'Tis the year of elections! The European parliament, various countries such as USA, France, and UK are all hosting key elections this year. Closer to home, we just concluded our own general elections. By nature, a body such as FOSS United requires a Governing Bard to aid with various activities. In this post, I enumerate five points that will delve into some details about why I’m suggesting this. As a community, feel free to critique, discuss, and provide feedback about the information presented.
Note: This is not an unsolicited post. Please be aware that I’m posting this based on some conversations and feedback from @rahulporuri.
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- Introduction
India is currently at a significant inflection point in terms of open source technology. This moment represents an exceptional opportunity for the nation to influence and shape the trajectory of open source development and adoption. Open source technology, characterized by its transparency, collaborative nature, and accessibility, has the potential to drive innovation and economic growth. As more industries and sectors embrace open source solutions, the role of organizations like FOSS United becomes increasingly critical in guiding and supporting this transition.
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- The Role of FOSS United
FOSS United is uniquely positioned to play a transformative role in India’s open source ecosystem. The organization serves as a vital hub for a diverse group of individuals who are deeply passionate about open source technology. This community includes creators and tinkerers who contribute in various capacities—whether as users, contributors, or maintainers. By fostering an environment that encourages collaboration and innovation, FOSS United can significantly impact the development and proliferation of open source projects. The organization’s activities and initiatives can help bridge gaps, provide resources, and create opportunities for individuals to engage meaningfully with open source technology.
- Importance of Elections
To ensure the continued success and integrity of FOSS United, it is essential to establish a Governing Board through a process of free and fair elections. Such a democratic approach is vital for preserving the core ethos of the organization, which is grounded in principles of openness, inclusivity, and community-driven decision-making. Electing a Governing Board from within the community will not only enhance transparency but also foster a sense of ownership and accountability among members. This process will ensure that the leadership truly represents the diverse interests and perspectives of the FOSS United community, thereby aligning organizational goals with the collective aspirations of its members.
- Responsibilities of the Governing Board
The elected Governing Board will be composed of dedicated technologists who bring with them a wealth of passion, purpose, and expertise. Their primary responsibility will be to guide and oversee the strategic direction of FOSS United, ensuring that its activities and initiatives align with the organization’s mission and values. By leveraging their networks and connections, board members can amplify the reach and impact of FOSS United’s efforts, fostering greater collaboration and innovation within the open source community. Additionally, the board will play a crucial role in mobilizing resources, advocating for policy changes, and building partnerships that enhance the organization’s capacity to drive positive change.
- The Need for Empowerment and Incentivization
There may be arguments suggesting that the same value could be derived from these individuals without the formal process of elections. However, it is crucial to recognize the importance of empowering and incentivizing community members to take on leadership roles. Formal elections provide a mechanism for recognizing and validating the contributions of dedicated individuals, thereby motivating them to commit their best efforts to these roles. By granting official recognition and responsibility, we can ensure that board members are fully invested in the success of the organization. This empowerment will drive higher levels of engagement, accountability, and sustained contribution, ultimately benefiting the broader open source community.
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Million $ question: “Who” will elect the board?
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I have a really simple idea that requires very little additional work.
- Anyone who has ever bought a ticket for IndiaFOSS (we already have them registered on the platform) can vote.
- People can self-nominate by making their pitch on the forum on why they should be elected in the board and what will they contribute.
- We can conduct the election on the platform itself.
cc @rahulporuri
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HI @rushabh. Thanks for your replies.
By “platform” do you mean forum.fossunited…?
Anyone who has ever bought a ticket for IndiaFOSS (we already have them registered on the platform) can vote.
Why would you want to restrict the electorate? Any objections to opening up the elections to everyone who is registered on the Forum/platform(?)
People can self-nominate by making their pitch on the forum on why they should be elected in the board and what will they contribute.
Yes! We can have folks submit a bio, specific areas of interest and a 1-2-3/1-3-5 action plan. We can also have a slew of marketing planned around these elections, which will help drive more participation.
We can conduct the election on the platform itself.
Again, clarification required about what you mean by the platform, but again - I’m all up for using an existing tool. There’s also Elekto. I’m happy to defer to the team to make this choice.
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There is no validation / authenticity against potential spammers. Buying a ticket fixes that.
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A few articles I wanted to share related to governance of FOSS projects and/or communities
- pandas-governance/governance.md at main · pandas-dev/pandas-governance · GitHub
- Governance model — napari
- PEP 13 – Python Language Governance | peps.python.org
- PEP 8001: Python Governance Voting Process - Committers - Discussions on Python.org
I also want to share NumFOCUS concerns and https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/39546.html which heavily weigh on my mind when it comes to setting up FOSS United governance
With IndiaFOSS only 5 weeks away, it will be good to have a weekly virtual call to discuss governance and elections, in order to initiative broader/larger discussions at IndiaFOSS.
