Release Candidate of the PostgreSQL Europe association statutes

hi everyone !

Proof-Reading
===========

After a few weeks of work, the statutes for the upcoming European user group
are ready to be submitted to you.

Check it out :
http://wiki.postgresqlfr.org/doku.php/pgeu:statutes

I wrote most of it, using the statutes of the french association as an
example. Andreas, Robert, Magnus and Stefan (among others) did some
proof-reading and made useful remarks. Many thanks to them !

Don't hesitate to make any comment on this document.

Once everyone is ok with it, i will translate the statutes in French. Only the
french version will be legally valid.

To put it clear ; if you have any remarks to make, **now is the time** !

Main principles
============

For people who don't want to bother with the legal babble, here's a concise
summary :

* The association is named "PostgreSQL Europe" and located in Paris,France .
Its main goal is to promote PostgreSQL in Europe.

* The association is composed of : active members (who pay the regular
membership fee ) , benefactor members ( who pay a more expensive annual
contribution ) and honorary members ( who have rendered service to the
association )

* Only active members can take part in voting and be candidate to elections.

* Once every year, the members gather to the "General Assembly" . A moral and
financial report is presented by the Executive Committee . The active members
proceed to the election of half of the "Board of Directors" . The active
members can also change the statutes if needed.

* The Board of Directors is composed of a least 3 members and at most 16
members. The Board meets on a regular basis (physically or electronically)
and takes the main decisions. Every year, the Board elects within its members
3 persons who will compose the Executive Committee

* The Executive Committee is in charge of the administrative work. It is
composed of a President ( who is the legal representant of the association),
a Treasurer ( who takes care of the money ) and a Secretary (who is basically
in charge of communication)

* The members of the first Executive Committee will have their names written
in the statutes and they'll have to sign these statutes ( written in french )

* Members are benevolent, they cannot receive any compensation, howeverthey
can obtain the payment of expenses incurred for the purposes of the
association. The association can have employees but they cannot be members
of the association.

* The association cannot make profits. All the money gathered must be used to
achieve the goals of the association

Roadmap
============

The first gathering of PostgreSQL Europe will happen in FOSDEM (fosdem.org) at
the end of February. We will collect the first membership applications and
elect the first Board of Directors.

To make things simple the first Board of Directors will be composed of 3
persons. Therefore these 3 persons will also be the 3 members of the
Executive Committee

I think Andreas will send a more specific document about the election
procedure.

Once these 3 persons are elected, i'll make them sign the french version of
the statutes. i'll go to the french authorities to register the association.
This will cost at least 30€ and it might take a week or two provided i don't
get caught in the french administration vortex madness :-)

Then i'll make a public announcement in the french official journal
(journal-officiel.gouv.fr). This might take another month. This might cost
money too.

Once the announcement is published in the official journal, the association
will be up and running

i hope this will happen before may.

then we'll have to open a bank account, but that's another story.

Rendez-vous at FOSDEM !
=================

As you can see we're in bit of a hurry. So the sooner you make comments and
ask questions about all this, the better.

Once a again i'd like thank every peoplewho helped me writing these statutes.

I really hope that many PostgreSQL fanatics will meet @ FOSDEM and that beyond
all these legal issues we can make this European User Group a reality !

Thanks for your attention !

Regards

--
damien clochard
http://dalibo.org | http://dalibo.com

Hi Damien

On 13/01/2008, damien clochard <damien(at)dalibo(dot)info> wrote:
> hi everyone !
>
> Proof-Reading
> ===========
>
> After a few weeks of work, the statutes for the upcoming European user group
> are ready to be submitted to you.

Thank you for working on this.

> * The association is composed of : active members (who pay the regular
> membership fee ) , benefactor members ( who pay a more expensive annual
> contribution )

I am *completely* opposed to this.

We agreed in Prato that the aim was to create an organisation to help
promote PostgreSQL in Europe, by providing support and resources to
regional groups (for example,economies of scale when purchasing swag),
as well as undertaking our own promotional work.

As you know, PostgreSQL is an Open Source project, comprised primarily
of people who work voluntarily. Yes, some of those (myself included)
are lucky enough to be employed to work on PostgreSQL these days, but
even so I think the vast majority of us still contribute over and
above what we're paid to do.

Why in that case, are we saying that people who wish to contribute and
be part of the European Group will have to *pay* for the privilege of
doing so? That is the most anti-Open Source way of running part of the
project I can possibly imagine, and seems like an exceptionally
efficient way to minimise the number of people that decide to help
out.

The world-wide organisation providing the same services as the
European Group has no need to charge membership fees (nor does it have
any formal concept of membership for that matter) - and yet it's bank
account is quite healthy thanks to the donations solicited from
grateful users and corporate sponsorship, and it regularly sponsors
speakers at events and purchases swag for shows (in fact, is probably
going to buy pins for us to take to FOSDEM).

What justification is there for the European group to charge a
membership fee when it's clearly not necessary for the stated purpose
of the group?

Regards, Dave

Dave Page wrote:
> Hi Damien
>
> On 13/01/2008, damien clochard <damien(at)dalibo(dot)info> wrote:
>> hi everyone !
>>
>> Proof-Reading
>> ===========
>>
>> After a few weeks of work, the statutes for the upcoming European user group
>> are ready to be submitted to you.
>
> Thank you for working on this.
>
>> * The association is composed of : active members (who pay the regular
>> membership fee ) , benefactor members ( who pay a more expensive annual
>> contribution )
>
> I am *completely* opposed to this.
>
> We agreed in Prato that the aim was to create an organisation to help
> promote PostgreSQL in Europe, by providing support and resources to
> regional groups (for example,economies of scale when purchasing swag),
> as well as undertaking our own promotional work.

So PostgreSQL EU is supposed to be like SPI except for a EU focus?
Interesting.

>
> As you know, PostgreSQL is an Open Source project, comprised primarily
> of people who work voluntarily. Yes, some of those (myself included)
> are lucky enough to be employed to work on PostgreSQL these days, but
> even so I think the vast majority of us still contribute over and
> above what we're paid to do.
>
> Why in that case, are we saying that people who wish to contribute and
> be part of the European Group will have to *pay* for the privilege of
> doing so? That is the most anti-Open Source way of running part of the
> project I can possibly imagine, and seems like an exceptionally
> efficient way to minimise the number of people that decide to help
> out.

It is how PostgreSQLFR does it now as I recall.

>
> The world-wide organisation providing the same services as the
> European Group has no need to charge membership fees (nor does it have
> any formal concept of membership for that matter)]

Well just to be clear, SPI (which per our jabber conversation is who you
are talking about) does have a formal membership concept. Not "anyone"
can join. Although SPI does not charge for membership.

http://www.spi-inc.org/about-spi/membership

> - and yet it's bank
> account is quite healthy thanks to the donations solicited from
> grateful users and corporate sponsorship, and it regularly sponsors
> speakers at events and purchases swag for shows (in fact, is probably
> going to buy pins for us to take to FOSDEM).

This is kind of a tangent here but I would note that the money that we
have in that account, for the most part is "solicited" in one form or
another. The community puts forth a great deal of effort to receive
those donations.

If the EU non-profit wants to be successful on that tier, there is going
to be some hard work to be done.

>
> What justification is there for the European group to charge a
> membership fee when it's clearly not necessary for the stated purpose
> of the group?

Many professional trade organizations require membership fees. I for the
most part don't have a problem with it. Although I was surprised that I
was asked for money to join PostgreSQLFR.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

>
> Regards, Dave
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
>

On 13/01/2008, Joshua D. Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote:
> So PostgreSQL EU is supposed to be like SPI except for a EU focus?
> Interesting.

That was my understanding of the outcome of the meeting in Prato. We
would become an umbrella organisation to support individual user
groups in different countries, providing standard flyers and swag etc,
legal and financial services and so on.

> It is how PostgreSQLFR does it now as I recall.

Which is understandable, because they are a user group, presumably
providing newsletters, and organising events etc. for their members -
similar to what JPUG does I imagine. The vast majority of people in
those organisations are joining (and paying) for the benefits, not for
what they can contribute.

> Well just to be clear, SPI (which per our jabber conversation is who you
> are talking about) does have a formal membership concept. Not "anyone"
> can join. Although SPI does not charge for membership.
>
> http://www.spi-inc.org/about-spi/membership

Yeah, I am one. I was thinking more about the PostgreSQL Funds Group
and -advocacy though, SPI being more or less just a bank account in
that case (yes, I know it's not quite that simple).

> This is kind of a tangent here but I would note that the money that we
> have in that account, for the most part is "solicited" in one form or
> another. The community puts forth a great deal of effort to receive
> those donations.
>
> If the EU non-profit wants to be successful on that tier, there is going
> to be some hard work to be done.

No doubt.

> Many professional trade organizations require membership fees. I for the
> most part don't have a problem with it. Although I was surprised that I
> was asked for money to join PostgreSQLFR.

Yes - and I'd expect to pay those to the UK PostgreSQL User Group
(which is being worked on), which in turn I would expect to be
supported by the EU organisation (acting in a similar manner to PG-FG
& SPI rolled into one).

/D

Ciao Joshua,
> Many professional trade organizations require membership fees. I for
> the most part don't have a problem with it. Although I was surprised
> that I was asked for money to join PostgreSQLFR.
Self-funding is a pretty common practice in Italy as well for non-profit
organisations. Keep in mind that the membership fee is usually a
symbolic donation. It is in the spirit of volunteer members that want to
put some of their money in an official association.

