[Foundation-l] Board restructuring and community

[Mike Godwin]

Delirium writes:

> The Electronic Frontier Foundation has 10 members of its Board of
> Directors[1]; all ten have prior experience strongly relevant to the
> foundation's mission (digital civil liberties, free culture, copyright
> reform, etc.). In addition, at least eight have strong prior advocacy
> credentials. There are no technocrats who are there simply because of
> their experience in some managerial or executive aspect of nonprofits,
> and only a minority is even arguably there just for their professional
> (mission-related) expertise without also having a record of agitating
> for EFF-type causes. Of course, they have staff to handle other  
> things,
> but the staff are not on the Board of Directors.

Speaking as someone who worked for EFF for nine years, let me point  
out that, over time, many Board members of EFF have had no connection  
at all to the free culture movement.  Moreover, they almost always  
have had relevant and useful experience in one or another industry in  
addition to whatever free-culture credentials they may have.  Finally,  
*all* of EFF's Board members are selected by the Board -- so far as I  
know, there's no election by the EFF community of board members at all.

Anyone under the impression that EFF's Board is somehow more  
democratic or representative of its constituency than the Foundation's  
Board hasn't actually done a thorough comparison of the history of  
both Boards.

EFF now has the luxury of having been in existence for almost 18 years  
-- our Board is about 4 years old.  It will be a while before we have  
a large pool of expert candidates, like EFF's Board, have experience  
both in relevant business fields and who have also demonstrated a long- 
term commitment to Wikimedia projects and the Wikimedia movement.

(I would add that I view my own work for the Foundation as in line  
with my own long-term commitment -- 18 years -- to free culture and  
freedom generally in the online world.)


--Mike