Re: GNU Herds Charter (draft) -vs- UK-TUG constitution

[Davi Leal]

> > Dave Crossland wrote:
> > > >  [1] http://uk.tug.org/events-files/agm/2007/constitution/draft_2.pdf
> > >
> > > I'm also on the UKTUG committee and we've just sent out the 4th draft
> > > to members; its based on the UK Charities Commission model charter,
> > > iirc.

MJ Ray wrote:
> Beware that model charter.  It has a few key undefineds, such as:
> What happens if members join during the notice period of a meeting?
> Who is the final decision-maker on interpreting the charter?


> I used a previous version of that model charter for the UK's
> Association For Free Software, so much of the criticism of it is
> on-line.  Steve McIntyre (now Debian project leader) called it a
> "train-wreck" which I think was a bit strong, but it was buggy.

IMHO,
 a) the more simple the Charter the better.
 b) the key point is democracy, even direct-democracy [1].

      [1] http://gnuherds.org/charter#Decisions

Taking into account a) and b), do you think the current draft of the GNU Herds 
Charter have some problem?  That is to say, there is democracy in it, so IMHO 
if member majority want to kill the project they can and must kill it.


I propose we follow improving the Charter but keeping it flagged as draft, at 
least for one year more.  Anyhow the webapp will follow on production, beta 
or alpha state according to the circumstances.

New task to analyze this subject now or later:
  [task]: http://savannah.nongnu.org/task/?8188



> Otherwise, there were three types of problem:
>   1. people attempting to "play" the constitution (inevitable?);
>   2. attempts to modify the constitution;
>   3. initial failure of the executive to adopt working rules.
>
> If I was doing it again, I'd address them by:
>   1. self-destructing neatly if people start playing about;
>   2. try to avoid modifying it and decide that the oldest or newest
>      section "wins" if there are inconsistent modifications;
>   3. require adoption of working rules for meetings and elections to
>      be the first act of the executive.
>
> Phil Hands also wrote that 20 was too high a quorum.  The 17 in the
> UKTUG one isn't much better.
>
> My history of AFFS up to my resignation is at
> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/writing/stateoftheaffs.html
> If we have 20 AFFS members (probably from 2005!), we could restart it.