XSF Discussion - 2019-11-07


  1. pep.

    Ok email sent to members.

  2. pep.

    moparisthebest, you might want to show up for that meeting, your wish about council members might be granted :p

  3. moparisthebest

    pep.: Oh I'll be there :)

  4. stpeter

    pep.: My interpretation of the bylaws (and of XSF history) is that we convince 5% of members that this item needs to be added to the agenda and then we vote on it during normal voting process. Because voting has already started, instead we would hold a special meeting and the voting on the agenda items for that special meeting could be handled in the usual way (via memberbot). While we are doing this, we might as well clean up *all* instances where "in writing" does not mention electronic transmission...

  5. stpeter

    Also note §5.10 Rules of Procedure - it's not clear to me that we actually need to amend the bylaws here, although it's always better to make these things clear in an official way or in the main rules document, not in another document that we need to reference separately.

  6. stpeter

    For completeness, I posted to the members@ email list on these matters.

  7. rion

    I don't quite understand latest changes related to oob. If I prefer to send data via SIMS should I also add oob data in the same stanza? What if I want to share multiple files at once, should I abandon oob at all?

  8. Daniel

    rion, in the compliance suite?

  9. rion

    Daniel: yep

  10. Ge0rG

    rion: I don't think OOB forbids adding multiple elements

  11. Ge0rG

    rion: also you should be happy that the latest change demoted OOB and SIMS from required to noteworthy

  12. Daniel

    i mean for one it doesn’t force you to do anything. i think nobody is argueing that oob doesn’t have problems. however multiple people also feel like sims isn’t ready yet. that's why a number of implementations are still on oob (a lot of them have signaled willingness to switch once sims is ready though). if you just want recommendations on what to do; i'd just send multiple messages for mulitple files for now

  13. rion

    I remember these talks a few days ago here about multiple OOBs. And honestly I don't remember what was the point of not doing this.

  14. Daniel

    note i'm not defending that this is the proper, ideal way to handle that. but for now it should give you the best compat with other implementations

  15. Daniel

    i really like what sims is trying to do. i really don’t like how it is doing that

  16. rion

    Daniel: do you mean missing encryption for metadata?

  17. Ge0rG

    Daniel: feel free to write a SIMS2 XEP that just defines a meta-data element with file_size, content_type, width, height, blurha_sh

  18. Daniel

    i mean we rightfully complain about about oob being weird hacky, under specified legacy crap. but i highly suspect that if we implement sims now in 2 years we will have the same feelings about references

  19. Ge0rG

    and that can be part of a message like OOB or attached-to a different message

  20. Daniel

    rion, no. i'm worried about references

  21. Kev

    I don't think we need SIMS2, SIMS can just be updated can't it?

  22. Ge0rG

    Kev: shouldn't somebody™ update References first?

  23. Kev

    Daniel: I know references needs cleaning, particularly with the split into references/fastening, but in principle this is sane isn't it? You're trying to say that here we have a reference to some other resource that we're sending you and is treated as part of the current flow, which is all that References does (post-split), so it seems like the right application.

  24. Kev

    Ge0rG: Yes, ^

  25. Daniel

    i just want a sims that can be used stand alone. i’m ok with SIMS also being able to be used within a reference

  26. rion

    as for me we still need to reference some text from sims. just to have the text for legacy clients while removing it for compliant. It works pretty well when this text has an http link for example (same link as in <source>), but in case of SIMS we remove the link and download one in <source> on our own with caching and checksum checking.

  27. Kev

    Daniel: Probably thinking of a different use case. What's the case for the 'stand alone' use?

  28. Ge0rG

    Kev: sending a single file as a message

  29. Daniel

    and when i mean stand alone i mean without referenceing a body

  30. Daniel

    i don’t care about the syntax

  31. Daniel

    just send a file without a body

  32. Kev

    Ah, so you still want it to be 'part of the conversation', just that there's no text attached?

  33. Daniel

    yes

  34. Ge0rG

    rion: how should the UI for that work out? show just the message, with an underlined link, and when you click the link it will open a popup with the media file?

  35. Kev

    So just https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0385.html#usecases-sending-photo Example 1 without the <body/> would do for your case Daniel?

  36. Ge0rG

    Kev: in that case, wrapping it in <reference> doesn't make any sense

  37. Daniel

    Kev, yes. but then there is no reference.

  38. Zash

    Or cry a tear of backwards compat and stick some fallback text there?