That's the case, for instance, of the Italian PostgreSQL Users Group as
well. We have just one typology of members, standard members, and the
annual fee is 25 euro. Running a non-profit organisation has some costs,
and members accept it.

I repeat, that's pretty normal in Italy, and I assume in France as well.
I cannot speak for other European countries though.

Of course, one of the organisation's objectives, as you mentioned, is to
raise money through events, partnerships, sponsorships, campaigns, etc.
and to reinvest in free software somehow (through promotion or even
project startups). This is one of the key goals of ITPUG, but I doubt it
will be reached before the end of the year (we will try hard - but it
all plays around IT PGDay 2008 organisation).

Ciao,
Gabriele

--
Gabriele Bartolini: Open source programmer and data architect
Current Location: Prato, Tuscany, Italy
gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com | www.gabrielebartolini.it
"If I had been born ugly, you would never have heard of Pelé", George Best
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gbartolini

Ciao Gabriele

On 13/01/2008, Gabriele Bartolini <gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> That's the case, for instance, of the Italian PostgreSQL Users Group as
> well. We have just one typology of members, standard members, and the
> annual fee is 25 euro. Running a non-profit organisation has some costs,
> and members accept it.

I think maybe we have some miscommunication between us here. My
understanding of what we all agreed in Prato was that PG-EU would be
an 'umbrella' organisation, supporting the regional user groups.

In that scenario, the only 'members' of PG-EU would be the regional
groups themselves, and the staff/volunteers running it.

Normal users would join their regional group, such as PostgreSQLFr or
the Italian PUG, and pay the appropriate membership.

Otherwise, many users will only join one or the other which would make
PG-EU and the regional groups competitors with each other.

For example, if PG-EU operated as a user group, why would I bother
joining it instead of the UK User Group which we're just trying to
setup? Or, should we just not bother with the UK group?

In the scenario I thought we'd agreed, the UK user group would take
membership from users and use some of that to pay for it's membership
in PG-EU. In return, PG-EU would provide legal status and banking
facilities, and as well as providing access to standardised flyers and
other materials, as well as t-shirts and fluffy elephants etc, bulk
purchased for the benefit of all member organisations.

Regards Dave

Hello all,

On Sun, Jan 13, 2008 at 09:46:35PM +0000, Dave Page wrote:
>
> On 13/01/2008, Gabriele Bartolini <gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> > That's the case, for instance, of the Italian PostgreSQL Users Group as
> > well. We have just one typology of members, standard members, and the
> > annual fee is 25 euro. Running a non-profit organisation has some costs,
> > and members accept it.
>
> I think maybe we have some miscommunication between us here. My
> understanding of what we all agreed in Prato was that PG-EU would be
> an 'umbrella' organisation, supporting the regional user groups.
>
> In that scenario, the only 'members' of PG-EU would be the regional
> groups themselves, and the staff/volunteers running it.
>
> Normal users would join their regional group, such as PostgreSQLFr or
> the Italian PUG, and pay the appropriate membership.

What about the many countries without regional associations?
Not even germany has a group or is forming one. What about UK?

> Otherwise, many users will only join one or the other which would make
> PG-EU and the regional groups competitors with each other.

Why? They can work in both and i don't see competition here.

> For example, if PG-EU operated as a user group, why would I bother
> joining it instead of the UK User Group which we're just trying to
> setup? Or, should we just not bother with the UK group?

If UK has a group, nice, very good. Thats for regional work, if you have
enough members to support the work. But the EU group is also for
countries which don't have a regional group. We also should be present
in this countries and one of the topics could be building regional
groups.

So what is the real problem here? The membership fee? Or the "umbrella"
status?

Kind regards

--
Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
German PostgreSQL User Group

Ciao Dave,

Dave Page ha scritto:
> I think maybe we have some miscommunication between us here. My
> understanding of what we all agreed in Prato was that PG-EU would be
> an 'umbrella' organisation, supporting the regional user groups.
>
No no ... don't worry, it is not a miscommunication. It is all clear. I
guess some of those ideas came up from me as well. :)

Mine was just an example to let everyone know that paying a fee is quite
normal in non-profit organisation in Italy. :)

Also, the umbrella organisation was there for those users that did not
have a national group (small countries). In that case EU-PUG is the
direct link.
> In that scenario, the only 'members' of PG-EU would be the regional
> groups themselves, and the staff/volunteers running it.
>
Yep. Clear. However, we must keep in mind small countries that do not
have a national group.
> Normal users would join their regional group, such as PostgreSQLFr or
> the Italian PUG, and pay the appropriate membership.
>
Exactly. I guess PG-EU should allow standard membership for those
countries that do not have a national group (a non profit organisation).
For those that have one (at the moment France and Italy, soon UK),
membership will be automatically redirected to the national group. The
national group will pay an annual fee (or part of the member quote) to
the EU PUG.

I guess we can work this out.
> Otherwise, many users will only join one or the other which would make
> PG-EU and the regional groups competitors with each other.
>
No way!!!
> For example, if PG-EU operated as a user group, why would I bother
> joining it instead of the UK User Group which we're just trying to
> setup? Or, should we just not bother with the UK group?
>
In Italy, the Group was a necessity. As I have said several times, a
non-profit organisation is necessary if you want to relate yourself with
the government, with business, with companies, with third-parties in
general in a legal way.

Organising events such as last year's PGDay is not possible if you are
not a non-profit organisation (ok, there are other ways, but I like to
keep it in a volunteering scenario).
> In the scenario I thought we'd agreed, the UK user group would take
> membership from users and use some of that to pay for it's membership
> in PG-EU.
Ok.
> In return, PG-EU would provide legal status and banking
> facilities, and as well as providing access to standardised flyers and
> other materials, as well as t-shirts and fluffy elephants etc, bulk
> purchased for the benefit of all member organisations.
>
I guess having an independent financial situation (if affordable by
volunteers of the national group) is preferred for national issues. But
the rest and overall scale economies are one of the major reasons for
the group (not the only one though - and I do not want to cite the
others now :) ).

Thanks Dave.

Ciao,
Gabriele

--
Gabriele Bartolini: Open source programmer and data architect
Current Location: Prato, Tuscany, Italy
gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com | www.gabrielebartolini.it
"If I had been born ugly, you would never have heard of Pelé", George Best
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gbartolini

On 13/01/2008, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum <ads(at)pgug(dot)de> wrote:
> > Normal users would join their regional group, such as PostgreSQLFr or
> > the Italian PUG, and pay the appropriate membership.
>
> What about the many countries without regional associations?
> Not even germany has a group or is forming one. What about UK?

That's a whole other issue but an important point.

> > Otherwise, many users will only join one or the other which would make
> > PG-EU and the regional groups competitors with each other.
>
> Why? They can work in both and i don't see competition here.

A new user decides to join a user group and finds the UK and a
European user group. Which does he join? My bet is that he's unlikely
to pay both.

> If UK has a group, nice, very good. Thats for regional work, if you have
> enough members to support the work. But the EU group is also for
> countries which don't have a regional group. We also should be present
> in this countries and one of the topics could be building regional
> groups.

Yes. What we could do is have a category of paid membership for
*users* for those countries without their own organisation. When they
are ready to start their own, we simply transfer their membership to
their new group, and take a membership fee from the group instead.
That way we have no competition or confusion between regional or EU
groups, because the EU group would only operate as a user group in
countries without their own.

> So what is the real problem here? The membership fee? Or the "umbrella"
> status?

Having a membership fee for contributors to an umbrella group. Think
of it as if you had to pay country and EU income tax. You don't - you
pay income tax to your government, and they pay to be a member of the
EU. The administration (contributors) certainly don't pay to help run
the EU.

/D

On 13/01/2008, Gabriele Bartolini <gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> Exactly. I guess PG-EU should allow standard membership for those
> countries that do not have a national group (a non profit organisation).
> For those that have one (at the moment France and Italy, soon UK),
> membership will be automatically redirected to the national group. The
> national group will pay an annual fee (or part of the member quote) to
> the EU PUG.

Yes!! That's almost exactly what I just wrote to Andreas :-)

If others are in agreement, can the rules be reworked to allow for this?

/D

Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:
> Hello all,

>> Normal users would join their regional group, such as PostgreSQLFr or
>> the Italian PUG, and pay the appropriate membership.
>
> What about the many countries without regional associations?
> Not even germany has a group or is forming one. What about UK?

I thought Germany was organized through:

http://www.ffis.de/Verein/spenden.html

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

Ciao Dave,

Dave Page ha scritto:
> Yes!! That's almost exactly what I just wrote to Andreas :-)
>
;)
> If others are in agreement, can the rules be reworked to allow for this?
>
I don't know if it is worth writing it in the statute. I am asking the
French guys to confirm this. In Italy, you try and define the main goals
and the management issues in the statute. The more practical and
operative issues are left in an external document, which can be flexibly
(but democratically) changed.

This is because a change in the statute comes at a price: you need to
deposit again to the official authorities and pay taxes. Maybe if France
this is not the case, but I guess it is worth asking.

Ciao,
Gabriele

--
Gabriele Bartolini: Open source programmer and data architect
Current Location: Prato, Tuscany, Italy
gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com | www.gabrielebartolini.it
"If I had been born ugly, you would never have heard of Pelé", George Best
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gbartolini

On 13/01/2008, Gabriele Bartolini <gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> Ciao Dave,
>
> Dave Page ha scritto:
> > Yes!! That's almost exactly what I just wrote to Andreas :-)
> >
> ;)
> > If others are in agreement, can the rules be reworked to allow for this?
> >
> I don't know if it is worth writing it in the statute. I am asking the
> French guys to confirm this. In Italy, you try and define the main goals
> and the management issues in the statute. The more practical and
> operative issues are left in an external document, which can be flexibly
> (but democratically) changed.

