Stuart Herbert wrote: [Mon Apr 11 2005, 01:01:45PM CDT]
> Have you thought about splitting the membership into voting and
> non-voting groups?  You could have the voting membership as devs et al
> who have applied for voting rights (to address the quorum concern), but
> also sell non-dev (and therefore non-voting) membership to users &
> companies?  It's easier to get companies to give you money in return for
> something they can advertise (hey, look, we're a Gentoo Foundation
> Member!) than to simply get out the begging bowl.

The original version of the bylaws did allow for purchased memberships,
and every comment I received about them were negative, so I removed that
part of the bylaws.  (The bylaws are considerably copied, with
permission, from the Python Software Foundation bylaws.)  Please note
that these bylaws are still very much _proposed_ bylaws.

I would accept the notion that members have to request voting rights,
but I don't understand why one would want to be a member without voting
rights.  It's not as though being a member of the Foundation gets you a
T-shirt or anything, so what's the point?  I wouldn't think there'd be
much in the way of bragging rights either, since "I'm a Gentoo dev"
seems like it would be just as impressive (if not more so) as "I'm a
member of the Gentoo Foundation".  

I get the feeling that I must be missing an obvious point, but I don't
know what it is.

> (Btw, where and how do I sign up for membership?)

Well, that's a bit of a moot point until the requirements for membership
are solidified.  If we go with your suggestion, then you won't sign up,
you'll simply be added to the rolls.

-g2boojum-
-- 
Grant Goodyear	
Gentoo Developer
g2boojum@g.o
http://www.gentoo.org/~g2boojum
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