  39. Daniel

    because what is begin and end refering to?

  40. Daniel

    and you can’t have a reference without those attributes

  41. Ge0rG

    Daniel: are there any open issues with SIMS that won't be solved by making <media-sharing> a direct child of <message>?

  42. Zash

    Implied entire <body>?

  43. Daniel

    i mean i don’t really care about the syntax. but semantically it doesn’t make sense

  44. Daniel

    Ge0rG, not that i'm aware of

  45. Daniel

    and yes media-share as a direct child of message is kinda what i'm talking about when i say i want it stand alone

  46. Ge0rG

    Speaking of semantics. You will want <body> to contain the original URL for legacy clients.

  47. Ge0rG

    But then you also need a mechanism to tell modern clients that it can remove all of the body.

  48. Daniel

    Ge0rG, yes. but then the reference thing becomes more problematic

  49. Daniel

    because of what you just said

  50. rion

    Ge0rG: kind of. for images/audio messeges I show the media directly (picture/player) right in the log. for other files I think to show a special button with file name and context menu to download/save us/etc. all the SIMS links are removed from body. remaining text is preserved as a description

  51. Ge0rG

    Daniel: just the opposite. Let me draft an XML example.

  52. Ge0rG

    <message to='julient@shakespeare.lit' from='romeo@montague.lit'> <body>https://download.montague.lit/4a771ac1-f0b2-4a4a-9700-f2a26fa2bb67/summit.jpg</body> <reference xmlns='urn:xmpp:reference:0' begin='0' end='77' type='data'> <media-sharing xmlns='urn:xmpp:sims:1'> <!-- stripped meta data --> <sources> <reference xmlns='urn:xmpp:reference:0' type='data' uri='https://download.montague.lit/4a771ac1-f0b2-4a4a-9700-f2a26fa2bb67/summit.jpg' /> </sources> </media-sharing> </reference> </message>

  53. Ge0rG

    Daniel: make the reference reference the full body, that way a modern client will just replace the full body with the inline image

  54. Daniel

    Ge0rG, where is it encoded that the body is just a fallback

  55. Daniel

    and not a 'link' to show the image

  56. Daniel

    like in example 1 of sims

  57. Ge0rG

    We just need to mandate that in the XEP

  58. Ge0rG

    that example doesn't make sense in that regard

  59. Ge0rG

    maybe we need a new reference type / mode, "replace"

  60. Daniel

    so when ever i reference the entire body it's a fallback?

  61. rion

    s/all the SIMS links are removed from body/replaced with media elements/

  62. Daniel

    when i reference just 90% of the body it's a link?

  63. Daniel

    also that link usecase is super weird

  64. Ge0rG

    rion: do you replace the referenced text with an inline representation of the media?

  65. Ge0rG

    Daniel: I agree

  66. Daniel

    who is going to enter that as a user like that

  67. rion

    Ge0rG: yes

  68. Daniel

    how would the ui even look like

  69. Ge0rG

    Daniel: the only UI that makes sense is not to use link text but to place the media inline

  70. Daniel

    so it will be rendered as "Look at the nice [picture] from the summit?"

  71. Ge0rG

    <message to='julient@shakespeare.lit' from='romeo@montague.lit'> <body>Look at this nice view! https://download.montague.lit/4a771ac1-f0b2-4a4a-9700-f2a26fa2bb67/summit.jpg</body> <reference xmlns='urn:xmpp:reference:0' begin='24' end='101' type='data'> <media-sharing xmlns='urn:xmpp:sims:1'> <!-- stripped meta data --> <sources> <reference xmlns='urn:xmpp:reference:0' type='data' uri='https://download.montague.lit/4a771ac1-f0b2-4a4a-9700-f2a26fa2bb67/summit.jpg' /> </sources> </media-sharing> </reference> </message>

  72. Daniel

    wtf?

  73. Ge0rG

    > Look at this nice view! [Image]

  74. Kev

    Daniel: My thought in this case was that you would have a body that was http://picture, and the reference would be the full body, and the media-sharing would cover the metadata.

  75. Daniel

    that's not what the examples says

  76. Ge0rG

    Daniel: yes, the example doesn't make sense.

  77. Ge0rG

    (am I repeating myself)

  78. Ge0rG

    I mean, there is "Inline" in SIMS

  79. Daniel

    Ge0rG, in your example will it be mandated that the text you are 'linking' must be an url?

