Suggested charter edits and additions

[vmbrasseur]

• Add title and table of contents
• Add a section about removal of steering committee members
• Change §2 from company to organization to better include non-corporate members
• Explicitly say the organization must be a member of LF to qualify for membership
• Include real-time chat and GitHub as communication methods
• "All members shall encourage…" to "All members may encourage…" to remove implied recruiting requirement
• Fix a typo that was preventing hyperlinking of CC-BY

[vmbrasseur]

The TOC isn't working but I'm not fussed about that.

[anajsana]

Thanks a lot for the PR @vmbrasseur!! overall, the changes LGTM. I just made a small comment on line 43 to see if it makes sense to specify what we consider "regular non-participation" in this context

[anajsana]

I've requested some extra changes to the doc. I'd also like to suggest changing the title "charter" to "general-member-charter". The document only talks about the responsibilities, way of work and rights for TODO General Members, and not the TODO Group as a whole (that currently, also includes the people behind the OSPOlogy community, OSPO Associates, etc). If we don't specify, maybe people that are active contributors in the community, or OSPO associates representatives can feel excluded because the document does not mention them. What do you think? (cc @vmbrasseur )

[lhawthorn]

Feel free to add me as a reviewer for these changes. I will take a look at the latest first thing tomorrow morning.

[lhawthorn]

I am not sure if this is the correct place to leave feedback, but I will drop here anyway so it does not get lost.

The text at https://github.com/todogroup/governance/blob/main/CHARTER.adoc does not match the text at https://github.com/todogroup/governance/blob/main/TODO%20Charter%20and%20Agreement%20v2.0.pdf.

As the PDF is the official agreement members sign, we need to ensure that the document and the charter match. I do not know how we go about getting proposed changes approved by LF and the membership agreement (which includes the charter) updated, but it needs to be done. The charter at https://github.com/todogroup/governance/blob/main/CHARTER.adoc includes substantial revision to Section 3, Article A, clause II, inserting this language "including approving new programs and initiatives that make use of the TODO Group name, logo, or branding, and approving use of the TODO Group name, logo, or branding for sponsorship or endorsement purposes;" at the conclusion of the clause "overseeing all business and marketing matters, "

If we're going to revise the charter, we MUST ensure consistency between these documents, or people are signing a legal agreement that differs from what we are currently presenting as the charter of the TODO Group in the ASCII doc file.

[lhawthorn]

Referring to document text as it appears here:
https://github.com/todogroup/governance/blob/main/CHARTER.adoc

Section 11, Article A, Clause III
If I am reading this correctly, TODO SC members are elected for a two year term. If that's correct, let's just make it explicit. If I am not reading it correctly, I will not be the only one to do so and we should spell out 1 year term (or 6 day term, etc., whatever is accurate. :) )

Section 11, Article A, Clause VIII
This clause refers to appointing a member only, but mentions "elections or appointment purposes" in the last sentence of the clause. This is confusing. We should drop the word elections here.

Section 11, Article C
To whom are the issues that the SC are unable to resolve referred? It just says LF. We should be explicit what position/role is responsible for adjudicating upon the issue and, if possible, our responsibilities as the SC to present information to the LF person to be best prepared to adjudicate.

[lhawthorn]

General ideas:
Replace use of IRC with real-time chat. A tool should not be specified in the charter, but the means of communication.

Definition of initial work of working groups could be expanded and we should consider doing this intentionally to incentive contribution in particular areas. It could be as simple as saying "we will solicit for working group ideas in $REPO etc where detailed information is contained in that repo with revision history.

[caniszczyk]

LGTM.

…

On Wed, Mar 1, 2023 at 11:58 PM Ana Jimenez Santamaria < ***@***.***> wrote: ***@***.**** commented on this pull request. ------------------------------ In CHARTER.adoc <#255 (comment)>: > @@ -1,9 +1,14 @@ += Charter of The TODO Group + +:toc: + . *Mission of the TODO Group (“TODO”).* The TODO Group’s mission is to identify key policy and process choices related to corporate open source engagement and create tools and educational materials that promote best practices around such engagements. What about something like: *The TODO Group's mission is to convene a community of practice focused on best practices for open source programs. While our primary focus is on corporate OSPOs, we welcome members from outside the corporate world, including governments, NGOs, NPOs, educational institutions, and others. The Community of Practice will identify, document, and share policy and process best practices and create tools and educational materials. The general members serve professionals in OSPOs looking to collaborate with fellow TODO general members and other related affinity groups and communities. Our general members include a diverse group of organizations committed to advancing open source best practices and creating a more inclusive and collaborative open source ecosystem.* — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#255 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAAPSIJZGIZKMIIGGMNAB4LWZ5W3NANCNFSM6AAAAAATPFNS7I> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

-- Cheers, Chris Aniszczyk https://aniszczyk.org

[anajsana]

Suggested change

	... All public communication not during meetings will take place over the public group mailing list(s), real-time chats, issue trackers, or source code management systems and will be accessible to members and non-members alike.
	... Communication is divided between community (public) and general members (private). The general members at times share sensitive information and use a private channel for that type of discussion. Some of the information shared in those channels is later anonymized and shared with the wider OSPO community via [OSPO Discussions](https://github.com/todogroup/ospology/discussions).
	... All public communication not during meetings will take place over the public group mailing list(s), real-time chats, issue trackers, or source code management systems and will be accessible to members and non-members alike.

