Community Manager, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
 OpenOffice.org
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