  80. Ge0rG

    Daniel: no. I would just recommend that, and mandate that the referenced part of the body, whatever it is, will be replaced by the media element

  81. Ge0rG

    Daniel: making it an URL makes sense for legacy clients, if you use HTTP Upload

  82. Daniel

    > Daniel: My thought in this case was that you would have a body that was http://picture, and the reference would be the full body, and the media-sharing would cover the metadata. i’m generally fine with that approach. but if the same xep also allows hot linking like in the example i need to somehow discover which it is going to be

  83. Ge0rG

    if you use JFT, it would be something like "[the file I just shared]"

  84. Ge0rG

    Daniel: looks like everybody here agrees that hot-linking doesn't make sense

  85. Daniel

    so we agree that the xep isn’t ready yet?

  86. Daniel

    that's all i said

  87. Ge0rG

    Daniel: we've just gone beyond that, by identifying what needs to be changed: - mandate that the referenced text is replaced by the inline media. Done.

  88. Ge0rG

    + recommend to use the URI of the media in the referenced text

  89. Kev

    I don't think there's any need to mandate that bit of the UI, is there? Just to describe what the semantics of the referenced text are.

  90. Kev

    A client can then choose how to render it.

  91. Daniel

    > + recommend to use the URI of the media in the referenced text that too

  92. Ge0rG

    Kev: oh god no.

  93. rion

    > mandate that the referenced text is replaced by the inline media. Done PR?

  94. MattJ

    Kev, what are the client's other options in your mind?

  95. MattJ

    I don't like open-choice standards

  96. Kev

    To show the message, including the link, with the image below it, for example.

  97. Daniel

    are references going to be used somewhere else? or is references only going to be used for sims where it is (imho) 'ok' but not really ideal to use

  98. Kev

    A la Slack, Discord etc.

  99. MattJ

    We've had a fair few of them, and we either ended up tightening them or it just became a mess or people adopted de-facto standards

  100. Kev

    MattJ: I think mandating UI behaviour in protocol standards is usually not right. It's not needed for interop.

  101. Kev

    It needs to be clear what the semantics of the protocol are, definitely, and it's currently not, but exactly where on the screen an image is rendered isn't needed here, I think.

  102. MattJ

    In this case the semantics are clear - the text is a fallback for the media

  103. Kev

    Ah. I don't agree there.

  104. Kev

    It's more than a fallback when it's the URI identifying the media.

  105. Daniel

    also did we cover rions mulitple files use case yet?

  106. Kev

    You might click it to open it in your browser, for example, or copy it to share with someone else.

  107. Kev

    Unfortunately, I can't keep going with this right now, have other work, but could we take this on list and I'll try to chime in later (and maybe see if Tobi has cycles to update SIMS with the outcomes).

  108. Ge0rG

    Kev: if we define the semantics as "the referenced text is supposed to be replaced by the media", I would agree.

  109. Ge0rG

    Kev: if we define the semantics as "this could be a URL, a link text or the verbatim string 'yaddayadda'", then good luck

  110. pep.

    dwd, "and that moreover we avoid doing this kind of thing if at all possible", I don't like resolutions that say "we should avoid doing this" when the alternative is not clear either. that means everybody is afraid and nothing ever changes

  111. pep.

    I guess we can add another agenda item yo clarify this :)

  112. pep.

    I guess we can add another agenda item to clarify this :)

  113. Ge0rG

    dwd: very nice Special Meeting Agenda mail! 👍

  114. MattJ

    I managed to double-book myself (thank DST) and I won't be able to make the board meeting today, sorry!

  115. Seve

    We will miss you <3

  116. pep.

    In 0158, what does "An entity MUST NOT send a challenge stanza under any other circumstances." mean? knowing that "Upon receiving a triggering stanza, an entity MAY send a "challenge stanza"" is already subjective (somebody might say a stanza is concidered as triggering, somebody else not)

  117. pep.

    §3.1.2

  118. pep.

    I'm mostly curious about the usefulness of the MUST NOT

  119. pep.

    Also still §3.1.2, "The 'xml:lang' attribute of the challenge stanza SHOULD be the same as the one received from the sender, if any.", there is always an xml:lang attribute (if not on the captcha element or message, on the stream)

  120. Guus

    Fellow board members: I'm faced with an emergency at work, and can't attend the meeting.

