http://www.pledgebank.com/support-okfn Comments on 'set up a standing order of at least £5 a month to help the Open Knowledge Foundation keep developing and promoting open knowledge' en-gb team@pledgebank.com 1901-01-01T00:00+00:00 2 hourly http://www.pledgebank.com/support-okfn#comment_2990457 (Pledgebank has only just emailed me the above comments. Oh well, better late than never.) OKFN could define its membership in many different ways, but having no membership is probably the worst possible choice. The drawbacks of the approaches of other groups aren't reasons not to even try. Personally, I've made "glancing blows" on OKFN and its relatives, but never really got involved because of the time needed to try to winkle out how to help and the disincentive of having no formal voice (AFAICT). So far, other groups have seemed easier and more rewarding to help. I think OKFN's aims are important, so it upsets me to see it taking what I think is a step in a wrong (ORG-like) direction with this pledge. Voting is not sufficient to get to democracy, but it seems a necessary element. This question seems to have been ignored: I expected the usual SMOF membership process from the description of the board on the OKFN website. Is it more open than that? http://www.pledgebank.com/support-okfn#comment_2984033 To add to Jo's comments: The OKF is rather different from the Open Rights Group (ORG). ORG is intended to be, and acts much more, like a standard "core-funded" organization with the majority of the main work done by the paid staff (for policy and media work that is what is really needed). At the OKF I think we aim to be rather different, much more like the ASF/OSGeo (or even Wikipedia) model (and that is what the governance document says). Up until now membership has not been that formalized because we were small enough that it could be equated directly with those people involved in projects on a day to day basis. Perhaps now that we are seeking to expand somewhat we should formalize this and make membership more formally explicit. http://www.pledgebank.com/support-okfn#comment_2983418 dear MJ, OKFN isn't a membership organisation, so how can we make an electorate? OpenStreetmap's foundation membership is pay-to-join. Wikimedia's is based on activity level. ASF's is a social network - to become a member, you have to be recommended by one. OSGeo, of which I was a director for 3 years, was modelled on ASF, but with the membership expanding by a set amount on a vote of the existing membership each year. People vote for who they know of and respect through technical work, but this does mean the interests of the electorate become self-similar, and membership can become seen as exclusive, and this filters up to the Board. The closest analogy to where OKFN is now is the Open Rights Group - it has paid supporters, Board positions are openly advertised but people are "appointed" to positions (by the existing Board? the advisory Board? I am not sure). This fundraising approach here on pledgebank is based on what ORG did to get their first 1000 supporters. In OKFN's case, for the last few years the Board has been there to provide oversight of the corporate accounting information, and that's about it. All llanning and project work is done in public on the okfn-discuss list and on irc, by anyone who wants to make the effort. I am not sure, in any case, that voting is an effective way to get to democracy. http://www.pledgebank.com/support-okfn#comment_2983077 ITYM http://www.okfn.org/governance and it should link to http://www.apache.org/foundation/ rather than http://www.okfn.org/www.apache.org I think an elected board is a key step towards democratic leadership. The above page claims that OKFN is inspired by ASF, yet ASF has a democratically-controlled board (elected and accountable). OKFN doesn't. In fact, OKFN Board member is specifically missing from the "Roles" section of the Governance page. I've not seen OKFN's governing documents, but I expected the usual SMOF membership process from that description. Is it more open that that? http://www.pledgebank.com/support-okfn#comment_2982891 MJ, Thanks for your comment. What exactly do you mean by democratic leadership? As detailed in the governance document (http://www.okfn.org/goverance) anyone can propose and run a project. Of course we still have a Board to coordinate things, maintain infrastructure, raise money etc but membership is based simply a willingness to get constructively involved and "do stuff". PS: sorry to see ukcdr domain has been taken over by squatters - we'll remove the hyperlink. http://www.pledgebank.com/support-okfn#comment_2982598 Open the organisation to democratic leadership and I'd consider it. I'm sick of the "give us your money until we get big enough to ignore you" approach to organisation-building, so I'm generally not supporting closed-leadership private corporations any more. http://www.okfn.org/about/people lists more than half of the supporters at the time of writing. It also links to a domain squatter (ukcdr). http://www.pledgebank.com/support-okfn#comment_2982058 wow... keep on fire mate http://www.pledgebank.com/support-okfn#comment_2981567 Instructions on how to set up a regular donation are at http://www.okfn.org/support/.