Re: [Fsfe-uk] Proposed constitution for a UA

[Vanessa Conchodon]

Hi!

Sorry for my late comments, I've just read the constitution.

I have lots of comments about this document, even if I 
think that MJ has done a very good job (forgive me slef ;o))
Lots of them are not really important.

I don't agree with several points of the constitution but 
if majority of people here agree with it, I won't cry ;o)
I have perhaps misunderstood what was written (English is 
not my native language). Don't hesitate to correct me.

I disagree democraty in constitution as you will see it.
I have'nt read the paper about different kind of structures
since end of december and I can't remember if democraty
is a condition of the UA. Forget what is written about democraty
if it is.

2.ii I would erase "the use and development of". We can also
  exchange information about licence or laws or anything 
  related to FS.

2.iv is not on the beginning of the line ;o)

3.(1) I would have written this in the last points.
  I don't think it is the most important point to see first.

4.a(1) I would have said "the activities of the Association"
   instead of "the work".
  "work" sounds for me too professional. But perhaps that's
  because English is not my native language.

 (same in 4.a.2)

5. I don't agree with democratic system.
   I would have prefer a non-democratic way (chair, vice-chair
   treasurer and secretary should be elected by executive
   commitee only, to be sure that these people share commitee's 
   idea).
   I think too that they should be part of executive comitee 
   before beeing Chair ans so on. Sometbody who has no knowledge
   of executive commitee's work should not be able to be elected.

   These people are responsible of the association. I don't
   want to have somebody I don't trust at these "roles" (not
   sure roles is ok here), i.e. that I'm not sure they share
   exactly ideas of AFFS.
   If AFFS grows from 10 to 100 in one year, it can happen I
   think.
   
6.a. I think "not less than 4 times" is a lot. 2 times would
   be better. Don't forget that:
   1) people can be everywhere in the UK and elsewhere
      (think about people who would have to tale a plane)
   2) irc or over ways of communication are available.
   We can say something like "meet in real life or via
   other ways of communication".

   I would prefer 5 or 7 than 6 (same for 9 or 11 than 10).
   Commitee will take a decision much easily with odd number
   of members.
   And I'm  not sure than giving a max size is a good thing.
   Commitee should have to decide the right number of members
   to run the association.

6.b. I disagree democratic election for commitee.
   On my opinion, new member can only be coopted by commitee's
   members. It's the only way to be sure of respect of the
   aims of association. 
6.c. same thing.

6.d. what "nominations must be made... in writing"?
   People who want to be an honorary officer have to write it?
   Is e-mail authorized?

   I would add "ballot or... postal & electronic voting"
   as most of people in AFFS would have e-mail and gpg keys
   to be certain of identity. We can ask fingerprint and key in 
   subcription. Or that people who will use electronic 
   should have given their key and fingerprint to a member
   of the commitee at least one month before voting.

6.g that means that if a failure happens, it doesn't count (i.e.
   the proceedings is not invalidated)?
  

Alex Hudson wrote:
> - 7. I would like to see a further sub-clause to remove people who
> participate in an anti-free software action: this would be extremely
> difficult to word, though, but I could see it being a useful
> big-red-button...

 hmmm what happen if anti-free software action is related to work?
 (Some of us don't work for free software companies and finding
  a free software job is not so easy).
 
 But I agree that people can't do everything in name of AFFS.
 But that is not specific to commitee's members.
 A member has the same duties.
 When talking for AFFS, people should respect the aims of the
association.
 A member should be dismissed if he committed a violation of the
constitution
 or internal rules of the association or if he harmed the association
 (moral wrong, financial or material loss). [I hope it has a sense
 in English]

 On my opinion, we should write that a member of the committee
 shall cease to hold office if he is no longer member of the
association.
 
 There is no section about ceasing of membership.
 We should add it in section 4 I think.
 A membership can be lost if:
 - the member died
 - he committed a violation of the constitution
   or internal rules of the association or if he harmed the association
   (moral wrong, financial or material loss): the commitee can dismiss
   him by voting
 - he resigned
 - he is considered not responsible of himself by the law
   (I don't know how to express this in English).

 We can add too that a commitee's member can be dismissed
 by the commitee if he's doing a bad work in commitee
 (but I don't know how to qualify a "bad work", even if i'm
  thinking about bad managment or something like that).

9.b. "The Chair of the Commitee may at any time at his/her/discretion"
      I think a word is missing no?
      I don't understand this part of the sentence.

> - 10a. Committee quorum of 0.5 seems fine; 0.1 of members seems vastly
> unobtainable :( I could see a lot of people joining AFFS having read an
> article about it in a magazine, for example, so it's not beyond the
> realms of possibility that we're going to have hundreds of members.
> Let's say we reach 1000 - quorum is then 100 people. That seems
> unrealistic in terms of an AGM; although it would be great if that many
> people would participate that actively.

  I don't think that we will soon be 1000!
  April has got only 210 members after 3 years.
  And beeing at the meeting is not relly important (except
  to see people). Voting is important!

  We can also add a section about duties of members to vote on AG
  (yes, no, and white if they don't want to prononce themself).
  We can add that no vote on AG means resign of the Association.
  Or if non voting 2 times means resign.
  Counting white votes is a solution to let people say they
  don't have any opinion.

  I think a quorum of 50% for voting is the less we have to fix.
  Decisions won't be representative if only 10% of members vote.
  If we do electronic-voting, we can reach 50%.

  Same for committee: we have to fix at least 60% of voting.
  And write that decisions that committee has to vote should
  be known at least 7 days before vote.

> - 10b. Postal voting, but not e-mail voting. Shurely shome mishtake? :)

slef>  I'm quite unsure on this, I admit.  Unless our web of trust
extends to them,
slef>how do we authenticate the vote?  Or do we not allow email votes
from such
slef>untrusted people.  If you can explain that, I'll amend.

  We can write that ways of voting is written in rules of
  Association (postal, electronic and so on).
  That won't be in constitution and we could do what we want.
  That means that we will have to write "Association's rules".
  As the price of membership is not in constitution, it can be
  too written in rules of AFFS.
  (not sure that "rules" is the right word to use)
  
> - 10b again ;) We should explicitly designate a returning officer per
> vote; someone other than the chair (Secretary, or Treasurer, in that
> preference perhaps?)

  Someone the committee trusts?

12.b is not on the beginning of the line ;o)

> - 12d. I didn't note anywhere where it said who the signatories were:
> chair, vice chair/secretary and treasurer, presumably?

   I think at least treasurer has to sign as he is responsible of
   money (he has to know when AFFS receive and spend money).

3, 4 12 & 13: design of document.
   - sometimes sections has got subsections in a,b,c ; sometimes 1,2,3
   - sometimes sections has got a,b,c subsections and 1,2,3
subsubsections
    & sometimes sections has got 1,2,3 subsections and a,b,c
subsubsections

   We have to be coherent in numbers.

> - 14.2 name of the assocation clause? I would also drop the 'written
> permission... Commissioners' section; they should just be invariant ;)

   I agree.

> - 16. E-mail as well as snail mail, preferably. We shouldn't, by any
> means, rule out snail mail, but an email copy helps.

   Don't forget international members can be members of AFFS.
   That means that they can not having a UK address.

   "Signed" is not at the beginning of line and 200 does'nt mean 
   anything ;o)

cheers,
                Nessie.
-- 
 Vanessa  Conchodon                            ^ee^ 
                                               (_/ `-^-. 
 e-mail :  nessie'at'little-monster"."org        .`___  \
                                                 (_) (_) \_^_.