  121. nyco

    no worries

  122. nyco

    time

  123. Seve

    time is it

  124. nyco

    ok... :)

  125. Seve

    ralphm, are you around?

  126. Seve

    (Maybe we are not enough)

  127. ralphm

    I'm at a company event all week, as mentioned last week. Sorry!

  128. Seve

    Ohh right

  129. Seve

    my bad

  130. nyco

    so no quorum

  131. Seve

    Then I will say just thanks nyco for the newsletter!

  132. nyco

    welcome, not finished though

  133. Ge0rG

    Kev: you should work on making your statements less British and more understandable... re "I think we need to either not be introducing voting items that people effectively can’t vote in"

  134. Kev

    Summary: Instead of lawyering a way to get votes through, work on a way to maximise potential participation.

  135. nyco

    that's a general problem, if you allow me given the diversity of our community, we should all be responsible for understandable communication using a simple English form helps

  136. Kev

    It's a general problem, but from what people keep saying I'm the worst offender.

  137. jonas’

    something about hithertofore

  138. Zash

    jonas’, that word made me retroactively confused about everything said in the last hour

  139. Kev

    hitherto is one of the few unhelpful words that I /don't/ use, I think.

  140. Kev

    I do try, when I remember, I just often forget.

  141. Kev

    (And I like the way I speak :( )

  142. pep.

    "Kev> Summary: Instead of lawyering a way to get votes through, work on a way to maximise potential participation.", I agree

  143. pep.

    To me what dwd says rings an alarm anyway, it means there's no appropriate process in place if we're trying to workaround bylaws.

  144. David Cridland

    To quote Kev, I do not disagree.

  145. MattJ

    Neither me also

  146. pep.

    British and their fancy language

  147. David Cridland

    FWIW, it was useful that one time to have an escape hatch. What had happened was that we'd had a tie in voting for Board, and we had no method available to resolve the tie. Our solution was to use the meeting to reduce the Board positions, so the tie was irrelevant, and then by the next meeting we'd worked on a long-term fix for that problem in the bylaws.

  148. pep.

    David Cridland, Kev, maybe this needs to be brought as an agenda item for the next annual meeting? :-°

  149. Zash

    Bylaws overhaul?

  150. pep.

    Well we have identified a problem

  151. pep.

    When I tried to correct a typo..

  152. pep.

    So yeah

  153. pep.

    The process is unclear an definitely not used often enough :)

  154. ralphm

    well, I think that is a bit strong

  155. pep.

    The process is unclear and definitely not used often enough :)

  156. David Cridland

    In fairness, it's the kind of process we shouldn't be using opften at all.

  157. pep.

    David Cridland: why not?

  158. David Cridland

    Changing our bylaws?

  159. ralphm

    I agree

  160. pep.

    Tbh, bylaws are quite hard to read. I'd be happy yo have a more understandable language being used

  161. Zash

    pep., legalese tho

  162. pep.

    Sure, we can get that reviewed

  163. Zash

    Bylaws /should/ be hard to change, so that you don't accidentally let something bad trough.

  164. pep.

    I disagree

  165. pep.

    With the "should be hard to change"

  166. ralphm

    I personally believe that your particular changes aren't pressing enough to be classified as a problem.

  167. pep.

    These bylaws have obviously not been written for this era with all the "in writing" appearing in there

  168. pep.

    ralphm: surr

  169. ralphm

    If the Secretary is willing to accept e-mails over handwritten letters as

  170. pep.

    ralphm: sure

  171. ralphm

    'writing', and there's an actual meeting subsequentially, that's perfectly fine.

  172. Zash

    I'm personally wondering if it's not too easy to change the bylaws.

  173. ralphm

    Zash: well, the corporation == the body ofmembers. If there's a majority for a change, you can change things.

  174. pep.

    Zash: dunno about that. Maybe member quorum can be changed to more members or sth.

  175. pep.

    Majority of 1/3 does seem low

  176. ralphm

    That's a valid point. I dont' remember why that number was chosen.

  177. Zash

    I'd find it more normal to require 2/3 majority on two consecutive members meetings.

  178. ralphm

    Well, we're not writing the Constitution here.

  179. Zash

    ralphm: It's kinda standard for random gameing associations here.

  180. Zash

    Random non-profit organizations for any purpsoe even

  181. Kev

    I think there is a problem here that it is worth solving, and I think that problem is that it's unclear how items can be added to an agenda for a meeting, and who is eligible to vote on them.

