Hi Richard,
I'd be happy to summarize the responsibilities of the Squeak Foundation board members. The board members are elected by the community to help the community address issues. The issues depend on what the community wants done but more specifically what the elected board members are capable of accomplishing, given their abilities some but mostly because of limited time to devote to projects.
There are no requirements for any activity or participation, nor are there currently any ways to remove board members, or even to replace board members that resign. We elect new members yearly.
We are in the process of making a legal entity for the board. When that happens, the board will be bound by more formal rules relating to not-for-profit entities. But the ultimate responsibilities for that will be the Software Freedom Foundation Conservancy who will have the ultimate say, which protects board members. At that time I believe we do have a way to replace board members that resign.
We are also in the process of re-licensing Squeak, with the help of Viewpoints Research Institute www.vpri.org . The board and the community are participating in that to help accomplish this task. If you received an agreement from VPRI and haven't sent it in please take a moment and do it!!
We are also in the process of figuring out if a Technical Board should be formed that would have more responsibilities to lead the development of Squeak and be the final arbitrator of where we go technically, but this was only suggested by some current board members but hasn't happened yet.
The current board meets on a monthly basis by IRC (so no travel required). They communicate also by a private email list. There was talk about allowing prior board members continued access to that list with no voting rights for advice (a board member emeritus status), but I'm not sure if that suggestion was ever followed up on. The previous board would post the notes of the meetings. This one did not or did not do it very often.
There are some other responsibilities to keep the community running, servers, administrators, fund raising, groups responsible for code like network, VM, kernel ... and a number of volunteers that help keep things going. Those groups are semi-autonomous, because they are volunteers and because many of those groups existed before there was a board. I would think that they would consult with and heed the advice of the board if something warranted it. Mostly they keep going because they kept going in the past and because of some very talented, hard working and dedicated individuals.
Now some disclaimers; I am not a lawyer, nor am I a board member, so take all this with a gain of salt. If I misstated anything I'm sure others will correct me, and if I left anything out please feel free to add to this summary of responsibilities. I just did this off the top of my head.
Don't for get to register with squeak people http://people.squeakfoundation.org get certified and VOTE!! If you are planning to run for the board please announce your candidacy to squeak-dev by Feb 22, 2008. If you need to have your password changed on squeak people email: box-admins@lists.squeakfoundation.org .
Happy Squeaking!
Ron Teitelbaum Squeak Elections Team Member
-----Original Message----- From: Richard Karpinski
Maybe everybody knows, but could you summarize the duties and the activities of board members so that people could tell easily whether this would be an honor they would like to carry for a year? For example, does board membership require or encourage international travel or other activities involving serious time and financial commitments? And what effect do board decisions have, anyway?
Dick Karpinski, a definite non-candidate
On 2008, Feb 5, , at 4:00, beginners- request@lists.squeakfoundation.org wrote:
A year has passed (oh, so quickly) and it is time to reflect a bit and ramp up your democratic rights here in Squeak country! Every year we elect the Squeakfoundation Board (http://www.squeak.org/Foundation) consisting of seven members from our community.
Beginners mailing list Beginners@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/beginners