@Ram_Iyengar, and I would like to meet every Tuesday at 4 PM until the conference and we welcome the community to join the call and share thoughts. Please join us at Jitsi Meet if you are able to. Everyone can continue to leave comments on this thread like before and we will try to summarize the virtual calls on this thread. We are planning to meet on 6 August, 4 PM next. Add recurring event to Google Calendar
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Update from call on 6th August 2024, 4 pm IST.
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Who can participate as a voter in the election?
‣ Anyone who is a recipient of communications about the election.
‣ Anyone willing to help elect a body that will oversee open source work. -
Who are eligible to be candidates for being elected?
⁃ Those who have interest in helping create a foundation for good open source governance in the India-geo.
⁃ Have a keen understanding of what it takes to create and sustain vendor-neutral technology governance bodies.
⁃ Is willing to learn and understand the nuance of setting this culture from the ground up for an emerging body.
⁃ Shall receive an endorsement from present/former FOSS United employees, advisors, city chapter leads, student club leads. -
Open questions:
‣ Will we have them authenticate somewhere or somehow?
‣ What will an endorsement look like? And how shall a potential candidate go about seeking one?
‣ Who would an ideal candidate be?
‣ What to watch out for when seeking nominations?
‣ What will a charter they prepare look like?
We are still discovering answers to these questions and more. Please chip in with your thoughts and ideas. The more inputs we get the better. Please remember, open governance thrives on open participation.
We will discuss all these open questions on our next call, scheduled for 4 pm IST on 13th August 2024. See (some of?) you all on the call.
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a few more useful links from the broader open source community
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Just came across the OSM’s 2024 election page : Foundation/AGM2024/Election to Board - OpenStreetMap Wiki
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James, a community member from Lucknow reached out to Josh Simmons (who is currently the managing director for matrix.org foundation and he was previously at OSI as director) asking if there is a good resource/person for FOSS governance and Josh pointed out to Shauna Gordon-McKeon https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunag/.
Edit: Looks like there is a mutual connection we have, (Nick Vidal @ Open Source Initiative) whom the foundation team is in touch with from some time. Let me see if we can get on a call and for some help.
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I just read Things I’ve learned serving on the board of the Python Software Foundation yesterday and it contains a number of insights that are meaningful for us to incorporate into our process. A few points to more
The PSF is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with the following mission:
The mission of the Python Software Foundation is to promote, protect, and advance the Python programming language, and to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Python programmers.
That mission definition is really important. Board members and paid staff come and go, but the mission remains constant—it’s the single most critical resource to help make decisions about whether the PSF should be investing time, money and effort into an activity or not.
We need to look into our mission and see if it needs further details or refinement. Note that the PSF has an expanded mission statement here - Mission | Python Software Foundation and what is quoted above is the short version and we might want to consider doing the same.
The PSF currently employs 12 full-time staff members. Members of the board do not directly manage the activities of the staff—in fact board members telling staff what to do is highly inappropriate.
Instead, the board is responsible for hiring an Executive Director—currently Deb Nicholson—who is then responsible for hiring and managing (directly on indirectly) those other staff members. The board is responsible for evaluating the Executive Director’s performance.
We should also aim for similar separation of concerns, to ensure that individuals on the board aren’t voluntarily or involuntarily managing the work by the foundation staff
This is another term I was unfamiliar with before joining the board: the idea of a fiscal sponsor, which is a key role played by the PSF.
Looking to run an annual community conference? You’ll need a bank account, and an entity that can sign agreements with venues and vendors.
Want to accept donations to support work you are doing? Again, you need an entity, and a bank account, and some form of legal structure that ensures your donors can confidently trust you with their money.
Instead of forming a whole new non-profit for this, you can instead find an existing non-profit that is willing to be your “fiscal sponsor”. They’ll handle the accounting and various other legal aspects, which allows you to invest your efforts in the distinctive work that you are trying to do.
Some of this already happens at the Foundation if i understand correctly and if we are able to institutionalize this, we might be able to broaden the projects/activities in the FOSS community that we can support
There are 12 board members. Elections are held every year after PyCon US, voted on by the PSF membership—by both paid members and members who have earned voting rights through being acknowledged as PSF fellows.
At the moment, we are hoping to conduct an election that is open to “all” - anyone who considers themselves a part of the Community can sign up and vote - but we are also planning on incorporating a few aspects of the above e.g. people standing for election have to first be acknowledged by active and recognized Volunteers.