  182. ralphm

    I think that our Bylaws actually require Board to suggest changes, which then have to be approved by the membership.

  183. Kev

    I think the other concerns are secondary, really.

  184. ralphm

    So before changing things you need a willing Board. If you don't currently have one, you need to follow procedures to fix that first.

  185. Kev

    But Ralph is right that only the Board can change the Bylaws.

  186. ralphm

    Zash: does that give you more assurance?

  187. Kev

    (And need the members approval)

  188. moparisthebest

    that's not at all what dwd said yesterday

  189. Kev

    And that couldn't happen e.g. during a members meeting, because of periods of notice for Board meetings.

  190. David Cridland

    You might find, BTW, that the "in writing" bits result from Delaware law.

  191. ralphm

    deposing board is not necessarily easy

  192. Zash

    ralphm: Some, as long as Board can't do it without support from the Members

  193. ralphm

    David Cridland: ah yes. So this may apply: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title6/c012a/index.shtml

  194. ralphm

    Zash: it can't

  195. Zash

    Good

  196. David Cridland

    ralphm, Probably. Delaware Corporation law is notoriously loose - it's why so many companies are incorporated there - but it probably has various constraints.

  197. ralphm

    David Cridland: particularly § 12A-107, so arguably we don't need pep.'s change

  198. David Cridland

    Ah, good spot.

  199. ralphm

    And there are similar provisions in Dutch law, and I'm sure in most other modern jurisdictions.

  200. ralphm

    pep.: I reviewed both changes, and consider them unneeded.

  201. ralphm

    (and recorded that on the respective PRs)

  202. Kev

    Well, one's possibly unneeded, the other is wrong, isn't it? Having just checked the typo one myself.

  203. ralphm

    proviso is just a word that means what it is supposed to

  204. Kev

    Right - I mean that changing it to provision isn't simply unneeded, it isn't the right word for the intention there.

  205. Kev

    I've done the negatives thing again, haven't I.

  206. Kev

    "provision is the wrong word"

  207. pep.

    Ok, so the typo is not a typo. Now how many members do need to say the other is unneeded for it to be unneeded

  208. Kev

    None.

  209. pep.

    They can only say so during a vote, no?

  210. Kev

    It's Board, not the members, you need to take this to.

  211. pep.

    Why

  212. Kev

    Because that's what the Bylaws require.

  213. Kev

    The Board makes changes to the bylaws, with the Members' approval.

  214. pep.

    Members can override this right?

  215. Kev

    I don't see where the Bylaws say that - which bit are you looking at?

  216. pep.

    I'm not at the moment

  217. pep.

    If so, that is missing, IMO. I don't want one person to be able to veto everything going through

  218. Kev

    Where's the veto coming from?

  219. Kev

    I don't see that bit, either.

  220. ralphm

    You can initiate the removal of a board member

  221. ralphm

    Or all of them.

  222. pep.

    Kev: ok I read ralphm's message above too fast

  223. ralphm

    The power is ultimately still with the membership.

  224. Zash

    Removing all of them via new elections or just rm -rf board/ ?

  225. Kev

    Either can be done by the Members.

  226. pep.

    Imo bylaws would be members matters and board here only to address daily business, not block members from changing bylaws (which is what I understand with "So before changing things you need a willing Board. If you don't currently have one, you need to follow procedures to fix that first.")

  227. Kev

    Well, Board are the legal custodians of the XSF (which is a legal entity). Any change to the Bylaws needs to be legally valid, so having the Board as the keepers of such changes (with the proviso that they can't make changes the Members don't like) seems right to me.

  228. pep.

    I'm not saying that's not what it is currently

  229. Kev

    What you desperately don't want (must not have) is a subset of the Members, probably well-meaning, making some mistaken edits to the Bylaws that are in some way mistaken.

  230. Kev

    And if you remove Board from the equation that's what you get.

  231. Kev

    Now, Board could propose 'bad' changes to the Bylaws too, but they're the ones who're legally responsible for it, so at least it's on their heads.

  232. pep.

    Kev: which is why I would increase member quorum, rather than leaving this to 5 (potentially non-)members

  233. Kev

    But this isn't left to 5.

  234. Zash

    Kev, maybe that's why it's common to have two readings of changes to the bylaws here.

  235. Kev

    Zash: There's two for the XSF too, essentially. One is that the Board must approve the change, then the Members must also approve it.

