Invitation to participate: Bylaws Working Group

Well, things always go slower than you hope, but we are ready to go with discussions and revisions on the new bylaws that incorporate the changes voted upon in the last election. We have been hoping to use vote.python.org to handle a few of the votes, but we don't want to stay blocked on that, so we are going ahead.

This is a cross-post to the members list and the bylaws list, but please direct any replies to the bylaws list so that we don't bother people who do not want to participate.

Short version:

• We will be running the bylaws working group for at least one month, and it will go longer as necessary, up to a maximum of four months.
• Any member is welcome to join the bylaws working group. You join by signing up for the mailing list at https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/psf-bylaws-wg.
• A draft of the bylaws are posted at https://bitbucket.org/vanl/psf-bylaws.
• All discussion around the bylaws will be centered around specific pull requests to the repo with concrete language.
• In the event of a significant dispute as to a particular suggested change, there will be a majority-rules vote of the bylaws working group.
• The final result will be vetted one more time for legal correctness before being adopted.

Long version:

I spent some time doing a from-scratch rewrite of the bylaws that incorporates the new membership structure. I them had nonprofit and Delaware corporate law specialists look at it to vet the result.

That doesn't mean that it is done, although it does mean that it is in legalese. Sorry about that. :) There are a couple of places where the rewrite uncovered ambiguity (usually prefixed by a "PSF:" comment) and where it was important to let everyone who was interested have a look at it.

I wanted to make this as accessible to everyone as I can, so the working document is actually stored in my mercurial account at https://bitbucket.org/vanl/psf-bylaws. The bylaws document is in markdown format with lines wrapped at 70 characters. Anyone is free to clone it, there should be no account or specialty software required (other than hg).

I want to focus the conversation around concrete improvements, so any suggested improvements should come in the form of a pull request with suggested language. The same pull request can then be referenced in an email to the bylaws working group email list (https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/psf-bylaws-wg), with any suggested rationale or commentary.

If anyone is worried that they don't have the right wording, don't fret; I will help you lawyer it up and we will run the final results by the nonprofit and corporate specialists one more time before we adopt the result. The key is that every suggestion will need to be in the form of a concrete suggested change. That way we have a record of what changes are made, and why, and what the before-and-after look like.

If there is substantial differences of opinion as to whether a specific requested change should be made, there will be a vote announced on the bylaws working group mailing list that is open only to members of the working group. (Remember, anyone can join the working group by just joining the list.) A majority vote will control the incorporation of the change.

I don't know how much discussion there is going to be, but I want to give everyone the chance to participate. The working group will last at least one month (until Nov. 10) and may last as long as four months (until Feb 10) if there is enough interest. The length of time will be controlled by votes to extend held within the working group as necessary. The Feb 10 end date is to make sure that the new bylaws are absolutely in place for the elections in 2014.

There are a few pieces in the bylaws that are required by law, but we will vet the final result before final adoption. If there are any required changes, we will make them and explain them in a pull request.

I am excited to do this! I think that this is great for the future of the PSF.

Thanks, Van