OGB 46-Day Rollup
An update after 46 days of the OpenSolaris Governing Board 2009-2010 term. As the newly elected OGB Chair, I'm pleased to say that we are moving away from the historical Parliamentary order in our regular weekly OGB meetings toward having live discussions of community issues. Please do join us!
Outreach Status
On the outreach goal, I feel we've reached enough new people in the community since my last blog post to warrant a grade of C+ in this area.
- The OGB Vice-Chair, Peter Tribble, is leading an effort to reach out and collect reports from community groups, projects, and user groups for promotion at CommunityOne.
- OGB Member Jim Walker has just announced a new OGB Suggestion Box that is already filling up with good ideas from community members.
- Planning for the OGB Townhall at CommunityOne is also going well and we hope everyone will join us at 6pm in room 305 at Moscone on June 1st for our first in-person OGB Townhall meeting of 2009.
- Simon and Peter will also join LOSUG next week to talk about the OGB.
Okay, that is a lot of outreach, so maybe we are getting a B- already. I still would like more joiners at our weekly meetings.
Planning Status
The OGB Calendar is getting some traction, and five OGB members are now using it to track our activities. We have a standing agenda item to vote on calendar entries for OGB that is working well and I'm hopeful that we will continue to pro-actively plan the year ahead.
Implementation Status
We continue to implement areas of the constitution and guiding documents toward improving voter turnout and member education.
- The most recent step was approval of a new Policy Regarding Core Contributor Grants, initiated by Valerie Fenwick, which asks new core contributor nominees to agree to have read their responsibilities before accepting the role.
- The Facilitation Project has, in its first month, made contact with 33 of the 47 Facilitators of the OpenSolaris Community Groups. Community Group facilitators are the life-blood of our voting and election system, so I'm thrilled (but not surprised) to see their immediate interest in the new project and willingness to join up.
Recognition
In our meeting yesterday, I requested a re-vote on the proposal to recognize individuals who support and contribute to the goals of the OGB, by nominating them for OGB Contributor grants. The majority vote passed.
This sets a new precedent for OGB, in that it paves the way for OGB to handle their contributor and core contributor grants in the same way that all other community groups do. This has been mis-characterized as make-work just for the sake of recognition, but it is actually a really important first step to get OGB in alignment with how other community groups are required to handle their grants.
We must work through the processes that all other community groups use in order to understand and improve upon them, and to build our credibility. It is not just a 'feel-good' endeavor, it is the singular path to full OpenSolaris Membership, and contributors to governance get equal opportunity for access to resources and recognition that come with membership.
