| [open-regulatory-compliance] Changing the name of “Steward” member class to “Foundation” member |
Dear all,
While we appreciate all the feedback received this far, we wanted to immediately address one element of the feedback received thus far with respect to the draft charter regarding the use of the term “Steward member”.
First, some background. As was made clear from the original announcement about forming this initiative, not-for-profit code hosting open source software foundations were the first to step forward to initiate the process, and are committed to play a significant role in the development of these open specifications. That is, these foundations are looking to work with industry and government in developing pragmatic solutions that can ultimately be adopted by the applicable standards organisations. In recognition of this commitment, we want to ensure these foundations have an active role in the governance as well as the technical work.
We originally chose the term “Steward member” to represent this class of membership for a variety of reasons, but the feedback has shown that it may be unnecessarily confusing. To summarise the possible confusion, the CRA describes the notion of steward as a new economic actor but does not fully define it, and thus who qualifies to be a steward. Indeed, sorting out which organisations ultimately are or are not stewards is outside the scope of the initiative represented by this working group, and having a class of membership that might exclude some organisations that are stewards is unhelpful, and was unintentional. We think changing the name to be clearer in its intent that code-hosting open source software foundations, or simply “Foundation” for short, will avoid this confusion both initially and longer term. We thank you for this feedback.
We have gone ahead and updated the charter and the Working Group Participation Agreement (WGPA) to reflect this change (please see attached as we work to get these posted in the next day). We have done this as the WGPA is a legal agreement, and as such having it reflect our intended go forward is worth doing in advance. We will also capture this change in the FAQ which we will be posting shortly.
There may be other modifications that can and should be made to the charter based on other feedback given (and keep it coming). As a reminder, the initial charter will be approved by the steering committee of the working group and will include whatever modifications they accept. This committee will be formed by the organisations that join as members (with their representation described in the charter). Our expectation is the first steering committee meeting will be scheduled in July. More details on this first meeting will be posted on the mailing list as the time draws nearer.
We hope this change is helpful and our taking this action is agreeable to most.
Attachment:
Open Regulatory Compliance Working Group Charter.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document
Attachment:
Eclipse Open Regulatory Compliance Working Group Participation Agreement.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document