[Foundation] membership, money, and meritocracy

[Alexander Gnauck]

Hello,

> I think there is a connection here to the meaning of JSF membership. 
> Right now, just about anyone can be a member of the JSF. This was 100%

> true when the JSF accepted its first batch of members in 2001, and 
> since then the vast majority of applicants have been accepted. The 
> result is that the JSF has a lot of members, especially compared to 
> something like the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). The JSF has 88 
> members and is currently accepting applications for more. By contrast,

> the ASF, which leads a much larger and older community, has something 
> like 45 members.

i agree that its not good for the foundation to get 40 new members every
year.

> 4. Membership is free for Jabber Council members, leaders of JSF work 
> teams (e.g., Compliance and Marketing), and leaders of active Jabber 
> open-source projects (how we define "leader" and "active project" is 
> open to debate, but CVS checkins and release schedules, and maybe 
> protocol compliance / JEP support, should help us create objective 
> measures).

What about people that run a big public Jabber Server, or offer a nice
Jabber Client that is free but not open source? That are active in the
mailing list when dicussing new stuff and Jeps ? These people also
contribute when they implement new protocol stuff in the clients in my
opionion.

> 5. All members must be actively affiliated with a company or an 
> open-source project. If you like Jabber but don't contribute, we still

> love you but you can't be a member. If you once led a project but 
> dropped out, you can't be a member. If your project is dead, you can't

> be a member. If you are a corporate member and your company goes out 
> of business or fires you or whatever, you can't be a member (unless 
> you meet the criteria in #4).

Look at JabberStudio. There are lots of dead projects. There are also
active accounts for more than 12 month with no downlaods and sources
yet.

> As I said, this is controversial. I'm not wedded to everything I 
> suggest above, but I *am* committed to making JSF membership an honor 
> and a privilege. And I wouldn't mind raising a little money from 
> corporate members of the Jabber community in the process.

Alex