Yes, but you'd need some way for member *organisations* to vote -
either by giving (for example) the PostgreSQLFr board a number of
votes equal to the number of members they have, or by allowing their
members to vote in the affairs of the EU organisation.

Otherwise, only the countries with no group of their own (ie. the
direct membership you propose) could vote.

/D

Dave Page wrote:
> On 13/01/2008, Gabriele Bartolini <gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>> Ciao Dave,

> Otherwise, only the countries with no group of their own (ie. the
> direct membership you propose) could vote.

Why not just have individual membership in the spirit of SPI?

Joshua D. Drake

Hello,

On Sun, Jan 13, 2008 at 02:09:06PM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:
>
> >>Normal users would join their regional group, such as PostgreSQLFr or
> >>the Italian PUG, and pay the appropriate membership.
> >
> >What about the many countries without regional associations?
> >Not even germany has a group or is forming one. What about UK?
>
> I thought Germany was organized through:
>
> http://www.ffis.de/Verein/spenden.html

No. That's an organization to assist Free Software. Susanne Ebrecht
organized that all money for german PG is going to this group and they
support us, if we need something. But i don't think, there's much
process here.

In any case i would be more happy to redirect possible sponsors to an EU
PG group.

Kind regards

--
Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
German PostgreSQL User Group

On Sun, Jan 13, 2008 at 02:24:39PM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Dave Page wrote:
> >On 13/01/2008, Gabriele Bartolini <gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> >>Ciao Dave,
>
> >Otherwise, only the countries with no group of their own (ie. the
> >direct membership you propose) could vote.
>
> Why not just have individual membership in the spirit of SPI?

I go with this for several reasons:

- Why should someone be blocked if he wants to be member in both groups?
- What about elections, does a country like france now has one
single vote or has every .fr member a vote for eu elections?

For the fee: my student organization has a similar rule in the statues.
Every year the annual meeting redefines the membership fee for each
student to 0,00 Euro. No problem. We can have an equal rule as example
for members in more than one group.

Kind regards

--
Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
German PostgreSQL User Group

On 13/01/2008, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum <ads(at)pgug(dot)de> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 13, 2008 at 02:24:39PM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > Dave Page wrote:
> > >On 13/01/2008, Gabriele Bartolini <gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> > >>Ciao Dave,
> >
> > >Otherwise, only the countries with no group of their own (ie. the
> > >direct membership you propose) could vote.
> >
> > Why not just have individual membership in the spirit of SPI?

Because SPI is a mess?

> I go with this for several reasons:
>
> - Why should someone be blocked if he wants to be member in both groups?

For what purpose? If both groups offer end user services such as
newletters and local events, then they are by definition in
competition. If they do it all together, why would I pay twice for the
same thing (even if one membership were free)? Would I get 2 copies of
the same newsletter etc?

> - What about elections, does a country like france now has one
> single vote or has every .fr member a vote for eu elections?

One simple answer is that PostgreSQLFr pay a small percentage of each
members fee for a group membership in PG-EU. Their board are then
awarded that number of votes in PG-EU matters.

I can only see this working effectively if PG-EU operates for users
where there is no regional group, and as an umbrella organisation
where there are. Otherwise there will always be the chance of
confusion, competition, duplication of effort and so on.

Regards, Dave

Le Sunday 13 January 2008 23:14:30 Gabriele Bartolini, vous avez écrit :
> Ciao Dave,
>
> Dave Page ha scritto:
> > Yes!! That's almost exactly what I just wrote to Andreas :-)
>
> ;)
>
> > If others are in agreement, can the rules be reworked to allow for this?
>
> I don't know if it is worth writing it in the statute. I am asking the
> French guys to confirm this. In Italy, you try and define the main goals
> and the management issues in the statute. The more practical and
> operative issues are left in an external document, which can be flexibly
> (but democratically) changed.

Exactly.

>
> This is because a change in the statute comes at a price: you need to
> deposit again to the official authorities and pay taxes. Maybe if France
> this is not the case, but I guess it is worth asking.
>

Changing the statutes will be a pain and it will cost money, no doubt about
that.

Here's some more information about how membership fee works in the pgfr
association. An active member can be an individual, an association or a
company. The membership fee is different for each : individuals have to pay
20€, associations have to pay 200€ , companies have to pay 400€. These prices
are not defined in the statutes.

By the way, from my point of view money is not the key. I agree with what Dave
said in the first place : for an Open-Source project having many contributors
is far more important than having a big bank account. However money can be
useful in some cases and self-funding is a mean of Independence.

But maybe there's a third way that can get us out of this issue. Let's say
that instead a setting a standard membership free, we propose a "free
membership fee". I mean : any member is free to pay what he wants or what
you can give.

Let's call that "WYCIWYG membership" : What You Can Is What You Give :P

With this system there would be no frustration :

- a person from a country with no local user group could say : « there's no
association my country so i'm joining the European Group and i pay the
membership fee that i can afford »

- a french speaking person who is already member of pgfr could say : « ok
i'm already paying the pgfr membership , and pgfr gives money to the European
Group, so i'm only giving a symbolic fee of 1€ to the European association »

Of course this proposition doesn't solve the bottom-line issue which is ( if
i understand correctly ) : Do we want a federal organization or a
transnational organization or both ? But the main advantage of the "free
membership fee" is that it works in the 3 cases :-) The second advantage is
that we don't have to change the statutes to make it happen.

Good night !

--
damien clochard
http://dalibo.org | http://dalibo.com

On 13/01/2008, damien clochard <damien(at)dalibo(dot)info> wrote:
> Of course this proposition doesn't solve the bottom-line issue which is ( if
> i understand correctly ) : Do we want a federal organization or a
> transnational organization or both ?

Yes.

> But the main advantage of the "free
> membership fee" is that it works in the 3 cases :-)

It does - but I believe it still leaves the EU vs. regional
organisational structure open to the problems I mentioned in my last
message.

> The second advantage is
> that we don't have to change the statutes to make it happen.

Now I'm confused - I thought getting them just right /now/ was the
entire point of your email?

Regards, Dave.

Dave Page wrote:
> On 13/01/2008, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum <ads(at)pgug(dot)de> wrote:
>> On Sun, Jan 13, 2008 at 02:24:39PM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>>> Dave Page wrote:
>>>> On 13/01/2008, Gabriele Bartolini <gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>>>>> Ciao Dave,
>>>> Otherwise, only the countries with no group of their own (ie. the
>>>> direct membership you propose) could vote.
>>> Why not just have individual membership in the spirit of SPI?
>
> Because SPI is a mess?

Yes but that isn't because of the way membership is handled :). It is
because of lack of management. If the membership committee kept up with
the members the way they are supposed to, it isn't an issue.

What I meant was exactly the above, have a membership committee. Maybe
that is just the executive committee (board), maybe it is separate and
have a very simple vote structure.

I wouldn't expect the convoluted by-laws etc.. that SPI has.

>
>> I go with this for several reasons:
>>
>> - Why should someone be blocked if he wants to be member in both groups?
>
> For what purpose? If both groups offer end user services such as
> newletters and local events, then they are by definition in
> competition. If they do it all together, why would I pay twice for the
> same thing (even if one membership were free)? Would I get 2 copies of
> the same newsletter etc?

I think the key Dave is trying to get at is the payment itself. You
shouldn't have to pay to be a member of a PostgreSQL community
organization. You should have a nominal expectation of participation though.

>
>> - What about elections, does a country like france now has one
>> single vote or has every .fr member a vote for eu elections?
>
> One simple answer is that PostgreSQLFr pay a small percentage of each
> members fee for a group membership in PG-EU. Their board are then
> awarded that number of votes in PG-EU matters.

That sounds dangerous. Consider a user group that has more money than
another. You are allowing money to talk and are likely going to alienate
people.

IMO, each recognized member of each PUG gets exactly one vote.

>
> I can only see this working effectively if PG-EU operates for users
> where there is no regional group, and as an umbrella organisation
> where there are. Otherwise there will always be the chance of
> confusion, competition, duplication of effort and so on.

+1

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

Le Monday 14 January 2008 00:16:39 Dave Page, vous avez écrit :
> > - What about elections, does a country like france now has one
> > single vote or has every .fr member a vote for eu elections?
>
> One simple answer is that PostgreSQLFr pay a small percentage of each
> members fee for a group membership in PG-EU. Their board are then
> awarded that number of votes in PG-EU matters.

I'm sure but i think this is not possible under the french law. I think there
is no alternative to the rule "1 member = 1 vote".

I think it is dangerous when the number of votes depends on the money you
give. Actually what happens if a company comes, pays the same amount that
PostgreSQLFr and then ask for the same number of voices ?

Even if we can write new rules in the statutes to avoid this kind of
situation, that's totally out of the KISS philosophy.

--
damien clochard
http://dalibo.org | http://dalibo.com

Hello,

On Sun, Jan 13, 2008 at 08:55:43PM +0000, Dave Page wrote:
>
> On 13/01/2008, damien clochard <damien(at)dalibo(dot)info> wrote:
> > hi everyone !
> >
> > Proof-Reading
> > ===========

you all know, what "proof-reading" means, or? The current version is not
written in stone. But:

I looked up in my pgug folder, damien's announcement mail with the link
to the statues was sent at 200-11-06. That's more than two months ago!
And nobody replied, no one!

So we worked this out on IRC, simplified the original version (the
french original is much longer and complicated), changed a lot of
details to meet european requirements and today we sent this version
around. Normally only some minor changes should be reqired. But now we
find out that we have contrary positions on some vital details.

