[Linux-aus] Eliminating fees from the constitution?

[Mary Gardiner]

Short version: I'd like to know if there's significant support for eliminating
the *possibility* of fees from the LA constitution (that is, make it so that a
future LA would need to change the constitution to introduce fees again). This
is somewhere where data would be useful for our final proposal.

Since having everyone express their opinion would be extremely noisy for the
list, I'd appreciate that people with an opinion fill out
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFk4X1NHRkwzbWdPaDd5OER6VjhaX1E6MQ
or, if that is for any reason impossible or undesirable for you, please email
me off-list with your answers (such answers may be shared with Council).

Aggregate results will be shared here probably in about a week.

On Mon, May 02, 2011, David Newall wrote:
> I'm suspicious of constitutional changes, however if a change is 
> necessary then a change there must be.  The trouble is, there doesn't 
> seem to be any actual need for this change.  Mary's comment, quoted 
> above, implies that nothing changes, in which case let's change nothing.

OK! I'm not that wedded to the one month change and could leave it at three
months.

If by "this change" you mean the whole diff to Sections 3 and 8 though, there
are reasons for other changes that I think stand, in terms of having the
capacity to get members to renew their membership actively rather than
passively.

> I want to know--as asked in prior messages--what need there is to charge 
> a fee.

You seem to be taking a couple of positions in this thread:

 (1) LA must not change the constitution more than necessary: in which case,
     the constitution will continue to allow a fee, because it currently does
     (2005) and the new model does (2010).

 (2) LA should change the constitution more radically to either make the fee
     extremely optional (99 years) or eliminate it.

I'd genuinely like to know which you prefer.

-Mary