Re: [Linux-aus] Representation

Leon Brooks <leon@cyberknights.com.au> · Tue Feb 4 07:13:01 2003

On Tuesday 04 February 2003 12:01 am, indy@THE-TECH.MIT.EDU wrote:
> However, advisory boards tend to be rather
> toothless and thus rely on mutual respect when dealing
> with the main committee. This is possible, but perhaps
> unreliable and prone to breakdown in cases of conflict
> between AdBoard and ExecBoard.

Against this, LA's subCommittees can be made quite powerful. In the very few 
situations where the LUGs collectively oppose LA itself in an issue, the main 
Committee _should_ trump the subCommittee (but would probably be a bunch of 
losers if at least _some_ concessions were not made), a tail-wagging-the-dog 
thing.

The Committee is there to work for LA's interests, and while LA's interests 
will coincide with the LUGs, IRL it ain't always gunna be so. The 
subCommittee has divided loyalties: to LA because they are a subCommittee of 
it, and to their LUGs because they represent each. This is a good thing, 
because without a divergent PoV they would simply be duplicating Committee's 
efforts.

I feel a need to examine this monomaniac focus on geographical representation.

To my way of thinking, it would make sense to have a rep from a remote area, 
representing the interests of isolated users and LUGs, and one from within 
the mechanism of government somewhere, representing the interests of gummint 
users, and a consultant, and an IT centre employee, and someone from a school 
(perhaps private or parochial to not dupe the gummint rep too much), and 
someone unemployed, maybe a few other special interests. Such a subCommittee 
would represent a wider and more useful range of interests than a group made 
of people who look east to see the water (QLD/NSW) versus west (WA) or all 
around (TAS).

While we're on the topic, shall we float some ideas about subCommittees for 
special interests such as business (SLPWA, OSV, etc) and education?

Cheers; Leon

-- 
http://cyberknights.com.au/     Modern tools; traditional dedication
http://plug.linux.org.au/       Member, Perth Linux User Group
http://slpwa.asn.au/            Committee Member, Linux Professionals WA
http://linux.org.au/            Committee Member, Linux Australia
http://linux.org.au/~leonb/lca2003/  THE Oz Linux Technical Conf:
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