Discussion about membership

If we start adding benefits to membership, people will join just for the benefits, and not to contribute.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne@WayneSallee.com

I don't agree with that statement. But Kate has a good point, let's keep it simple and ask members.

the campaign we can put it forward, the membership fee lets just contact members to respond to a small question based on that idea, and then decide. members have the power :-)

Then what do you think:

Yearly fee is necessary for being a member.
Fee is free.

As a suggestion $5 US

I also agree with the contribution.
But I believe it should be spontaneous.
Who can not help, can not be rejected, but who is committed, have to do it.

@diogotravassos even if the amount can be very slow (even few R$ centavos), as the amount is free (people choose how much they want to give)?.

BTW: It's already doable to make spontaneous donations here with or without being member

@davidegaratti btw you can be member without being contributor and the opposite too :)

@raphaeljadot you should not. We understand contributor in a very wide way, but a member that don't contribute should not be a member. Because membership equal dedication. The contribution can be from translatiom, dev, packaging or simply spreading the word in own websites, etc... but...

Well membership, since it allows "to have a say" in decisions about Association and Distribution should mean to contribute in some way.
If you cannot by actions (translations, developing, packaging or spreading the word in own websites etc. -Joao's quote-) one can make donations.
Not contributing nor donating is not "my own" meaning of membership. Imho.

I was not giving my opinion, just interpretation of the status and bylaws. Something that no one seems to care and prefer to go bananas from opinion to opinion... In the end is not relevant because being a member and having a say is just like not being. Decisions are taken in the end by tc or council in between sleeps. This is all poison talk....

well, OMA accepts as members in any case only when they contribute;) @rugyada

Personally I think people who want to contribute to the development of OpenMandriva should be tempted to enter without restriction, but you can not, and should not, thinking that this is a growing commitment to full-time.
And you can not think, that will never be periods when someone simply does not have time to contribute, for family reasons or business.

What we should think, is simplify the entry of new members, removing all obstacles, also learning that there are.
Let's take an example, many of us know how to make the rpm, but a detailed guide with a clear WOW (way of working) OpenMandriva, is not found.
A little guide about ABF?

In addition, these discussions should be considered as a contribution.
If I were to make a wish, I would like to see the list of members other 200 people that contribute even just giving an opinion.

One way to achieve a similar result, the survey was that I had set out to do, you are stuck, but personally I would have done these "survey" also means outside of OpenMandriva as, for example, the form of google.

Sounds fair, if you want to make decisions you have to pay. Who will track status of payment of all members who declared to pay ?

What if someone declared that will support community by developing rather that paying, and who will do the check if that person is really contributing ? What's next expell ?

I think we should stay simple, a yearly fee with free amount should not be a barrier for someone who really cares about openmandriva association. If there is any problem of any kind (no possibility to pay online or else), we are still reachable.

It would ease a lot the management of membership.

5 US-Dollars monthly membership fee is fine with me.

Potential contributors may stay away just at the sight of something like "membership requires a fee" (no matter how small).

As Bero said, we could instead go for a premium membership sort of thing, keeping the basic membership absolutely free.

I'ts against FLOSS... nice to see that FLOSS is a value here. let's start dumping all the "against" FLOSS shit. let's start with the packages with strange licences... like that BSD one... hmm. oh no. forget it :-)
keep it not mandatory and make a nice membership management, at the same time explain everybody what's in risk to happen. starting with the fact that survival as it is is at risk, for example.

I am not in favor of membership fees, but will agree to whatever majority comes

another thing, contributors and community members who can - donate anyway

@bernhardrosenkranz @tomaszpawelgajc @alexeyvokhmin @alexanderkhryukin

There is no discussion of an obligation of contribution, but adding another kind of membership, people who want to be member without being necessarily being a contributor. (in fact this is the way most French FLOSS associations I know works, but i guess there is here a misunderstanding about contributor/member :)

Remember, being member is only a legal statute related to participating in general assemblies and being eligible to council, taking a part in the physical assets and finances of the association, but not being a cooker or any other project contributor.

Furthermore it helps in having possible subventions from local french collectivities, as most of them are calculating the potential subventions related on the proportion of eligible members (ie members of the general assemblee) compared to the whole size that may include honoroary members (ie not currently committed but still considered as part of the association) and the real commitment to member is generally scrutated this way: or members should pay a costisation to justify that an association is self fulfilling the necessary money for administrative functionning, and are still dedicated to the association, or People should be present at a General Assemblee (generally avoiding being absent more than one time) and/or pay a yearly cotisation (notice the and/or).

Well, one of the easiest example i can find is the one of mageia who has different kind of membership, art 6:
https://www.mageia.org/en/about/constitution/ even if I'm in favour that donor member can be part of General Assemblee.