This could be solved weeks ago :-(

> We agreed in Prato that the aim was to create an organisation to help
> promote PostgreSQL in Europe, by providing support and resources to
> regional groups (for example,economies of scale when purchasing swag),
> as well as undertaking our own promotional work.

Yes, "providing support", "providing help to local groups", "promote PG"
ect. I can't remember words about blocking membership if you are already
in another PG organization or about rivalry between local and european
group.

> Why in that case, are we saying that people who wish to contribute and
> be part of the European Group will have to *pay* for the privilege of
> doing so? That is the most anti-Open Source way of running part of the
> project I can possibly imagine, and seems like an exceptionally
> efficient way to minimise the number of people that decide to help
> out.

Ok, a membership fee for people is maybe not a very good idea. But a
fee for organizations or companies is widely known. So maybe we should
change parts of the statues here. If we don't have a membership fee for
persons, we avoid all the following problems like having organizations
pay for their members to the eu group.

But personally: i would like to be member in both groups, my local group
(if there would be any) and the european group. Why not?

Kind regards

--
Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
German PostgreSQL User Group

On 13/01/2008, damien clochard <damien(at)dalibo(dot)info> wrote:
> Le Monday 14 January 2008 00:16:39 Dave Page, vous avez écrit:
> > > - What about elections, does a country like france now has one
> > > single vote or has every .fr member a vote for eu elections?
> >
> > One simple answer is that PostgreSQLFr pay a small percentage of each
> > members fee for a group membership in PG-EU. Their board are then
> > awarded that number of votes in PG-EU matters.
>
> I'm sure but i think this is not possible under the french law. I think there
> is no alternative to the rule "1 member = 1 vote".

Well thats another perfectly good option that won't force PG-EU to
operate as a user group within France. We would just say that every
member of a organisation that is itself a member of PG-EU is entitled
to vote in PG-EU matters.

> I think it is dangerous when the number of votes depends on the money you
> give. Actually what happens if a company comes, pays the same amount that
> PostgreSQLFr and then ask for the same number of voices ?

That's *not* what I was suggesting. I was suggesting that a member
organisations fee's are based on the number of members it has, and
that it gets a single vote for each member. The only difference to 1
member == 1 vote would be that the board of the member organisation
decide how the members votes be cast - similar to the way our
governments vote on our behalf in EU matters (but without the
convoluted way of calculating how many votes each country gets).

Regards, Dave

Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:
> Hello,

> Ok, a membership fee for people is maybe not a very good idea. But a
> fee for organizations or companies is widely known. So maybe we should
> change parts of the statues here. If we don't have a membership fee for
> persons, we avoid all the following problems like having organizations
> pay for their members to the eu group.

It is up to you folks but I strongly suggest *not* having companies be
members. If you want companies to be *sponsors* that is good but the
moment you allow companies to be members, they will *expect* something
for that money. Explicitly things like direction and certain amounts of
control.

People are members, companies are sponsors. I would also suggest that
sponsorships be clearly defined as to the benefits thereof.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

On 14/01/2008, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum <ads(at)pgug(dot)de> wrote:
> I looked up in my pgug folder, damien's announcement mail with the link
> to the statues was sent at 200-11-06. That's more than two months ago!
> And nobody replied, no one!

I don't recall that email.

> Yes, "providing support", "providing help to local groups", "promote PG"
> ect. I can't remember words about blocking membership if you are already
> in another PG organization or about rivalry between local and european
> group.

We didn't even discuss 'membership' because we weren't talking about a
user group!! *That's* what I object to paying for - I'd be happy to
pay to join a real user group like PostgreSQLFr.

This of this like the PostgreSQL funds group who handling the global
funding etc. There is no membership - just a bunch of people who all
contribute towards getting the required work done.

> But personally: i would like to be member in both groups, my local group
> (if there would be any) and the european group. Why not?

Because there would be no point, with it not being a user group!!
Except it has now been suggested that it *could* be a user group in
countries without their own (which I would support).

/D

On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 12:15:59AM +0000, Dave Page wrote:
> On 14/01/2008, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum <ads(at)pgug(dot)de> wrote:
> > I looked up in my pgug folder, damien's announcement mail with the link
> > to the statues was sent at 200-11-06. That's more than two months ago!
> > And nobody replied, no one!
>
> I don't recall that email.

*hrmpf*

> > Yes, "providing support", "providing help to local groups", "promote PG"
> > ect. I can't remember words about blocking membership if you are already
> > in another PG organization or about rivalry between local and european
> > group.
>
> We didn't even discuss 'membership' because we weren't talking about a
> user group!! *That's* what I object to paying for - I'd be happy to
> pay to join a real user group like PostgreSQLFr.

We discussed a lot this evening and maybe the only real conclusion was,
that we want an user group for europe. For me, a user group goes along
with "membership" in this group.

> This of this like the PostgreSQL funds group who handling the global
> funding etc. There is no membership - just a bunch of people who all
> contribute towards getting the required work done.

It seems, we all have very difficult ideas about how to build this group.

Bye

--
Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
German PostgreSQL User Group

Hello,

On Sun, Jan 13, 2008 at 04:14:19PM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:
>
> >Ok, a membership fee for people is maybe not a very good idea. But a
> >fee for organizations or companies is widely known. So maybe we should
> >change parts of the statues here. If we don't have a membership fee for
> >persons, we avoid all the following problems like having organizations
> >pay for their members to the eu group.
>
> It is up to you folks but I strongly suggest *not* having companies be
> members. If you want companies to be *sponsors* that is good but the
> moment you allow companies to be members, they will *expect* something
> for that money. Explicitly things like direction and certain amounts of
> control.
>
> People are members, companies are sponsors. I would also suggest that
> sponsorships be clearly defined as to the benefits thereof.

Good point, yes. Thank you for the reminder.

Kind regards

--
Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
German PostgreSQL User Group

On 14/01/2008, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum <ads(at)pgug(dot)de> wrote:

> It seems, we all have very difficult ideas about how to build this group.

So it would seem :-)

I will propose in a new thread what I see as the purpose of the group
and how it might work taking into account our discussion here.
Hopefully we can adjust that until we're all happy and then ensure
that the statutes will allow us to work in that way.

Regards, Dave

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008, Dave Page wrote:

> Ciao Gabriele
>
> On 13/01/2008, Gabriele Bartolini <gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>> That's the case, for instance, of the Italian PostgreSQL Users Group as
>> well. We have just one typology of members, standard members, and the
>> annual fee is 25 euro. Running a non-profit organisation has some costs,
>> and members accept it.
>
> I think maybe we have some miscommunication between us here. My
> understanding of what we all agreed in Prato was that PG-EU would be
> an 'umbrella' organisation, supporting the regional user groups.

What's about those who don't have regional organization ?

>
> In that scenario, the only 'members' of PG-EU would be the regional
> groups themselves, and the staff/volunteers running it.
>
> Normal users would join their regional group, such as PostgreSQLFr or
> the Italian PUG, and pay the appropriate membership.
>
> Otherwise, many users will only join one or the other which would make
> PG-EU and the regional groups competitors with each other.
>
> For example, if PG-EU operated as a user group, why would I bother
> joining it instead of the UK User Group which we're just trying to
> setup? Or, should we just not bother with the UK group?
>
> In the scenario I thought we'd agreed, the UK user group would take
> membership from users and use some of that to pay for it's membership
> in PG-EU. In return, PG-EU would provide legal status and banking
> facilities, and as well as providing access to standardised flyers and
> other materials, as well as t-shirts and fluffy elephants etc, bulk
> purchased for the benefit of all member organisations.
>
> Regards Dave
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
>

Regards,
Oleg
_____________________________________________________________
Oleg Bartunov, Research Scientist, Head of AstroNet (www.astronet.ru),
Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University, Russia
Internet: oleg(at)sai(dot)msu(dot)su, http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/
phone: +007(495)939-16-83, +007(495)939-23-83

Hi all,

> It is up to you folks but I strongly suggest *not* having companies be
> members. If you want companies to be *sponsors* that is good but the
> moment you allow companies to be members, they will *expect* something
> for that money. Explicitly things like direction and certain amounts of
> control.

Thats not true in France, and maybe Europe I guess.

For a company here, to take part of an OSS non-profit organization is
not to take any control on it or even expect something for the money.

Companies here do it mainly to support OSS things. Its a political act.

Its also a way to donate money too, like a simple sponsor would do.

But, *be part* of the organization gives it more political power.

As the director of dalibo (and because all of us here wanted to), we're
part of the APRIL Free Software non-profit group in France.

Just look at this:

http://adherents.april.org/personnes-morales.php#entreprises

This is the listing of companies wich are members of APRIL (April is in
the FSF-Europe Group, and then in the FSF Worldwide. There are also
links between April and other groups like EuCD, FFII, etc..).

AFAIK, none of those companies expect something from the APRIL group
directly.

We (company directors) just know they do good at advocacying (including
European Parliament lobbying...), and we all know they need money to do it.

So we support them that way. With the money, and with 'our logo'.

> People are members, companies are sponsors. I would also suggest that
> sponsorships be clearly defined as to the benefits thereof.

Sponsorship has to be defined too.

But I think you understood my point of view: be a member is a stronger
act compared to just giving money.

My 2 eurocents.

