Project Governance

[Gregory Meyer, CPA]

>  Thanks for the work, too.  I have one typo to point out, and one question.
>
>  Typo:  "must authorize shall authorize"
>
There are several more typos, which I'll fix for sure.  I guess
spellcheck still doesn't catch grammar errors :p


>  Question:  Is there a reason to select an Advisory Board of three people by
>  vote instead of something like, active members of the project that have been
>  members at least X term with "active" defined some way.  Similar to the
>  Eligibility to Vote, but more strict, with longer activity required.
>
>  My reasoning is that we've tended so far to like to do things by ad-hoc group
>  vote, which is a system I believe many like.  Is there a reason to pick one
>  system over the other?
>
>
I started with a group of three (I'm hesitating to call it a board
after I read in your response, it sounds too formal, I guess it is
more like a committee) to balance the need for control with the need
to be able to reimburse someone quickly, an example being the shirts
we bought last week to bring to fosdem.  We had to have them shipped
quickly, directly to Lydia, and waiting to make a vote may have
delayed that so she wouldn't have them.

I think it is the general consensus of the group to keep things ad
hoc, and I personally don't disagree with that, expecially with regard
to technical issues, but I do think 1) I should not have to decide
what to spend money on, and 2) someone the group supports should
approve those disbursements, 3) we can't have a vote every time the
project wants or needs to spend money.

I'll give you a case in point, which I am only citing because it is
the most recent example and I am no way implying that anybody did
anything wrong, but it made me a little uncomfortable (and remember, I
am accountant, so it is my job to worry about this kind of stuff).
Anyway, Lydia asked me last week to send some money for travel
expenses to Harald's friend Alex who was going to join them in fosdem
to man the booth.  It was 200Euros iirc.  So the problem with this is
that I don't know Alex from Adam, and I have no idea from the
information I have that there is general support to spend project
funds on something like that.  Heck, I don't even know if the e-mail
was from Lydia as it it wasn't gpg-signed or anything.  It could have
been Alex, or anybody for that matter, pretending to be Lydia.

I don't know if Harald has the authority to spend that money.  He may,
and I think Lydia probably got it right, but I'd feel a lot better if
there was two people in a defined role saying that payment was OK to
make.  Again, I am not raising this in order to start a debate on that
particular expenditure.  I only am citing it as an example of the kind
of thing I see this group of three dealing with.

With regard to saying that any member with X years of service is
automatically on that board, I think we could explore that a little.
One of the biggest pros is that the individuals participating in the
project don't have to publicly support or not support someone.  A few
of the cons I see are, 1) does that preclude someone like Lydia
serving in that role because she hasn't been here a long time, even
though she has become a valuable member of the Amarok team, or 2) What
if that group has 8 people, do those people vote every time the
project spends money?

Anyway, that's kind of long winded, but I hope I clarified what I see
as the purpose for this committee.
--
Greg