@maikwagner @waynesallee on the contrary, it would help people to stay members without having to participate or being in general assemblee, and give a possibility of additional and quite regular income vat free

So I'd say not having the possibility to have donor members would prevents us mostly to have two other possibilities of incomes (regular cotisations and possible subventions).

@raphaeljadot Raph, but we accept as members only those who are active contributors, or by strong recommendation or assumption that a person would be one. Paid membership could obviously exist as separate possibility, should be then called simply a bit different. Looks like a misunderstanding in topic of discussion?

@katelebedeff Yes, which name would you imagine?

The idea is to have two groups of memberships, that would help giving to the Prefecture, and maybe local collectivities a good view of the current situation of the association.

honoroary members for people who has been members, but don't want or have time or money to be part of commited members, a life time statutes unless the member ask for not being anymore, or become again a commited member.

Commited members: this statutes should be renewed in a yearly basis (or max 2 years), and if not renewed they become honoroary members. It could be separated in several sub-kinds, not exclusive:
- members active by an involvement in the associations activity, a list of these members written and approved at general assemblee
- and/or paying a cotisation

Minutes of general assemblee and financial reports are the only documents Prefecture and local collectivities care about, they don't read IRC or commits logs :)

Having the possibility to let people being considered as commited by cotisation without being an active contributor is a way to improve the visibility of the association by letting more people come, and a serious income possibility.

We can use other words of course to define it.

Probably we need to create another proposal, smth along these lines: do we agree to have premium membership, where person does not have to contribute, but only sponsors, and with that gets a consulting vote in council decisions and his name name listed on sponsors page

?

This discussion is at the wrong place, should be pre discussed in council meeting and then in GA. Association matters should be decided by members in the proper place.

Btw this, if taken require a statute change. As there are other things that are not being work according to statutes, maybe its time for a deeper discussion on those matters and a statutes revision. We have learnd with time and practice and maybe some agility should be added some organs extinguished and other ones changed.
Best

@joaoazevedopatricio1 Joao, why the place is wrong? it is very hard to arrange the time for many council members to gather , so many only follow the meetings afterwards. and here the issue on discussion is stated clear and opinions can be gathered within several days, but reasonable time. Useful tool to discuss worded issues, no? Once positions become clearer, it can be taken further, and possibly lead to change of Statutes. Wdyt?
Also, GA could take place also in Loomio, since to gather all or even simply most members at one given time will be quite hard.

Calling this a membership fee is slightly wrong in my eyes I would have though subscription would be a better term.
If you subscribe to a magazine you get however many issues that magazine produces annually. It is the same with our releases. You subscribe to get a minimum of one release per annum plus updates.

@katelebedeff wrong place not in terms of structure but terms of logic. In here you won't guarantee that specific association matters are treat by association members equally. I don't know if in the group are all the members registered and accessing messages and if all the people here are members. to Caesar what belong to Caesar.
Of course I disagree with 2 types of members one money and other contribution based. this is, imho, perverse...

@joaoazevedopatricio1 the group contains only members, so from that POV correct. Regarding payment for membership, to me this seems more like a sponsor's board with advisory vote, which is in a way paid membership.. I am not a fan, but OK to go

@katelebedeff only but no all. Regarding the rest, I don't agree by principle to call the members. That's why advisory board "exists", to have sponsors talking to members, TC and council.
What I deeply defend, not in particular regarding this, is to have a strategic thinking, and rethinking of the association, and maybe, move forward in a direction that implements structural changes, changes that allow the association to work closer to reality, not having a structure that is fictional. sorry for the french, 4 night no sleep...

we may reattend the naming of this role, which is paid. Where I agree, is that thsi needs to be a part of a larger discussion, probably as a part of preparation for GA, which will start after we attend to urgent financial questions now @joaoazevedopatricio1

it was just my opinion, nothing relevant. In any case a member that contributes that wants to pay for the other role; is there any power issues? etc...
which issues are raised by the creation of this new role?

Good evening. I arrived too late to vote, but I have to express my agreement also. The openmandriva association is atypical. Concerning the investment of members, it may take diiférents aspects: financial, material, and also by the given time and labor.

Hum, I'm in the same situation ...pour assurer une bonne prise

At start, we wanted to continue Mandriva and we needed a formal container for that. We chose the status of a French association with members. This is more restrictive than the concept of community.
The need of this structure was reinforced by the fact that we quickly had to manage and pay ourselves the necessary infrastructure.
Now we are facing to the necessity to make our own "baby" survive with our own means without the help of our "parents". And the contributors are now less numerous. Some of them totally disapeared.
Therefore, we have to know on which people and which money we can rely in the near future.
Thus, though it is not in the status of the association, I think that the will to be a member of the association should be renewed every year.
The annual membership fee is one way to do that but it is not strictly required though it can help to ensure our financial needs.
Accordingly I agree with the proposal if the word "automatically" is suppressed in "accepting automatically any member making a donation" and if this member has the same rights as the others.