--
Jean-Paul Argudo
www.PostgreSQLFr.org

damien clochard a écrit :
> Le Sunday 13 January 2008 23:14:30 Gabriele Bartolini, vous avez écrit :
>
>> Ciao Dave,
>>
>> Dave Page ha scritto:
>>
>>> Yes!! That's almost exactly what I just wrote to Andreas :-)
>>>
>> ;)
>>
>>
>>> If others are in agreement, can the rules be reworked to allow for this?
>>>
>> I don't know if it is worth writing it in the statute. I am asking the
>> French guys to confirm this. In Italy, you try and define the main goals
>> and the management issues in the statute. The more practical and
>> operative issues are left in an external document, which can be flexibly
>> (but democratically) changed.
>>
>
> Exactly.
>
>
>> This is because a change in the statute comes at a price: you need to
>> deposit again to the official authorities and pay taxes. Maybe if France
>> this is not the case, but I guess it is worth asking.
>>
>>
>
> Changing the statutes will be a pain and it will cost money, no doubt about
> that.
>
> Here's some more information about how membership fee works in the pgfr
> association. An active member can be an individual, an association or a
> company. The membership fee is different for each : individuals have to pay
> 20€, associations have to pay 200€ , companies have to pay 400€. These prices
> are not defined in the statutes.
>
> By the way, from my point of view money is not the key. I agree with what Dave
> said in the first place : for an Open-Source project having many contributors
> is far more important than having a big bank account. However money can be
> useful in some cases and self-funding is a mean of Independence.
>
> But maybe there's a third way that can get us out of this issue. Let's say
> that instead a setting a standard membership free, we propose a "free
> membership fee". I mean : any member is free to pay what he wants or what
> you can give.
>
>

I was secretary of an association where the statues said something like
: 'is a member everybody already member of that, and for the
non-exigeable 1FF (was years BeforeEuro)'

--> As it is sometimes ago, I don't know if it is still possible(or
how), but for PGEU, it can be something like that:
'Is member everybody already member of a nationnal postgresql group as
defined by its objectives : ..... (check the common objectives for
every pg group and the acceptance of this group in the the pgeu by the
executive comitee or..) and for the non-payable1Euro. People who are not
already member of any pg group can become member for the non-payable 1
euro.'
Then every members of pgfr pgit... become by fact member of pgeu if *he*
want, others people can submit to become member and don't have to paid"

I haven't lot of time right now, please excuse my email which is like a
draft.
> Let's call that "WYCIWYG membership" : What You Can Is What You Give :P
>
> With this system there would be no frustration :
>
> - a person from a country with no local user group could say : « there's no
> association my country so i'm joining the European Group and i pay the
> membership fee that i can afford »
>
> - a french speaking person who is already member of pgfr could say : « ok
> i'm already paying the pgfr membership , and pgfr gives money to the European
> Group, so i'm only giving a symbolic fee of 1€ to the European association »
>
> Of course this proposition doesn't solve the bottom-line issue which is ( if
> i understand correctly ) : Do we want a federal organization or a
> transnational organization or both ? But the main advantage of the "free
> membership fee" is that it works in the 3 cases :-) The second advantage is
> that we don't have to change the statutes to make it happen.
>
> Good night !
>
>

--
Cédric Villemain
Administrateur de Base de Données
Cel: +33 (0)6 74 15 56 53
http://dalibo.com - http://dalibo.org

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On Sun, Jan 13, 2008 at 11:14:30PM +0100, Gabriele Bartolini wrote:
> Dave Page ha scritto:
>> Yes!! That's almost exactly what I just wrote to Andreas :-)
>>
> ;)
>> If others are in agreement, can the rules be reworked to allow for this?
>>
> I don't know if it is worth writing it in the statute. I am asking the
> French guys to confirm this. In Italy, you try and define the main goals
> and the management issues in the statute. The more practical and operative
> issues are left in an external document, which can be flexibly (but
> democratically) changed.
>
> This is because a change in the statute comes at a price: you need to
> deposit again to the official authorities and pay taxes. Maybe if France
> this is not the case, but I guess it is worth asking.

Well, the definition of what is a 'member' is one of the most important things to put in the statutes, if you intend to have members vote on issues. Without a clear definition of what is a member, your elections are a scam.

Also, i've seen a couple of constructs whereby members of a regional group each have a vote in the EU group. This could entail that the EU will need the member database of the local group, but in this case privacy law and/or the local groups statutes may conflict.

Gr,

Koen

- --
K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/
Networking, hosting, embedded systems, unix, artificial intelligence.
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On Sun, Jan 13, 2008 at 09:24:11PM +0100, damien clochard wrote:
> hi everyone !

Hi!

> After a few weeks of work, the statutes for the upcoming European user group
> are ready to be submitted to you.
>
> Check it out :
> http://wiki.postgresqlfr.org/doku.php/pgeu:statutes

Just a few thoughts after reading these statutes (i've been involved with non-profits and statutes mostly in Holland, plus i am not a lawyer).

It is mentioned "For the General Assembly to be validly constituted a quorum of 30% of the total number of members must be present or represented.". Is there no danger of the association ending up in dead water if you require such a big amount of members to be present? In my experience, only the 'die hards' ever come to these GA's anyway. I think most GA's (from political organisations and non-profits such as FFII) i've been to attract maybe one percent of the members, if not less (counting represented members also).

> Once everyone is ok with it, i will translate the statutes in French. Only the
> french version will be legally valid.

Will there be certified translations available in other languages? At least an 'official' translation into English would be nice for the zillions of people out there not speaking french.

You might want to add 'financial controllers' to the statutes, who are to check the financial records and report to the GA on their validity. This is quite common, and gives some extra credibility to your financial affairs. Perhaps you have already considered this, and decided not to add this extra safe-guard, in that case i'm curious why.

Best,

Koen

- --
K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/
Networking, hosting, embedded systems, unix, artificial intelligence.
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Hello,

On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 01:04:15PM +0100, Koen Martens wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 13, 2008 at 09:24:11PM +0100, damien clochard wrote:
>
> > Check it out :
> > http://wiki.postgresqlfr.org/doku.php/pgeu:statutes
>
> Just a few thoughts after reading these statutes (i've been involved
> with non-profits and statutes mostly in Holland, plus i am not a
> lawyer).
>
> It is mentioned "For the General Assembly to be validly constituted a
> quorum of 30% of the total number of members must be present or
> represented.". Is there no danger of the association ending up in dead
> water if you require such a big amount of members to be present? In my
> experience, only the 'die hards' ever come to these GA's anyway. I
> think most GA's (from political organisations and non-profits such as
> FFII) i've been to attract maybe one percent of the members, if not
> less (counting represented members also).

Have you read the following sentence which takes care for exactly this
problem?

Kind regards

--
Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
German PostgreSQL User Group

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On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 01:09:46PM +0100, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 01:04:15PM +0100, Koen Martens wrote:
> > It is mentioned "For the General Assembly to be validly constituted a
> > quorum of 30% of the total number of members must be present or
> > represented.". Is there no danger of the association ending up in dead
> > water if you require such a big amount of members to be present? In my
> > experience, only the 'die hards' ever come to these GA's anyway. I
> > think most GA's (from political organisations and non-profits such as
> > FFII) i've been to attract maybe one percent of the members, if not
> > less (counting represented members also).
>
> Have you read the following sentence which takes care for exactly this
> problem?

Ah, yes, a retry within 30 days. Is this practical? I mean, it being a european organisation, it is safe to assume people who will attend the GA will have to make plans in advance. Meaning that if you schedule another one within 30 days, it is likely a lot of the attendees will not be able to come (budget, no holiday left, etc..). I think it is nearly impossible to have 30% present, so that would mean two GA's within 30 days almost by default. It should probably be considered if this is indeed what we would want..

Now, a simple solution would be to drop the quorum. This is not uncommon. An objection to dropping the quorum could be democratic validity, but as said I think in practice you will always end up with a non-quorumed GA within 30 days anyway, so democractic calidity is not an argument.

You might want to think about a safeguard against 'takeovers' too: a rush of new members right before a GA because some malicious party wants to take-over the voting.

Sorry to be nitpicking, but that's what writing statutes is about :) Assume the worst, and try to make rules that prevent that.

Gr,

Koen

- --
K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/
Networking, hosting, embedded systems, unix, artificial intelligence.
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On Monday 14 January 2008 13:32:31 Koen Martens wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 01:09:46PM +0100, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 01:04:15PM +0100, Koen Martens wrote:
> > > It is mentioned "For the General Assembly to be validly constituted a
> > > quorum of 30% of the total number of members must be present or
> > > represented.". Is there no danger of the association ending up in dead
> > > water if you require such a big amount of members to be present? In my
> > > experience, only the 'die hards' ever come to these GA's anyway. I
> > > think most GA's (from political organisations and non-profits such as
> > > FFII) i've been to attract maybe one percent of the members, if not
> > > less (counting represented members also).
> >
> > Have you read the following sentence which takes care for exactly this
> > problem?
>
> Ah, yes, a retry within 30 days. Is this practical? I mean, it being a
> european organisation, it is safe to assume people who will attend the GA
> will have to make plans in advance. Meaning that if you schedule another
> one within 30 days, it is likely a lot of the attendees will not be able to
> come (budget, no holiday left, etc..). I think it is nearly impossible to
> have 30% present, so that would mean two GA's within 30 days almost by
> default. It should probably be considered if this is indeed what we would
> want..

Actually the quorum is 30% of members present **or represented**. Someone that
can't travel to the meeting may give his voice to a member that will be
physically present. The statutes also allows voting by e-mail.

>
> Now, a simple solution would be to drop the quorum. This is not uncommon.
> An objection to dropping the quorum could be democratic validity, but as
> said I think in practice you will always end up with a non-quorumed GA
> within 30 days anyway, so democractic calidity is not an argument.
>

i'm ok with that.

