<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br style="font-size: 16px; "><div style="font-size: 16px; "><div>On 7 Mar 2010, at 00:24, Matthew Fulmer wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>On Sat, Mar 06, 2010 at 07:01:24PM -0500, Matthew Fulmer wrote:<br><blockquote type="cite">On Sat, Mar 06, 2010 at 04:38:22PM -0700, Ken G. Brown wrote:<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">I would like to know what each candidate thinks about creating<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">'Terms of Reference' or 'Terms of Engagement' or<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">'Constitution' or 'Clear Governance Articles' or 'Rules and<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">Regulations' for the Squeak Oversight Board, named something<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">agreeable, along with a great mission statement.<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">My opinion is that the members elected to the board should do<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">what they say they will do in their election statements. The<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">community votes a set of people to the board, and also each<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">person's agenda. The sum of the board member's stated agendas is<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">what the board should be doing.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">The board only serves year terms, and can be replaced rather<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">easily, should the community want to. Thus, I believe the above<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">is sufficient to ensure that the board adequately represents the<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">community.<br></blockquote><br>An important corollary I feel is worth stating:<br><br>If the board adequately represents the community, its actions<br>will generally align with what the community as a whole wants.<br><br></div></blockquote></div><div style="font-size: 16px; "><br></div><div style="font-size: 16px; ">Or conversely and altogether more likely, the community will align with the board. Those who don't like what the board do can leave the community immediately since they don't have to wait for an election to vote with their feet.</div><div style="font-size: 16px; "><br></div><div style="font-size: 16px; ">You actually have to make an effort to ensure that this is not the default situation, to practice humility, communication and openness of process. </div><div style="font-size: 16px; "><br></div><div style="font-size: 16px; ">In this year in particular the board has forgotten that it was originally conceived to advise and oversee. Its official direction as of this time last year was that it was not even sure if it should have any involvement in technical issues. To the extent that I ignored invitations to run for the board, because I didn't see that it had any relevance to myself as an active coder. </div><div style="font-size: 16px; "><br></div><div style="font-size: 16px; ">If you did want to attract individuals of significant status (e.g Dan Ingalls or the likes of Kent Beck) to be on the board, in a board like role, in an advisory nature, you will need a clear idea of what the board's role is, it cant be a release team at the same time as being a board. If you want the board to be a release team, then that needs to be made clear, and I could be wrong but I don't think that Kent Beck would be interested in hacking trunk. Conversely Edgar clearly feels a need to be elected to be heard on release issues.</div><div style="font-size: 16px; "><br></div><div style="font-size: 16px; ">The current situation is that the board is arguably partisan to supporting the development of one particular direction which is inextricably tied in with the commercial interests of one particular company, and as a consequence another company with its own commercial interests has pulled out of supporting squeak, and has left the field.</div><div style="font-size: 16px; "><br></div><div style="font-size: 16px; ">The board should be working to ensure that this type of situation does not happen, or at least to provide a round table for all interested parties to converse on equal terms.</div><div style="font-size: 16px; "><br></div><div style="font-size: 16px; ">Squeak's viability as a platform stands and falls on the strength and maturity of the board as it's primary representation; not the individuals on the board, but the board as a political entity in and of itself.</div><div style="font-size: 16px; "><br></div><div style="font-size: 16px; ">While the board has no terms of reference, and no vision statement, it has no identity in its own right, it is merely a collection of individuals running to their own individual agenda's, some more or less altruistic than others. In other words it's an accident waiting to happen again.</div><div style="font-size: 16px; "> </div><div style="font-size: 16px; ">regards</div><div style="font-size: 16px; "><br></div><div style="font-size: 16px; ">Keith</div><div style="font-size: 16px; "><br></div><div><br></div></body></html>