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List:       openoffice-announce
Subject:    OpenOffice.org Community Council Proposal
From:       Stefan Taxhet <Stefan.Taxhet () sun ! com>
Date:       2003-03-12 20:34:24
Message-ID: 3E6F99D0.5000505 () sun ! com
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All,

OpenOffice.org has come a long way from the day that Sun Microsystems
donated the source code of StarOffice to the world, in October 2000.
The changes we have seen, in terms of users, volunteer contributors,
as well as licenses and the copyright assignment, all show a steadily
increasing level of maturity, both in terms of an open-source community
effort, as well as in terms of a project in its own right.

The time has now come to bring maturity to our governance processes.
Today, most decisions are made either through a plebiscite vote on the
relevant mailing list, or by decision from the Project Leads, who have
been OpenOffice.org's effective governing body. But however well the
Project Leads have governed, we nevertheless lack a fully-fledged
governing council that can efficiently incorporate the voices of
OpenOffice.org's huge volunteer community, resolve issues of concern to
OpenOffice.org's developer and enduser community, and set policy that
will allow OpenOffice.org to fully mature.

The Project Leads and other longtime contributors to OpenOffice.org,
have therefore decided to create this community council, designed to
give OpenOffice.org's stakeholders--its contributors, developers, and
project leads--the right to a seat in the governing body and determine
the future direction of OpenOffice.org.

Please carefully review the proposed Community Council Proposal. This
draft was six months and eighteen revisions in development and includes
contributions by Danese Cooper, Guy Capra, Josh Berkus, Kevin Hendricks,
Louis Suarez-Potts, Martjin Dekkers, Matthias Huetsch, Scott Carr,
Stefan Taxhet, Zaheda Bhorat and several other members of the Project Leads.

Community Council Proposal
  http://council.openoffice.org/CouncilProposal.html

Questions & Answers
  http://council.openoffice.org/faq-communitycouncil.html

We feel strongly that this version of the Community Council Charter
reflects the best possible set of compromises for the governance
structure of the OpenOffice.org Project, and we, as drafters, would
benefit from broad feedback from Community members as a final
confirmation of the balance and soundness of the Charter.

An online vote for registered users on the proposal will start on
Friday, 2003-03-14. You will need to login to access the voting.
If you have not yet registered, please do so by visiting
  http://www.openoffice.org/about_us/introduction.html#joining
The voting will end 2003-03-20 1800 UTC.

If you have comments or would like to express your support for the 
proposal, please follow-up at our discuss mailing list
(discuss@openoffice.org) until Tuesday next week (3/18).

On behalf of the Project Leads
Stefan Taxhet



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