Khaled,<br><br>Thanks for the great response to my post. The non-defensive tone of your response was very welcoming, exactly what I would hope for in a leader of the Association.<br><br>Just to clarify a couple of my concerns. I'm not at all concerned that North Americans are underrepresented in the leadership of the organization. As you indeed showed, we are well represented. My concern is simply that the Belgian NPO structure is really hard to understand for North Americans and needs to be better translated than it currently is on the <a href="http://association.drupal.org">association.drupal.org</a> web site. Actually, your post, somewhat repackaged would be a big help in that process of explaining how the Association is governed. I've written in a bit more detail about what I'd like to see in this regard at Angie's (webchick) web site in the post where she asked for feedback regarding the redesign of the a.d.o web site:<br>
<br><a href="http://webchick.net/node/58#comment-794">http://webchick.net/node/58#comment-794</a><br><br>When I wrote about board members rotating I actually meant permanent members rotating. I understand board members have two year terms. That's great. It would be nicer if have the board members were voted on each year instead of all but one in one year and then only one the next. Maybe a special measure can be passed to get roughly half the board members to accept either 1 or 3-year terms in order to get better balance in the voting process. That would only need to happen once.<br>
<blockquote>The terms are confusing. The structure is not so.<br></blockquote>Part of it is that the board hasn't figured some stuff out yet. For instance, the "admitted member" thing. In that case it is a combination of weird terminology <i>and</i> the fact that the board hasn't figured out what the role is. You have to do significant digging and infering from vague language to figure out that: a. all you need to do to be "admitted" is pay your dues, and b. the rights and responsibilites of "admitted members" are not worked out yet.<br>
<br><blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote">We realize that we should have better communication. But believe me,
this is not due to secrecy, it is due to other factors as we grow as an
organization and as we learn more.<br></blockquote><br>I did not fear secrecy. I think it has to do with the normal difficulty the community is facing as it scales. I'm quite hopeful that the community can address this problem as it has addressed problems of code. <br>
<br>Thanks for the link to Dries' slides. Even without the talk text I found it inspiring. I think there are parts of Dries' message regarding Drupal's culture of open source that need to be broadcast louder, that people need to be reminded of.<br>
<br>I think the new Drupal.org is going to make a HUGE difference. It will provide a much better platform on which the Drupal community can colloborate and create social networks. But the core values that Dries' talking about in that presentation like, "we are all equal" and "we need not fear chaos," I think some of those values are difficult, especially for veterans, to embrace.<br>
<br>Again, thanks for your great response.<br><br>Shai Gluskin<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2009/3/29 Khalid Baheyeldin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kb@2bits.com">kb@2bits.com</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">The elephant??? Drupal is huge and growing every day. It's struggling to appropriately welcome people in and help them find a place and a leadership position within the community. The Drupal Association, unfortunately under the jurisdiction of Belgium NPO governance rules</blockquote>
<div><br>True. And the reason is simple: Dries is from Belgium and lives in Belgium. He founded the project and the is a founding member of the association. <br></div><div> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
is not as transparent as it should be: it's structure is just plane confusing to many. </blockquote><div><br>The terms are confusing. The structure is not so.<br><br>There is simply a general assembly (GA) composed of members (called "permanent members", PM, I will come to that later. New members are elected every year. (I was elected to in the first round of elections in Jan 2008). The GA elects the board of directors (BoD) who are the ones that have voting power on decision, known as Board Members (BM). There are more details and they are all in the statutes which are on the association web site in PDF format in Dutch and English.<br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">The board and the permanent members do not have enough new blood, in my opinion. </blockquote>
<div><br>New blood was infused in Jan 2008 and Jan 2009.<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">The idea of "permanent" members is just plain bad in my opinion. </blockquote>
<div><br>This has been brought up several times within the association, and there is talk on changing that. As a matter of fact many aspects of the statutes are being proposed for revision. They are not cast in stone and can be changed. <br>
<br>We like to hear your feedback, as well as others on all aspects of the association.<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
The custom more often found in North America of having board members rotate would be much healthier for the organization, in my opinion. </blockquote><div><br>The board members have two year terms. ALL BOARD POSITIONS WERE UP FOR ELECTION THIS YEAR, including Dries himself. The only exception was the position of secretary (Angie Byron). <br>
<br>Anyone could have run for president. No one did, and Dries was voted (I like to joke and say I was not sure, but voted for him :-) ).<br> <br>Just for fun, and because I wanted to blog on it for a long time, but never got around to it: Here is a breakup of the GA and BoD by geography:<br>
<br>The bulk of members of the GA and the BoD is North American. Heavy towards USians and Canadians. <br><br><a href="http://association.drupal.org/about/staff" target="_blank">http://association.drupal.org/about/staff</a><br>
<br>For the BoD, Gerhard and Dries are in Europe, everyone else is from USA except for Angie is in Canada (she is American too), and Jacob is in China (also an American).<br>
<br>For the GA, Nedjo, Boris, and me are in Canada, and Kristof and Bert are in Europe. The rest are all In the USA. Robert Douglass lives in Germany and is also American.<br><br>So you can see that the USA is heavy in there, followed by Canada, then some Europe sprinkled in.<br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Though Dries has set a wonderful example of welcoming input, criticism, new ideas... I don't think the members of the General Assembly, with many exceptions, have done as well. And I'm not sure whether Dries recognizes this problem.<br>
</blockquote><div><br>We like to hear from you, and others, whether privately via the contact form at <a href="http://association.drupal.org" target="_blank">association.drupal.org</a> or other channels.<br><br>We realize that we should have better communication. But believe me, this is not due to secrecy, it is due to other factors as we grow as an organization and as we learn more.<br>
<br>There are plans in the works on better communication.<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>How is all this relevant to the current discussion? </blockquote>
<div><br>The Drupal Association's goals are many, and include the following:<br><br>- Promoting Drupal in general.<br>- Drupal Events (DrupalCon mainly, others in the work).<br>- Running the infrastructure for *.<a href="http://drupal.org" target="_blank">drupal.org</a>.<br>
<br>What is NOT in the asscoiation's mandate is <br><br>- Dictating what code goes into Drupal's core or contrib<br>- Dictate what is supported or not supported.<br><br>These are all community driven, and the association stays clear out of these.<br>
<br>Look at what Dries himself presented a couple of days ago on building communities<br><br><a href="http://buytaert.net/files/building-foss-communities-osbc-2009.pdf" target="_blank">http://buytaert.net/files/building-foss-communities-osbc-2009.pdf</a><br>
<br>Notable by its absence is the association.<br><br>Please ask any other questions that you (or others) may have, and me as well as others from the DA will try to answer them the best as we can.<br></div></div><font color="#888888">-- <br>
Khalid M. Baheyeldin<br>
<a href="http://2bits.com" target="_blank">2bits.com</a>, Inc.<br><a href="http://2bits.com" target="_blank">http://2bits.com</a><br>Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.<br>Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. -- Edsger W.Dijkstra<br>
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. -- Leonardo da Vinci<br>
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