  236. pep.

    Kev: ok. My original point was that I don't want board blocking changes

  237. Zash

    Also usually any (member?) usually get to propose any changes to any document.

  238. Zash

    Works I suppose

  239. Zash

    Kinda like how the govt proposes laws and parliment votes on them

  240. Kev

    Zash: Well, I don't think that Board are going to refuse to consider a change brought forward by Members (and if Board do start refusing to listen to Members, Members have a mechanism for removing them).

  241. pep.

    Kev: in any case I agree with you that the way to propose agenda items should be clarified.

  242. moparisthebest

    could a proposed vote be something like "Fire current board. Amend bylaws to do X. Rehire current board." ? then members could just vote on that themselves?

  243. Kev

    moparisthebest: No, because the Board must make the change to the Bylaws"

  244. Kev

    If you fire the Board you need a new one before that can happen.

  245. Zash

    Which is in a way also two votes by members, first for a Board positive to the change, then for the change itself

  246. moparisthebest

    "Fire current board. Hire Y as board providing they immediatly amend bylaws to do X. Fire Y. Rehire current board."

  247. Kev

    They can't *immediately* amend the Bylaws.

  248. moparisthebest

    if they are all in the meeting they can't?

  249. Kev

    No.

  250. pep.

    *providing they agree with our bylaws change

  251. Kev

    I suggest, possibly unreasonably, that everyone currently proposing that we change our Bylaws in some way, goes away and reads the Bylaws first.

  252. Zash

    Can I request them in writing? 😛

  253. pep.

    When I was saying bylaws are not easy to understand..

  254. larma

    Kev, not sure how these things work in Delaware law, but usually the members can instruct the board to do specific things.

  255. Kev

    You may request many things in writing, as stated in the Bylaws :p

  256. ralphm

    I feel this discussion is what you get when software developers think legal documents are like code.

  257. larma

    Also bylaws are just bylaws, laws override them, so even if bylaws now say members can't do anything, it's just factually not true

  258. Kev

    larma: I think we're a long way off anything that would require the Members to get into a legal battle with the Board.

  259. ralphm

    I don't think there's an actual problem here and we're talking a many hypotheticals.

  260. Kev

    ralphm: I think there *is* a problem here, it's just not the one being discussed.

  261. pep.

    ralphm: ask lawyers to volunteer under a legal working group at the xsf?

  262. ralphm

    Hah

  263. ralphm

    pep.: To solve what?

  264. moparisthebest

    that probably happens when approx 100% of the members are software developers :) I know I'm guilty

  265. Kev

    The problem, I think, being that it's not clear how to get something onto the Agenda, and who then votes on it :)

  266. ralphm

    A legal team *wrote* this text.

  267. pep.

    I also think there is a problem, and I'm happy to retract both of my items for the one Kev is talking about

  268. pep.

    Which tbh, was mostly what was I was expecting from all this. To figure out how to do it

  269. ralphm

    A good first step is: ask Board.

  270. Kev

    I'm uncomfortable with the suggestion that it's possible to interpret the Bylaws such that a single person could, in the perfect storm, vote on something on behalf of all Members.

  271. Zash

    Legal team gonna legalese

  272. ralphm

    Or, if you want to bypass them, ask the Secretary.

  273. Kev

    (Which Dave's (a) reading leads to, I think)

  274. ralphm

    Kev: yes, I think that notion is false.

  275. Kev

    ralphm: I think I would not want to bet anything substantial on how a legal reading would do, if it came to it.

  276. Kev

    ralphm: I think I would not want to bet anything substantial on how a legal reading would go, if it came to it.

  277. ralphm

    Intent is the most important thing in legal terms.

  278. Zash

    While y'all are reading the Bylaws, is there anything in there that would prevent someone from being a member without their name being public?

  279. Kev

    That is, I don't agree with Dave's (a), but I don't think it's a completely unreasonable reading, either.

  280. Zash

    IIRC this came up last Summit

  281. ralphm

    Memberbot clearly lets you proxy specific *votes*, not a carte blanche to represent members in new matters.

  282. Kev

    Indeed.

  283. pep.

    Zash: I don't think so? And if required I'm sure only the secretary could be told

  284. Kev

    But I think Dave's (a) was that once you have cast your vote, you have left the meeting, and then the remaining members present could as quorum. So if only on member remained, a majority of that 1 could vote.

