Still no titles
There is a discussion going on over at foundation-list about membership of the foundation, which has gotten interesting. There was a good comment from Luis Villa:
[You] assume ‘more members’ == ‘good’, and
I’m not sure I follow that, given that much of the current membership
is apathetic and uninvolved [in the foundation] and increasing the numbers doesn’t actually solve that. I’d prefer we figure out why we have membership (besides the obvious legal/voting reasons), what we offer the membership, and what the membership offers ‘us’ (the community, the foundation, etc.), then talk about having a membership drive if it is still appropriate.
I get what Luis is saying, but I think the problem is more one of perception that reality. It seems to me, when I look around, that lots of people are working on communication, advocacy, marketing and all of the other things that the foundation is supposed to do. The foundation is not the board, after all, even if it’s sometimes easy to think that.
What do you think? What should the foundation represent? What does it represent to you? What’s wrong with it? How can we fix it?
July 26th, 2005 at 2:11 pm
First, I’m not a developer. I’ve tried to learn to program but beside BASIC, way back when, it doesn’t work. However, what about the idea of allowing voter rights to monetary contributors who assist developers in the only way they can. I can’t find that this is currently possible; however, user direction is key to a usable program, from our standpoint at least, and it may spur donations as well as an interested foundation membership. I may be out of line, and apoligize if I am, but its just a thought.