There's another quorum of 50% when the General Assembly has to discuss about
dissolving the association. Do you want to drop that quorum too ?

> You might want to think about a safeguard against 'takeovers' too: a rush
> of new members right before a GA because some malicious party wants to
> take-over the voting.
>

Actally only the half of the Board of Directors is renewed every year and
members of the Board of Directors are elected for 2 years. So a complete
takeover would take 2 years :-)

We can protect more the association by renewing only one third of the Board
every year and members being elected for 3 years.

> Sorry to be nitpicking, but that's what writing statutes is about :) Assume
> the worst, and try to make rules that prevent that.
>

thanks for these remarks !

--
damien clochard
http://dalibo.org | http://dalibo.com

On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 02:44:15PM +0100, damien clochard wrote:
> On Monday 14 January 2008 13:32:31 Koen Martens wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 01:09:46PM +0100, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 01:04:15PM +0100, Koen Martens wrote:
> > > > It is mentioned "For the General Assembly to be validly constituted a
> > > > quorum of 30% of the total number of members must be present or
> > > > represented.". Is there no danger of the association ending up in dead
> > > > water if you require such a big amount of members to be present? In my
> > > > experience, only the 'die hards' ever come to these GA's anyway. I
> > > > think most GA's (from political organisations and non-profits such as
> > > > FFII) i've been to attract maybe one percent of the members, if not
> > > > less (counting represented members also).
> > >
> > > Have you read the following sentence which takes care for exactly this
> > > problem?
> >
> > Ah, yes, a retry within 30 days. Is this practical? I mean, it being a
> > european organisation, it is safe to assume people who will attend the GA
> > will have to make plans in advance. Meaning that if you schedule another
> > one within 30 days, it is likely a lot of the attendees will not be able to
> > come (budget, no holiday left, etc..). I think it is nearly impossible to
> > have 30% present, so that would mean two GA's within 30 days almost by
> > default. It should probably be considered if this is indeed what we would
> > want..
>
> Actually the quorum is 30% of members present **or represented**. Someone that
> can't travel to the meeting may give his voice to a member that will be
> physically present. The statutes also allows voting by e-mail.

Still, if we go with the "auto-adding" of regional PUG members, I agree
that we're probably going to have a *big* problem reaching this quorum.

> > Now, a simple solution would be to drop the quorum. This is not uncommon.
> > An objection to dropping the quorum could be democratic validity, but as
> > said I think in practice you will always end up with a non-quorumed GA
> > within 30 days anyway, so democractic calidity is not an argument.
> >
>
> i'm ok with that.
>
> There's another quorum of 50% when the General Assembly has to discuss about
> dissolving the association. Do you want to drop that quorum too ?

How about lowering the quorum, but *also* require approval by the board?
Meaning that the GA and the board have to both agree to dissolev?

> > You might want to think about a safeguard against 'takeovers' too: a rush
> > of new members right before a GA because some malicious party wants to
> > take-over the voting.
> >
>
> Actally only the half of the Board of Directors is renewed every year and
> members of the Board of Directors are elected for 2 years. So a complete
> takeover would take 2 years :-)

How's that going to work since we'll vote all boad members in the first
year? One will only be voted for one year? How do we decide which one?

> We can protect more the association by renewing only one third of the Board
> every year and members being elected for 3 years.

I think that's making things a lot harder than needed. Also, people have to
promise 3 years upfront - I think that's asking too much.

//Magnus

On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 02:44:15PM +0100, damien clochard wrote:
> On Monday 14 January 2008 13:32:31 Koen Martens wrote:
> >
> > Ah, yes, a retry within 30 days. Is this practical? I mean, it being a
> > european organisation, it is safe to assume people who will attend the GA
> > will have to make plans in advance. Meaning that if you schedule another
> > one within 30 days, it is likely a lot of the attendees will not be able to
> > come (budget, no holiday left, etc..). I think it is nearly impossible to
> > have 30% present, so that would mean two GA's within 30 days almost by
> > default. It should probably be considered if this is indeed what we would
> > want..
>
> Actually the quorum is 30% of members present **or represented**. Someone that
> can't travel to the meeting may give his voice to a member that will be
> physically present. The statutes also allows voting by e-mail.

In addition we can have meetings on IRC. So it seems reasonable that we
invite for a meeting which virtually everyone could attend who just has
the time. No traveling, no additional costs, most ppl can even continue
your normal work.

In the case we don't reach a quorum by mail/irc/whatever, we have
another meeting between 6-30 days which goes without quorum.

In an associations you really want quorum decisions, this makes sense.
If not, you don't need an association at all, you can go which 2, 3
people making decisions, you don't need elections, ah, you don't need a
group at all.
The "no quorom" is only a fallback to make sure that the group is
capable of acting even if the majority of the members does not respond.

> > Now, a simple solution would be to drop the quorum. This is not uncommon.
> > An objection to dropping the quorum could be democratic validity, but as
> > said I think in practice you will always end up with a non-quorumed GA
> > within 30 days anyway, so democractic calidity is not an argument.

If the majority does not respond you end up with a second meeting, yes.
But that's not a reason to drop the quorum. Anyway, for important topics
and some time for preparation/schedule people usually attend meetings.

> There's another quorum of 50% when the General Assembly has to discuss about
> dissolving the association. Do you want to drop that quorum too ?

;-)
If we drop the first one, why not all?

> > Sorry to be nitpicking, but that's what writing statutes is about :) Assume
> > the worst, and try to make rules that prevent that.

You don't prevent anything if you drop all the rules.

Kind regards

--
Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
German PostgreSQL User Group

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 02:49:10PM +0100, Magnus Hagander wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 02:44:15PM +0100, damien clochard wrote:
> > On Monday 14 January 2008 13:32:31 Koen Martens wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 01:09:46PM +0100, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:
> > > > On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 01:04:15PM +0100, Koen Martens wrote:
> > > > > It is mentioned "For the General Assembly to be validly constituted a
> > > > > quorum of 30% of the total number of members must be present or
> > > > > represented.". Is there no danger of the association ending up in dead
> > > > > water if you require such a big amount of members to be present? In my
> > > > > experience, only the 'die hards' ever come to these GA's anyway. I
> > > > > think most GA's (from political organisations and non-profits such as
> > > > > FFII) i've been to attract maybe one percent of the members, if not
> > > > > less (counting represented members also).
> > > >
> > > > Have you read the following sentence which takes care for exactly this
> > > > problem?
> > >
> > > Ah, yes, a retry within 30 days. Is this practical? I mean, it being a
> > > european organisation, it is safe to assume people who will attend the GA
> > > will have to make plans in advance. Meaning that if you schedule another
> > > one within 30 days, it is likely a lot of the attendees will not be able to
> > > come (budget, no holiday left, etc..). I think it is nearly impossible to
> > > have 30% present, so that would mean two GA's within 30 days almost by
> > > default. It should probably be considered if this is indeed what we would
> > > want..
> >
> > Actually the quorum is 30% of members present **or represented**. Someone that
> > can't travel to the meeting may give his voice to a member that will be
> > physically present. The statutes also allows voting by e-mail.
>
> Still, if we go with the "auto-adding" of regional PUG members, I agree
> that we're probably going to have a *big* problem reaching this quorum.

Even with representation i do not think the quorum will easily be reached. The point is not that people are not only not able to come, but perhaps are disinterested in coming. Of course, I might be wrong here, but in my experience most people are not interested in visiting GA's. It is not that they don't care perse, but they probably think that those who _do_ show up will do the Right Thing.

> > > Now, a simple solution would be to drop the quorum. This is not uncommon.
> > > An objection to dropping the quorum could be democratic validity, but as
> > > said I think in practice you will always end up with a non-quorumed GA
> > > within 30 days anyway, so democractic calidity is not an argument.
> > >
> >
> > i'm ok with that.
> >
> > There's another quorum of 50% when the General Assembly has to discuss about
> > dissolving the association. Do you want to drop that quorum too ?
>
> How about lowering the quorum, but *also* require approval by the board?
> Meaning that the GA and the board have to both agree to dissolev?

This is indeed a different matter. I'd vote for requiring the 50% quorum, because of
the extraordinary nature of such a proposal. I'd say that, if we have such a proposal,
it would be suitable to have an online vote.

I'm a bit wary of online voting though, because that is inherently suspectible to fraud. On the other hand, it is not as if we are deciding the faith of a country here...

> > > You might want to think about a safeguard against 'takeovers' too: a rush
> > > of new members right before a GA because some malicious party wants to
> > > take-over the voting.
> > >
> >
> > Actally only the half of the Board of Directors is renewed every year and
> > members of the Board of Directors are elected for 2 years. So a complete
> > takeover would take 2 years :-)

Or, give voting right to people who have been paying member for at least x months.

Gr,

Koen

- --
K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/
Networking, hosting, embedded systems, unix, artificial intelligence.
Public PGP key: http://www.metro.cx/pubkey-gmc.asc
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On Monday 14 January 2008 14:49:10 Magnus Hagander wrote:

>
> > > Now, a simple solution would be to drop the quorum. This is not
> > > uncommon. An objection to dropping the quorum could be democratic
> > > validity, but as said I think in practice you will always end up with a
> > > non-quorumed GA within 30 days anyway, so democractic calidity is not
> > > an argument.
> >
> > i'm ok with that.
> >
> > There's another quorum of 50% when the General Assembly has to discuss
> > about dissolving the association. Do you want to drop that quorum too ?
>
> How about lowering the quorum, but *also* require approval by the board?
> Meaning that the GA and the board have to both agree to dissolev?
>

ok

> > > You might want to think about a safeguard against 'takeovers' too: a
> > > rush of new members right before a GA because some malicious party
> > > wants to take-over the voting.
> >
> > Actally only the half of the Board of Directors is renewed every year and
> > members of the Board of Directors are elected for 2 years. So a complete
> > takeover would take 2 years :-)
>
> How's that going to work since we'll vote all boad members in the first
> year? One will only be voted for one year? How do we decide which one?
>

Actually this is the situation we are facing @ pgfr . Our Board is composed of
11 persons. On January the 30th, we will have to renew the board for the
first time. Half of the board ( 6 persons) have been chosen randomly
as "leaving members" . So we will replace these 6 members. Next year
we will renew the other 5 members.