  285. Kev

    What I think I'd like to see Board (new, presumably) tackle is proposing a change to Bylaws simply that the items for vote at a meeting must be announced X in advance.

  286. ralphm

    I don't read it that way, per my email.

  287. Kev

    Which would mean that anyone proxy voting can be represented, and all is good, with minimal change to our process or bylaws.

  288. stpeter

    +1

  289. Zash

    pep., yeah, practically, only the secretary needs to know. As long as the secretary can't just make up a bunch of sock puppets and take over the world

  290. ralphm

    Kev: makes sense

  291. ralphm

    stpeter: hi!

  292. pep.

    Zash: we already trust the secretary with our proxy votes

  293. larma

    Actually the laws also only require the secretary to know

  294. larma

    §6.7 The Secretary shall have general charge of the membership records of the Corporation and shall keep, at the principal office of the Corporation, a record of the Members showing the name, address, telephone number, facsimile number and electronic mail address of each Member.

  295. Seve

    Kev: I agree

  296. larma

    I wonder where the secretary got my phone and facsimile number from?

  297. Kev

    larma: Except that members can request those records, IIRC. (That's from memory, I haven't checked)

  298. stpeter

    In practice we have never gathered that information, nor have we gathered physical address.

  299. Kev

    stpeter: Probably we should either start, or amend the Bylaws.

  300. moparisthebest

    maybe the secretary is just extremely good at doxing people

  301. pep.

    I say amend.

  302. stpeter

    Kev: yes, amend.

  303. Kev

    I think start. I don't see why every Member shouldn't be required to have a fax number.

  304. ralphm

    Surprising 🤣

  305. pep.

    Kev, :)

  306. stpeter

    I have to say, this conversation includes wild speculation and some unnecessarily harsh language.

  307. pep.

    stpeter, if the world was all flowers and rainbows..

  308. stpeter

    At least append jokey emojis if you're not serious about some of the claims and assertions here. No one, for instance, is doxing anyone.

  309. ralphm

    stpeter: quite

  310. stpeter

    Doxing is a violent act, in my opinion.

  311. pep.

    (I don't even know what that means.. /me looking for his translator)

  312. pep.

    oh

  313. ralphm

    The act of researching a person and expose private details, like address, phone...

  314. pep.

    I took that as a joke anyway

  315. larma

    Kev, even if members can request that records, they cannot publish them. And given the bylaws I think it should be possible to be elected as a member without publishing your private data, which we currently require. This could even get us into problems as there is no good reason to require this data to be published

  316. moparisthebest

    oh sorry I meant the doxing comment as a joke :)

  317. stpeter

    In general, yes, we should review the bylaws to ensure that they are consistent with our existing practices (and of course Delaware law).

  318. stpeter

    moparisthebest: thanks for the clarification.

  319. stpeter

    We once had someone ("Solarius") who applied to be a member without providing their real name. We'd discussed this matter before.

  320. larma

    stpeter, consider that not only Delaware law applies. As we have EU citizin members, some EU laws also apply (at least for those members)

  321. pep.

    stpeter, it's come up again when passing 345 to draft. (Which is still isn't. slack off editors.)

  322. Kev

    larma: The Board did go through a GDPR exercise at the time. So what we have now is considered reasonable by the Board (or at least the Board at that time).

  323. stpeter

    EU law does not govern the operation of the Foundation's articles of incorporation and bylaws per se, of course, because the Foundation is legally domiciled in Delaware. That doesn't mean EU doesn't apply in some respects to data the Foundation gathers.

  324. Kev

    Right.

  325. stpeter is off to another meeting

  326. Kev

    Enjoy! :)

  327. pep.

    (not?)

  328. larma

    Some EU laws apply if the organization is actively operating in EU, and that is obviously the case.

  329. Kev

    larma: I think what Peter was saying (mansplaining because he's not here now, rather than because he can't talk for himself) was that the EU laws don't apply to the bylaws. They apply to the XSF's interaction with the EU folks.

  330. stpeter

    Correct.

  331. larma

    Yeah, but we should better make sure the bylaws don't effectively prohibit the XSF to interact with EU folks 😉

  332. Kev

    Yes.

  333. larma

    I don't think they do, whereas our current implementation might

  334. Zash

    IANAL and I don't remember all the GDPR by heart but surely a members based organization must be able to keep a record of members

  335. larma

    Zash, it's not about keeping records, it's about publishing them