Observations and suggestions

First, an observation: The impossible has happened. SPI's membership (or
at least a part of it) has gotten interested in being involved to some
degree in SPI. This discussion on spi-general is useful for that purpose
if for no other. This a very good thing! Hopefully once the board is
back in shape, some of you will become involved with committees to
investigate new things that SPI can do.

Second, a suggestion: Why don't we wait until after the next meeting
(Tues, 2000 UTC) before trying to push anything through? I think several
ideas have been well proposed, discussed, and demonstrated to have some
support. I also have heard from a SPI member of another proposal he is
considering offering if the meeting again fails to reach quorum. We have
definitely given the board, as well as ourselves collectively as the
contributing membership, a lot to think about. (Also, I, individually,
am considering withdrawing my current proposal and writing a new one
that improves slightly on the ones proposed by Bill Allombert and John
Goerzen. I had been thinking originally that such proposals would be too
controversial, but it looks like they are actually more palatable to
more people than my proposal.) Let's see if any of this advice is taken
into consideration at the meeting.

In the mean time, informal discussion in #spi on irc.oftc.net and almost
as informal discussion on this mailing list can help to foster further
suggestions and ideas. All I'm saying is, we should let the discussion
continue a while before trying to pass any changes.

I have heard and/or thought up a few more ideas; one of these (proposed
by cdlu on #spi) is to pass some sort of proposal that specifically
exempts the January meeting from quorum requirements, without affecting
subsequent meetings. (This might require 114 votes, since it overrides
the bylaws; but, then again, since it doesn't actually amend the bylaws,
it also might not.) Another is to pass a proposal that removes all
current board members who would be eligible for removal under the
current board meeting attendance policy. This has the potential danger
to remove too many people, or to remove people who will very soon again
have the time to be active board members (in case there are any such),
so should not be a step taken lightly.

Discuss, discuss :-) Also remember that all contributing members and
candidates for the board are welcome at the next meeting, 20:00 UTC on
Tuesday, December 17 in #spi on irc.oftc.net.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)debian(dot)org

On Wed, Dec 11, 2002 at 06:30:00PM -0500, Jimmy Kaplowitz wrote:
> Second, a suggestion: Why don't we wait until after the next meeting
> (Tues, 2000 UTC) before trying to push anything through?

Hmm, as a couple people have pointed out, my suggestion above is rather
useless, since Wichert Akkerman (the Secretary) has 30 days to call a
vote, and so there will be one or possibly two board meetings before the
vote anyway. Also, it seems to in fact have been counterproductive, by
slowing down discussion and stopping people from seconding if they agree
with any of the proposals out there. Also, my comment that I was
considering withdrawing my proposal was misleading; I was merely
thinking that it was stifling discussion of other alternatives. Since
things have died down as far as discussion, I think it's better that we
move ahead somehow, while still letting the board fix things itself if
possible.

So, given that the board will have several chances to act before we can
in fact push anything through, and given that it's important to keep up
participation on the part of membership, I guess I should state that the
suggestion above is automatic and doesn't need to be acted upon by us.
Go ahead and second proposals that make sense to you. I should point
out that my proposal needs only 2 more seconds, and I think it's
significantly better than nothing although far from perfect (I know John
Goerzen disagrees), and it will help extricate the Corporation from its
current mess at least.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)debian(dot)org