[OpenAFS] Foundation Membership criteria

[Simon Wilkinson]

Talk of TAC membership, and membership criteria, reminds me of a  
conversation that occurred whilst some of us were in Mountain View.  
I'm not sure we reached any conclusion, and I think the issues  
probably deserve a wider airing.

As proposed, we have a karma mechanism to determine the eligible  
candidates, and the electorate, for the community portion of the TAC.  
One of the reasons for this is to prevent gerrymandering - so no one  
body can swamp the electorate and thus pack the TAC with their own  
particular candidates.

However, as an organisation, the Foundation is vulnerable in other  
ways to this attack. If the membership as a whole has the power to  
appoint the board of directors, then a body which wished to behave in  
this way could simply pack the membership, force an EGM, unseat the  
board, and then have the new board replace the TAC. If we propose to  
allow our membership to determine the board, then I think we need to  
place the eligibility gate on Foundation membership, not on TAC  
membership. This, potentially, removes our ability to 'sell'  
membership of the Foundation as a revenue generating exercise.

Thoughts?

Simon.