[Osia-members] Call for expressions of interest to serve on the board of OSIA

[Jack Burton]

On Fri, 2018-01-05 at 06:35 +1100, Cameron Shorter wrote: 
> Jack,
> 
> It looks like OSIA is currently challenged in finding volunteers with 
> sufficient time commitment to resource OSIA official positions. So I 
> think it appropriate to ask: "Does OSIA gain any noticeable value by 
> being an incorporated company?"

My answer to Cameron's question is "yes".

Paul Foxworthy has made some good arguments against disestablishment on
the list today already, which I agree with.

But I would like to add this:

OSIA exists to represent the .au FOSS *industry*, and as such I believe
that a public company limited by guarantee remains the most appropriate
structure for it.

In my view, the most important[*] thing OSIA does (or should do) is
lobby governments for policies more advantageous to the .au FOSS
industry (and against those which discriminate against it).

Those governments are likely to take us less seriously (as a voice of
the industry, cf. as a voice of the community or of the profession) if
we adopt a less corporate structure.

[* note: just because I think it's the most important, doesn't mean I
think it's the *only* thing OSIA should do -- it just means that I
think that's the field which we should focus on restoring success in
first; once we're chalking up good runs there again, of course there
are lots of other things OSIA could also do *as extras* -- see Grant
Petch's recent post for some examples]

> Why not run OSIA like a simple Open Source project - with little more 
> than an email list, a Project Steering Committee, and simple voting 
> conventions? (We have successfully run the Australian chapter of the 
> Open Source Geospatial Foundation this way for ~ a decade).

I've said before and I still believe that OSIA should adopt the open
source *development model* for much of what it does -- e.g. drafting
submissions, managing infrastructure, etc. -- and I think we could get
a lot more done if we approached those tasks more like a FOSS project
approaches managing its code base.

For example, for submissions on public policy matters I'd like to see
something something along the lines of:

- all submissions drafted in a (private) cvs repository

- the directors (and perhaps a few others selected by the directors from
time to time after being solid, reliable contributors for a while) as
committers

- main cvs repo mirrored continuously to a public anoncvs (complete with
a web UI)

- *anyone* (whether a financial member or not) could contribute and/or
review diffs on the list[*]

- one director chosen as "maintainer" for each submission (okay, perhaps
that's stretching the metaphor a bit, but I'm sure you know what I mean)

[* perhaps a separate new list, say osia-policy@, as it would be very
high traffic while any submissions is being drafted, and those not
involved in that effort would probably see much of it as noise]

That's pretty much the model I proposed in my last chairman's address,
at the 2016 AGM, and I seem to recall that those present liked it.

The 2017 board chose not to adopt it -- but I don't see that as a
rejection of the model per se -- I don't know for sure because I wasn't
on the 2017 board, but my best guess is that they probably saw no point
in adopting that model because they seemed to be busy moving the focus
of the company away from public policy matters anyway (and organising
events isn't something that that model would be much help with).

But if the new board are to return OSIA's focus to public policy
matters (as I suggest they should), I think it's well worth revisiting
the idea of taking a more open source approach to much of that work.

I'm sure there are a lot of members who would be willing to
*contribute* to drafting the *occasional* submission on a topic that
they're experts on and/or that they have a specific interest in, if it
could be done in a way that's familiar to anyone who's contributed to a
FOSS project before (as opposed to joining a committee -- which is no
doubt seen as a much bigger commitment than just contributing or
reviewing a diff or three).

But to me, OSIA adopting the OSS development model is about specific
types of tasks. Drafting submissions & managing infrastructure are both
very similar sorts of processes to developing software, so they fit the
model quite nicely, but many other tasks don't (e.g. it is not possible
to meet with a stakeholder or give evidence before a public inquiry
collaboratively; and compliance tasks generally require a much more
traditional approach).

So I couldn't imagine governing the organisation *as a whole* that
way...

...but I do think there is real value in reusing the model we all
already believe in for software development, on other tasks that map
well to the same sorts of processes.

> The advantages are that you can reduce the red tape of managing money, 
> but you can still be quoted authoritatively and lobby government 
> agencies for change.

To be frank, the red tape isn't that much of a problem in the normal
course of things.

Right *now* it's a huge burden, but that's unique to the present set of
circumstances that the interim board has inherited. Our goal is to have
all that resolved by the time we hand over to the new board on 27 Jan
(a tall order in our very short term, but we're working hard towards
it), so that the new board can focus on advancing OSIA's core mission.

In my view, the problem here is *not* that we're short of people
willing to spend time dealing with red tape (in truth, the board only
need one or two such people).

Rather, the real problem we're trying to address with the SGM & EoI
process is that right now we're short of people willing to commit to
furthering OSIA's core purpose -- working consistently on public policy
initiatives.

If OSIA were replaced with an unincorporated body, I think we'd still
have the same issue -- yes, we might have a much bigger pool of
occasional contributors [which we could get in our current structure
anyway, by open sourcing the drafting process -- see above], but we'd
*still* need a core group of about half a dozen people who were
committed to being on the ball almost year-round.

>From what I've seen of various FOSS projects, the long-term successful
ones always have that solid core (sometimes *much* bigger, but 4 to 6
seems to be about the bare minimum to have a reasonable chance of
success).

Anyway, those are just my views (I'm not speaking on behalf of the
interim board here), so feel free to disagree.

I'd be interested to hear other members' thoughts too.