OpenJDK Community Bylaws and Governing Board

[Mark Wielaard]

Hi Doug,

On Mon, February 7, 2011 00:33, Doug Lea wrote:
> FWIW: My take is that corporations these days are too cowardly.
> Here, they insist on appointment to avoid some (for them)
> worst-case scenarios. My sense is that if Oracle and IBM ever
> do anything that would make the community not want them on
> the GB, then we will have much bigger problems than just
> GB membership rules. So I tolerate their paranoia.

I don't think anybody thinks Oracle and/or IBM should be
denied representation on the board. But the choice of nominees
is certainly questionable. As is the fact that some of these
seats seem to be by appointment only. If you want to have a
IBM representative on the board, why not nominate someone like
Steve Poole who actively communicates with the rest of the
participants in the community? Just like Mark is a good choice
for a nomination that will make Oracle feel like being represented.
However nominating (or even just appointing without discussion)
people from these companies who have not even once participated
on the mailinglists means we do have a big problem. IMHO.

> I do agree that it is not very nice not to have members
> from Red Hat, Azul, Google, or others. But as I mentioned,
> limiting the initial GB to what seems to be minimum
> possible size has the advantage of being less likely to stall
> for years (as did some previous efforts).

Can you explain what was wrong with the previous board
of seven members (Martin, Andrew, Fabiane, Simon, Mark,
Dalibor and you) that made it so that things stalled?
That board felt much more representative of the participants
of this community than this proposed board.

Thanks,

Mark