[Linux-aus] Fwd: [Announce] Important Notice to Linux Australia Members

[Jonathan Woithe]

Hi Bret

On Sun, Oct 23, 2022 at 05:56:35PM +0800, Bret Busby via linux-aus wrote:
> This message is sent to the Linux Australia mailing list, as sending it to
> the Linux Australia council, bounced.

The "council at linux.org.au" address is valid and should not have bounced for
your.  We would like to better understand what might have happened here. 
Could you please follow up off-list with the bounce message you received so
we can look into it and rectify whatever problem might be identified?

On Sun, 23 Oct 2022 at 17:46:59 +0800, Bret Busby wrote:
> On 23/10/22 12:21, President, Linux Australia wrote:
> > Dear Linux Australia Members,
> > 
> > This is a notice to inform you that a Linux Australia member has
> > requested a list of members under Section 7 of the Linux Australia
> > Constitution [0].  Additionally, contact information for members was
> > requested for the purpose of contacting members. ...
> 
> In the context of the above message, if a member is allowed to request and
> obtain, a list of members and the contact details of of the listed members,
> for the purpose of contacting the members, are the members allowed to
> request, and, have published to the affected members, the name of the member
> who made the request, and, any reasons given for the making of the request?

The reason given for asking the request was included in Joel's email quoted
above: "for the purpose of contacting members."

It is worth reiterating the following point from Joel's message:

    Council has determined that contact details for members will not be
    provided.  Linux Australia is committed to protecting the personal
    information provided to the organisation through membership, events and
    all other activities, per our Privacy Policy [1].  As such, we will not
    be releasing contact details for any members as this would be a breach
    of privacy.

Therefore, while contact details were requested, they have not been provided
for the reasons Joel outlined.  The constitution [0] requires that member
names and join dates be available for inspection by members.

> If so, can the name of the member who made the request, and, any stated
> reasons given for the making of the request, please be announced to the
> members, using the same medium as the above notice?

The reasons given for the making of the request were disclosed by Joel in
the above notice.

The formal request for information will be recorded in the minutes of the
next Council meeting (scheduled for Wed 26 Oct 2022) as correspondance
received.  Thus the name of the requestor will be public following
publication of those minutes on the LA website.

As to whether the name of the member making the request can or should be
disclosed in the manner you suggested, section 7 of the constitution [0]
does not provide any guidance.  In fact the notice sent by Joel is not
formally required by the constitution - Council decided that it ought to be
sent in the interests of transparency.  As far as current Council members
are aware, there is no precedent applicable to your query in the context of
the present situation.

Given that the requestor's name will be disclosed as a matter of course in
the Council minutes as noted above, are you still wishing for their name to
also be sent out using the same communication channels as the original
notice?

Regards
  jonathan
  (Ordinary Committee Member, Linux Australia Council)

[0] https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/blob/master/constitution.txt
[1] https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/blob/master/privacy_policy.md