On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 08:40:35AM +0800, Bret Busby wrote:
> On Wed, 7 Jan 2004, Stewart Smith wrote:
> > And welcome to democracy! We encourage people having a say. This is why
> > we wanted to put all changes to constitution etc forward at a GM at the
> > conf - where the overwhelming majority of our members would be able to
> > be there IN PERSON, participate, feel and *BE* involved.
> Again, that clearly demonstrates that Linux Australia is
> really only for conference attendees. Your words above - not mine.
> And, once again, people can communicate, and, can debate issues and vote
> on the issues, across the Internet, using simple tools, like email, etc.
Unfortunately discussing and voting over the Internet isn't an alternative
that's available; the alternative that's available is to have the vote
on the new constitution at a physical meeting other than the conference,
which would certainly be attended by even fewer people.
In any event, communicating and debating issues over the Internet is
already possible, and is already happening.
I'm sure that if members aren't able to make the conference, but wish
to have particular concerns taken into account at the AGM, that the
president will be happy to read or summarise brief statements on important
issues. It's already been made clear that (e)postal votes from members
will be accepted. If you want to discuss things in email in advance,
you certainly can.
While I can understand that you might feel disaffected nevertheless,
I can't see how the committee could possibly have done anything better.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.
Linux.conf.au 2004 -- Because we can.
http://conf.linux.org.au/ -- Jan 12-17, 2004
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