Of course leaving members can be re-elected.

Apparently i forgot the write that mecanism in the statutes, my bad.

--
damien clochard
http://dalibo.org | http://dalibo.com

On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 03:29:38PM +0100, damien clochard wrote:
> On Monday 14 January 2008 14:49:10 Magnus Hagander wrote:
> > > > wants to take-over the voting.
> > >
> > > Actally only the half of the Board of Directors is renewed every year and
> > > members of the Board of Directors are elected for 2 years. So a complete
> > > takeover would take 2 years :-)
> >
> > How's that going to work since we'll vote all boad members in the first
> > year? One will only be voted for one year? How do we decide which one?
> >
>
> Actually this is the situation we are facing @ pgfr . Our Board is composed of
> 11 persons. On January the 30th, we will have to renew the board for the
> first time. Half of the board ( 6 persons) have been chosen randomly
> as "leaving members" . So we will replace these 6 members. Next year
> we will renew the other 5 members.
>
> Of course leaving members can be re-elected.
>
> Apparently i forgot the write that mecanism in the statutes, my bad.

I think a clean way to do that in pgeu is to vote two members for 2 years
and one member for 1 year (since we're only getting 3 members in the board
for now - the org is small!). That way it solves itself. Doesn't need to be
in the statues, but we need to put it in the election info.

Easiest way - the two people who have the most votes get two years, the one
that gets in third place gets one year ;)

//Magnus

On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 03:24:16PM +0100, Koen Martens wrote:
> > > Actually the quorum is 30% of members present **or represented**. Someone that
> > > can't travel to the meeting may give his voice to a member that will be
> > > physically present. The statutes also allows voting by e-mail.
> >
> > Still, if we go with the "auto-adding" of regional PUG members, I agree
> > that we're probably going to have a *big* problem reaching this quorum.
>
> Even with representation i do not think the quorum will easily be reached. The point is not that people are not only not able to come, but perhaps are disinterested in coming. Of course, I might be wrong here, but in my experience most people are not interested in visiting GA's. It is not that they don't care perse, but they probably think that those who _do_ show up will do the Right Thing.

Exacactly my point. And this will be much more so if we automatically
consider members of the regional/national groups members of the EU group by
default, without a separate membership. A whole lot of them won't care.

ANother option would be to assign members of the actual EU group (that
don't have a national org) an individual vote, but assign member groups a
group vote. Like pgfr would get 50 votes or something (example!). Then the
board of pgfr would decide where those votes go, because the board of pgfr
was voted by the members of pgfr.

> > > > Now, a simple solution would be to drop the quorum. This is not uncommon.
> > > > An objection to dropping the quorum could be democratic validity, but as
> > > > said I think in practice you will always end up with a non-quorumed GA
> > > > within 30 days anyway, so democractic calidity is not an argument.
> > > >
> > >
> > > i'm ok with that.
> > >
> > > There's another quorum of 50% when the General Assembly has to discuss about
> > > dissolving the association. Do you want to drop that quorum too ?
> >
> > How about lowering the quorum, but *also* require approval by the board?
> > Meaning that the GA and the board have to both agree to dissolev?
>
> This is indeed a different matter. I'd vote for requiring the 50% quorum, because of
> the extraordinary nature of such a proposal. I'd say that, if we have such a proposal,
> it would be suitable to have an online vote.
>
> I'm a bit wary of online voting though, because that is inherently suspectible to fraud. On the other hand, it is not as if we are deciding the faith of a country here...

If we don't allow online voting, we will *never stand a chance* of reaching
the quorum. If even 5% or 10% of the voters turn up, it's a great success.
(Either that, or we have so few members that the whole pgeu is a failure)

> > > > You might want to think about a safeguard against 'takeovers' too: a rush
> > > > of new members right before a GA because some malicious party wants to
> > > > take-over the voting.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Actally only the half of the Board of Directors is renewed every year and
> > > members of the Board of Directors are elected for 2 years. So a complete
> > > takeover would take 2 years :-)
>
> Or, give voting right to people who have been paying member for at least x months.

I thought the current track had us not asking for membership fees...

But that's one of the reasons to actually ask for a membership fee. It
doesn't have to be large...

//Magnus

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 04:05:29PM +0100, Magnus Hagander wrote:
> ANother option would be to assign members of the actual EU group (that
> don't have a national org) an individual vote, but assign member groups a
> group vote. Like pgfr would get 50 votes or something (example!). Then the
> board of pgfr would decide where those votes go, because the board of pgfr
> was voted by the members of pgfr.

Ah, and then haggle about the correct number of votes each local group should have, like in EU politics :)

Seriously though, it's a bit of a problem that there is a split purpose for the association: on the one hand it wants to be an umbrella organisation (in which a 'one local group one vote' scheme makes sense), on the other hand it wants to be individual-member organisation, where the 'one man one vote' principle is more appropriate.

The problem with giving pgfr X votes is that it gives the impression that my own (I live in holland -> no local group (yet?)) vote will be insignificant, if X is significantly large (say X>10).

> > > > > You might want to think about a safeguard against 'takeovers' too: a rush
> > > > > of new members right before a GA because some malicious party wants to
> > > > > take-over the voting.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Actally only the half of the Board of Directors is renewed every year and
> > > > members of the Board of Directors are elected for 2 years. So a complete
> > > > takeover would take 2 years :-)
> >
> > Or, give voting right to people who have been paying member for at least x months.
>
> I thought the current track had us not asking for membership fees...

Oh right, true, that's the problem with me and mailing lists, i find it hard to decipher what was proposed and what was decided.

> But that's one of the reasons to actually ask for a membership fee. It
> doesn't have to be large...

There could be any other criterium that a member as to satisfy, not necesarilly monetary. Some organisation merely require you to register, others decide membership on a 'approved by the board' basis, or whatever. The crux being that you should have satisfied the chosen criterium for at least x months already to be able to vote.

Gr,

Koen

- --
K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/
Networking, hosting, embedded systems, unix, artificial intelligence.
Public PGP key: http://www.metro.cx/pubkey-gmc.asc
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Jean-Paul Argudo wrote:
> Hi all,

> Sponsorship has to be defined too.
>
> But I think you understood my point of view: be a member is a stronger
> act compared to just giving money.
>
> My 2 eurocents.

It depends on the purpose. I understand your points and don't actually
disagree with them for "other" communities. I don't like the idea of any
company having political power (which whether we like it or not is
important) in the PostgreSQL community.

Case in point, if PG EU comes to SPI and says, "Hey we need some money
for this conference." If PG EU has companies that are members, my
response will likely be, "why haven't you built proper relationships
with your members to insure that you don't need to come to SPI for money?"

However, if it is community members only, my response will likely be,
"How much?".

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

>
>

Koen Martens wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 01:09:46PM +0100, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:
>> On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 01:04:15PM +0100, Koen Martens wrote:
>>> It is mentioned "For the General Assembly to be validly constituted a
>>> quorum of 30% of the total number of members must be present or
>>> represented.". Is there no danger of the association ending up in dead
>>> water if you require such a big amount of members to be present? In my
>>> experience, only the 'die hards' ever come to these GA's anyway. I
>>> think most GA's (from political organisations and non-profits such as
>>> FFII) i've been to attract maybe one percent of the members, if not
>>> less (counting represented members also).
>> Have you read the following sentence which takes care for exactly this
>> problem?
>
> Ah, yes, a retry within 30 days. Is this practical? I mean, it being a european organisation, it is safe to assume people who will attend the GA will have to make plans in advance. Meaning that if you schedule another one within 30 days, it is likely a lot of the attendees will not be able to come (budget, no holiday left, etc..). I think it is nearly impossible to have 30% present, so that would mean two GA's within 30 days almost by default. It should probably be considered if this is indeed what we would want..

Can you just make the GA electronic? There are plenty of ways to do
this. SPI uses IRC. Jabber might be better as it is authenticated (yes
jabber does rooms).

Joshua D. Drake

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 08:44:43AM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Koen Martens wrote:
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>> On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 01:09:46PM +0100, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:
>>>
>>> On statutes, GA quorum of 30%.
>>>
>> Ah, yes, a retry within 30 days. Is this practical? I mean, it being a
>> european organisation, it is safe to assume people who will attend the GA
>> will have to make plans in advance. Meaning that if you schedule another
>> one within 30 days, it is likely a lot of the attendees will not be able
>> to come (budget, no holiday left, etc..). I think it is nearly impossible
>> to have 30% present, so that would mean two GA's within 30 days almost by
>> default. It should probably be considered if this is indeed what we would
>> want..
>
> Can you just make the GA electronic? There are plenty of ways to do this.
> SPI uses IRC. Jabber might be better as it is authenticated (yes jabber
> does rooms).

My bet is on something web based, as i imagine that would attract the most
response. Although that takes out the interactive, but why would the votes
need to be interactive. Granted, an online session could improve effectiviness
off the discussion preceding the voting.

