OpenJDK Community Bylaws and Governing Board

[Mike Milinkovich]

Andrew,

A few comments below: 

> * 'An OpenJDK member is a Contributor who has demonstrated a history
> of significant contributions to the Community'
> 
> Who determines 'significant'?  This seems essential, given effectively
> these members get control over most of OpenJDK as a whole (voting
> rights, etc.)

My belief is that the existing OpenJDK Members will themselves define what 'significant' means. The only way to become an OpenJDK Member (after the initial start up phase) is to be nominated by an existing OpenJDK Member, followed by a Three-Vote Consensus vote of the existing OpenJDK Members. Which is a roundabout way of saying that the OpenJDK membership is intended to be a meritocracy in the normal sense of the word. Or at least that's what we were trying to say :-)

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've only seen contributions from two of
> these five to OpenJDK (you and Doug).  Why have they been given these
> positions?  Why should they get to make decisions over people who have
> actually done work on OpenJDK?

I believe that I was asked to participate because I have a lot of practice governing a community where there are lots of companies involved, as well as many individual contributors. Time will tell whether this community believes that my contributions were helpful. 

I can tell you that I think that the Governing Board should have relatively little impact on the activities of individual projects. Under the draft Bylaws, I hope you agree that the projects themselves are self-governing projects in the normal free software or open source way.