[gkunz]

This is fine for me to include in the charter.

[annania]

LGTM. Somewhat nit picky... Are all discussions from the private channel anonymized and shared in OSPO Discussions? If not, can say "Some of the information shared in those channels are later anonymized..."

[lhawthorn]

LGTM with @annania's recommendation to say "some of the information" as it is an accurate synopsis of our operating processes. Please merge after that change has been made.

[anajsana]

In practice, any information shared on Slack that is meaningful (e.g conversations that get lots of attraction and a long discussion around) and will help the overall community is always shared anonymously. The topics that are not shared are those who are informal conversations that do not provide "value" or topics that are duplicated and also discussed in the public channels

[anajsana]

I am not sure if this is the correct place to leave feedback, but I will drop here anyway so it does not get lost.

The text at https://github.com/todogroup/governance/blob/main/CHARTER.adoc does not match the text at https://github.com/todogroup/governance/blob/main/TODO%20Charter%20and%20Agreement%20v2.0.pdf.

As the PDF is the official agreement members sign, we need to ensure that the document and the charter match. I do not know how we go about getting proposed changes approved by LF and the membership agreement (which includes the charter) updated, but it needs to be done. The charter at https://github.com/todogroup/governance/blob/main/CHARTER.adoc includes substantial revision to Section 3, Article A, clause II, inserting this language "including approving new programs and initiatives that make use of the TODO Group name, logo, or branding, and approving use of the TODO Group name, logo, or branding for sponsorship or endorsement purposes;" at the conclusion of the clause "overseeing all business and marketing matters, "

If we're going to revise the charter, we MUST ensure consistency between these documents, or people are signing a legal agreement that differs from what we are currently presenting as the charter of the TODO Group in the ASCII doc file.

@lhawthorn Once the Steering Committee agrees on the final version of the charter contained in this PR. I will open a ticket to LF legal team for review. If approved, the PR will be merged and changes will be mirrored to the .adoc document. 👍

[anajsana]

Restore shall encourage to the charter

those changes were already made

[anajsana]

Define technical communications and explain that all technical communications and decisions must be public

[anajsana]

Suggested change

	... All public communication not during meetings will take place over the public group mailing list(s), real-time chats, issue trackers, or source code management systems and will be accessible to members and non-members alike.
	... All public communication not during meetings will take place over the public group mailing list(s), real-time chats, issue trackers, or source code management systems and will be accessible to members and non-members alike. Public communication must include all technical discussions and communications.

[lhawthorn]

I am comfortable with this change provided technical is a bit better defined. We're working largely with technology companies so I'd argue almost every discussion could be construed as technical in nature because it will absolutely touch on technologies, e.g. stating that it is best practice that a project's ReadMe.md file on GitHub includes contact details for the project maintainers could be construed as a technical discussion.

IANAL, but if one were to take a broad interpretation of this clause, it would mean to me that nearly every communication taking place in TODO Group should be public. This would not be in keeping with current operations, such as the existence of the members only channel on the TODO Slack that is offered as a member benefit; people certainly discuss best practices for their project's GitHub presence in that channel, which is perfectly fine and appropriate.

Is there a way to add more detail to this clause without it becoming unwieldy or overly specific?

[anajsana]

Technical is everything related to contributing/participating in TODO project repos + meetings related to the activity of each of the repos. For instance:

• TODO Guides are done via todogroup.org and the readme file clarifies how people can contribute and start a new guide or make changes to existing ones.
• OSPOlogy has a contribution ladder to know how people can become maintainers
• People can read the community page to join any of the working groups that are active, communication channels, and mailing lists
• Announcements of project releases, like the OSPO mind map are shared via public GH OSPOlogy Discussions.

Maybe we can be more specific on the kind of topics that refers to technical in the playbook, and leave a short sentence like the one suggested here?

[anajsana]

Suggested change:

Project repo management, discussions, and workflows are public. To learn more about the different private and public communication channels, please go to [communication channel section]

TBD: Review what is written in communication channels to check if it's well enumerated.

[lhawthorn]

Have re-reviewed the inclusion of "shall" in the charter as per LF Legal and agree with reinstating it / not removing from the new charter draft.

[anajsana]

clarify general member communication channels and public communication channels