It all very much depends on 'who are your members' though. If there are
individual members, you are in an entirely different situation compared
to when your members are local groups. In the latter case, you probably
have the die-hard people who will attend GA's anyway, and a quorum seems
likely.

However, if we favor individual membership (which seems to be the trend
at the moment), a quorum will prove difficult to maintain. I wouldn't
go into mixed forms (a proposed model where local groups represent an
X amount of votes at the GA, that mix up with the individual votes
from individual members not in a local group). That would indeed violate
the KISS principle.

Other issues i've brushed against: anything we devise of for the EU group
should be compatible with the current local groups. We may decide for
example "local groups are automatically a member of the EU group" and then
some corolarry desicions, but these might very well conflict with the current
setup of some local group.

Anyway, straying a bit from the path here, all this talk of gpg suggests
a nice definition of being a member: having your gpg key on file and signed
by {some group representing somehow the EU assoc} makes you a member. Just
a thought.

Gr,

Koen

- --
K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/
Networking, hosting, embedded systems, unix, artificial intelligence.
Public PGP key: http://www.metro.cx/pubkey-gmc.asc
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Hash: SHA1

On Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:01:48 +0100
Koen Martens <gmc(at)sonologic(dot)nl> wrote:

>
> My bet is on something web based, as i imagine that would attract the
> most response. Although that takes out the interactive, but why would
> the votes need to be interactive. Granted, an online session could
> improve effectiviness off the discussion preceding the voting.

Sorry that was dumb on my part. I thought the GA was a meeting not a
vote.

You guys may really want to read over the SPI bylaws. They have already
done a lot of this work for you.

http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/by-laws

Granted SPI is far from perfect and they do have significant issues but
their overall goal and the by-laws themselves in general are pretty
darn good.

SPI uses the Condorcet method of voting. Which at first I thought was
dumb but using it for a while it seems reasonably fair.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

P.S. For those that don't know, I am the PostgreSQL SPI Liaison. I was
the SPI Liaison for a year before winning a seat on board. So now I am
also a Director for SPI.

- --
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Ciao Koen,
> Also, i've seen a couple of constructs whereby members of a regional group each have a vote in the EU group. This could entail that the EU will need the member database of the local group, but in this case privacy law and/or the local groups statutes may conflict.
>
Exactly, that's what I was thinking too.

We have strict policies for IT-PUG as far as privacy and data collection
are concerned, in order to protect privacy.

However, I think that if we study a proper solution, we can easily get
over them. After all we just need security precautions and transparency
towards users.

I guess one solutoin is that the EU is responsible for writing privacy
policies and maintaining a secure database of users' data. For those
users that directly adhere to the EU PUG (because they are in countries
without local or localised groups), they MUST accept the privacy statement.

Those users that belong to a local group and accept the local group
policy, might be informed that they could become members of the EU PUG
if they want and they are asked to accept another privacy disclaimer.

I guess this scenario would be fine.

--
Gabriele Bartolini: Open source programmer and data architect
Current Location: Prato, Tuscany, Italy
gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com | www.gabrielebartolini.it
"If I had been born ugly, you would never have heard of Pelé", George Best
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gbartolini

Ciao JPA,
> But I think you understood my point of view: be a member is a stronger
> act compared to just giving money.
>
I personally am a bit uncertain about allowing private companies to join
the association as members. In IT-PUG we had similar issues, and we
decided to clearly keep it an individual members non profit
organisation, and keep sponsorships/partnerships separated.

We did not want any company "direct" interference in the association -
although company members can join the association as individual. At
least, we still keep the "community" and "volunteering" senses of the
organisation.

I encourage you, if you have not done it yet, to look at our statute,
which has been translated in English:
http://www.itpug.org/pdf/statuto.en.pdf

It may be useful and there may be some interesting thoughts.

Personally I would go for:

1) individual members
2) subscription fee (we may even keep it the same all around Europe)
3) keep donations separate
4) keep sponsorships / parterships separate (with
proper/transparent/clear/open campaigns)

Thanks,
Gabriele

--
Gabriele Bartolini: Open source programmer and data architect
Current Location: Prato, Tuscany, Italy
gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com | www.gabrielebartolini.it
"If I had been born ugly, you would never have heard of Pelé", George Best
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gbartolini

On 14/01/2008, Gabriele Bartolini <gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> Those users that belong to a local group and accept the local group
> policy, might be informed that they could become members of the EU PUG
> if they want and they are asked to accept another privacy disclaimer.

Or just make the automatic membership of PG-EU optional, and make it
clear what will happen should the member choose to accept.

/D

Dave Page ha scritto:
> Or just make the automatic membership of PG-EU optional, and make it
> clear what will happen should the member choose to accept.
>
Either way. In any case, we need to setup webservices for notification
of new users and cancellations.

Of course data will be in a MySQL database.

;)

Ciao,
Gabriele

--
Gabriele Bartolini: Open source programmer and data architect
Current Location: Prato, Tuscany, Italy
gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com | www.gabrielebartolini.it
"If I had been born ugly, you would never have heard of Pelé", George Best
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gbartolini

On 14/01/2008, Gabriele Bartolini <gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> Dave Page ha scritto:
> > Or just make the automatic membership of PG-EU optional, and make it
> > clear what will happen should the member choose to accept.
> >
> Either way. In any case, we need to setup webservices for notification
> of new users and cancellations.
>
> Of course data will be in a MySQL database.

Kindly go and wash your mouth out with soap and water :-p

/D

On Monday 14 January 2008 21:49:22 Dave Page wrote:
> On 14/01/2008, Gabriele Bartolini <gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> > Those users that belong to a local group and accept the local group
> > policy, might be informed that they could become members of the EU PUG
> > if they want and they are asked to accept another privacy disclaimer.
>
> Or just make the automatic membership of PG-EU optional, and make it
> clear what will happen should the member choose to accept.
>
> /D
>

Either way this is becoming more complex. If i understand clearly what you
mean, every local user group has to provide a web page or another way for the
members to say wether or not they want to be part of the European Group, and
probably a way to modify that information if they change their mind.

As far as i understand the European Association will also have to provide such
tools to its individual members. So instead of duplicating all this work, why
not centralizing everything in a single application form managed by PGEU ?

I see another issue with that "not-so-automatic" membership for the members of
the local groups. If we do that, we will have to synchronize the member
lists on a regular basis from the local groups to the European group. I know
this is piece of cake for lots of people here, but is it necessary ?

--
damien clochard
http://dalibo.org | http://dalibo.com

On 14/01/2008, damien clochard <damien(at)dalibo(dot)info> wrote:
>
> Either way this is becoming more complex. If i understand clearly what you
> mean, every local user group has to provide a web page or another way for the
> members to say wether or not they want to be part of the European Group, and
> probably a way to modify that information if they change their mind.
>
> As far as i understand the European Association will also have to provide such
> tools to its individual members. So instead of duplicating all this work, why
> not centralizing everything in a single application form managed by PGEU ?

We could it that way round - but it would still require the data
transfer you mention below.

> I see another issue with that "not-so-automatic" membership for the members of
> the local groups. If we do that, we will have to synchronize the member
> lists on a regular basis from the local groups to the European group. I know
> this is piece of cake for lots of people here, but is it necessary ?

If we don't automatically maintain the dual membership, I can see us
rapidly getting into a situation where some people try to join PG-EU,
some their local group, and some both. Many users that are less
passionate than us probably won't bother to join 2 users groups, so we
end up with a situation where the local and EU groups are effectively
in competition with each other for the membership.

/D

On Tue, Jan 15, 2008 at 08:50:03AM +0000, Dave Page wrote:
> On 14/01/2008, damien clochard <damien(at)dalibo(dot)info> wrote:
> > I see another issue with that "not-so-automatic" membership for the members of
> > the local groups. If we do that, we will have to synchronize the member
> > lists on a regular basis from the local groups to the European group. I know
> > this is piece of cake for lots of people here, but is it necessary ?
>
> If we don't automatically maintain the dual membership, I can see us
> rapidly getting into a situation where some people try to join PG-EU,
> some their local group, and some both. Many users that are less
> passionate than us probably won't bother to join 2 users groups, so we
> end up with a situation where the local and EU groups are effectively
> in competition with each other for the membership.

Does it have to be *automatic*? Can't we just have people register for
PG-EU and on the registration they specify "already member of pgsql-it" for
example. If we're not charging money, it's not so critical.

//Magnus

On 15/01/2008, Magnus Hagander <magnus(at)hagander(dot)net> wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 15, 2008 at 08:50:03AM +0000, Dave Page wrote:
> > On 14/01/2008, damien clochard <damien(at)dalibo(dot)info> wrote:
> > > I see another issue with that "not-so-automatic" membership for the members of
> > > the local groups. If we do that, we will have to synchronize the member
> > > lists on a regular basis from the local groups to the European group. I know
> > > this is piece of cake for lots of people here, but is it necessary ?
> >
> > If we don't automatically maintain the dual membership, I can see us
> > rapidly getting into a situation where some people try to join PG-EU,
> > some their local group, and some both. Many users that are less
> > passionate than us probably won't bother to join 2 users groups, so we
> > end up with a situation where the local and EU groups are effectively
> > in competition with each other for the membership.
>
> Does it have to be *automatic*? Can't we just have people register for
> PG-EU and on the registration they specify "already member of pgsql-it" for
> example. If we're not charging money, it's not so critical.

It doesn't have to be automatic per se - any mechanism will do as long
as it ensures that people must join their local user group (if there
is one) before they join PG-EU to avoid any sort of competition
between groups.

/D