Board members are elected for three year terms. Since 1-3 new board members are likely to join annually, these terms ensure there is overlap which helps maintain institutional knowledge about how the board operates.
I’m not sure how we can run an election this year but also set up a structure such that the entire board doesn’t complete their terms at the same time but that’s something to think about/look into further.
The board meets once a month over Zoom, has ongoing conversations via Slack and meets in-person twice a year: once at PyCon US and once at a “retreat” in a different global city, selected to try and minimize the total amount of travel needed to get all of our global board members together in the same place.
A good estimate of the board meeting cadence/communication overhead that might be required for our governance board.
Work Groups are formed by a board vote, with a designated charter. Most recently the board approved a charter for a new User Success Work Group, focusing on things like improving the new Python user onboarding experience.
We already want to setup a Tech Policy Work Group (WG)/Special Interest Group (SIG) so this sets up the process by which WGs/SIGs can be formed. It’s good that we already started working on what will become the charter for the Tech Policy workgroup, and the process/outline might be useful for other WGs e.g. Open Science WG, Open Hardware WG, Open Data WG, etc.
I considered using an analogy that describes each board member as 1/12th of the “brain” of the PSF, but that doesn’t hold up: the paid, full-time staff of the PSF make an enormous number of decisions that impact how the PSF works.
Instead, the board acts to set strategy, represent the global community and help ensure that the PSF’s activities are staying true to that mission. Like I said earlier, the mission definition really is critical. I admit that in the past I’ve been a bit cynical about the importance of mission statements: being a board member of a 501(c)(3) non-profit has entirely cured me of that skepticism!
A much larger topic for the retreat was strategic planning. What should our goals be for the PSF that can’t be achieved over a short period of time? Projects and initiatives that might require a one-year, three-year or five-year margin of planning.
Director terms only last three years (though board members can and frequently do stand for re-election), so having these long-term goals planned and documented in detail is crucial.
A five-year plan is not something that can be put together over two days of work, but the in-person meeting is a fantastic opportunity to kick things off and ensure each board member gets to participate in shaping that process.
This again is what we are hoping for - the foundation is the “executive” branch of sorts and the foundation works on the broader strategy and big-picture goals, providing the necessary context and connections for the Foundation to execute effectively and efficiently.
I don’t know if it will be helpful but i will try to sit in on the PSF Foundation Office hours - https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2024/08/ask-questions-or-tell-us-what-you-think.html - and maybe you all should consider doing it too?
What are we trying to accomplish?
As stated before, we are trying to elect a Governing Board for FOSS United.
Any dates you have in mind?
We would like to begin the new year 2025 with the Governing Board at the helm starting January 2025.
Working backwards, we would like to conduct elections during the week of Dec 15th 2024. In order to do this, we would like to have candidates locked in and nominated by 25th Nov 2024.
Before we do that we would like to receive endorsements from the community for those who choose to participate as candidates. As a community, we would like to pool some candidates and provide feedback on why they would be good personas. So, we will open up a space for allowing people to nominate themselves and have the community provide feedback on their potential candidature. This is expected to happen mid-Oct.
Who are we looking for?
You. Anyone that has an account on fossunited.org has the eligibility to participate. As a candidate, and as a voter.
There are some broad traits we have outlined for candidates. Here are some examples:
- Any active City chapter/meetup volunteer (OR)
- Any active activity or subcommittee organizer (OR)
- Has a minimum of 5 years of professional experience as a software engineer, technical marketing, or adjacent fields (OR)
- Folks with the well-being of the FOSS community in mind (OR)
Anything else that might make you suitable for representing a community of free and open source software enthusiasts.
What will be the outcome of the elections?
A group of 3 elected representatives who will have the responsibility of steering FOSS United towards its goals.
What do you do now?
Thanks for thinking of this. Participate. Get others to participate with you. Make sure you and others who you know will be interested in FOSS are registered on fossunited.org. Think about candidates who you think would be suitable. Don’t form cliques.
Read and comment on the early draft of the charter. Come forward and share your ideas about governance.
I would like to invite folks to join our weekly Elections call. It is meant to be an open forum where anyone can join and share their thoughts about these elections.
Keep us on our toes and make sure we are sticking to our promised dates.
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Poruri Sai Rahul: We have updated the weekly call to discuss Governance and Elections - it will happen every Wednesday until the end of the year from 7 PM - 8 PM
Please see the event on the Nextcloud Calendar - Nextcloud - and subscribe to the calendar using your preferred mode (e.g. subscribe to the calendar on Thunderbird)
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No access ?
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Access shall be given to those who seek it!
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