Jonathan Oxer
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Blog > LA member services and multi-tiered membership
>> LA member services and multi-tiered membership
Mon, May 21st 11:49am 2007: Linux
For the first part of this year it may seem that LA has been a bit on the quiet side: the Seven team pulled off a fantastic linux.conf.au in Sydney in January, but you could be forgiven for thinking not much has happened since.
There has actually been action on a number of different fronts. Some of it has been very public such as Paul Schulz and friends running an LA stand at ConnectingUp07, and Sridhar Dhanalapan and friends running a stand at CeBIT (more about these events soon!) but a lot of other action has been behind-the-scenes.
Until now.
One of the issues that was discussed leading up to LCA2007 was how Linux Australia could provide additional services to members. Directly related to this were comments from various LA members saying they'd like to have some way of supporting the organisation financially, particularly if there was an option such as paying a fee to get extra benefits. And at the 2007 AGM which took place at LCA one of the questions raised was about membership status, and whether it's necessary for members to "re-join" each year since technically the constitution says that membership is annual in exchange for payment of fees, and the fee requirement has been waived by the Committee but that leaves the annual renewal requirement ambiguous. A question was raised about whether people who had joined more than 12 months prior were in fact still members.
So I'd like to resolve *all* those issues in one go by introducing a revamped membership structure with a paid membership option and clarified membership terms.
But no matter what other options are introduced, I personally feel it's critical that we maintain a free membership option. After all, Linux Australia as an organisation claims to represent the free / open source software community in Australia. We would be hypocritical to continue to claim that while putting membership barriers in place, financial or otherwise. The whole ethos of the organisation (and FOSS itself, of course) is based on being open and inclusive. I couldn't stand up and claim with a straight face that Linux Australia represents the FOSS community if barriers were put in place that turned it into something of an exclusive group.
That's a long-winded way of saying "don't panic". A multi-tier membership structure is not intended to cut people out or turn people into first vs second class citizens. It's just about providing more services to members while also making the organisation more robust by diversifying revenue streams.
I've put a basic concept of how the membership options could look up on the LA wiki:
wiki.linux.org.au/Ctte/Multi_Tier_Membership
At this stage it's just a proposal, of course, and nothing has been finalised. I'm sure there will be questions so feel free to ask / discuss, but what I'd like feedback on in particular is:
* What additional membership benefits could LA provide that would be useful to you?
* What do you think would be a reasonable annual fee in exchange for those benefits?
* Should LA start pursuing companies as "Affiliate Members" (as they are listed in the proposal) or should we only allow individual memberships?
You'll notice the wiki page also links to another page with proposed constitutional amendments. I'll follow up on that shortly: it's kinda related, but gets into other areas as well.
For the first part of this year it may seem that LA has been a bit on the quiet side: the Seven team pulled off a fantastic linux.conf.au in Sydney in January, but you could be forgiven for thinking not much has happened since.
There has actually been action on a number of different fronts. Some of it has been very public such as Paul Schulz and friends running an LA stand at ConnectingUp07, and Sridhar Dhanalapan and friends running a stand at CeBIT (more about these events soon!) but a lot of other action has been behind-the-scenes.
Until now.
One of the issues that was discussed leading up to LCA2007 was how Linux Australia could provide additional services to members. Directly related to this were comments from various LA members saying they'd like to have some way of supporting the organisation financially, particularly if there was an option such as paying a fee to get extra benefits. And at the 2007 AGM which took place at LCA one of the questions raised was about membership status, and whether it's necessary for members to "re-join" each year since technically the constitution says that membership is annual in exchange for payment of fees, and the fee requirement has been waived by the Committee but that leaves the annual renewal requirement ambiguous. A question was raised about whether people who had joined more than 12 months prior were in fact still members.
So I'd like to resolve *all* those issues in one go by introducing a revamped membership structure with a paid membership option and clarified membership terms.
But no matter what other options are introduced, I personally feel it's critical that we maintain a free membership option. After all, Linux Australia as an organisation claims to represent the free / open source software community in Australia. We would be hypocritical to continue to claim that while putting membership barriers in place, financial or otherwise. The whole ethos of the organisation (and FOSS itself, of course) is based on being open and inclusive. I couldn't stand up and claim with a straight face that Linux Australia represents the FOSS community if barriers were put in place that turned it into something of an exclusive group.
That's a long-winded way of saying "don't panic". A multi-tier membership structure is not intended to cut people out or turn people into first vs second class citizens. It's just about providing more services to members while also making the organisation more robust by diversifying revenue streams.
I've put a basic concept of how the membership options could look up on the LA wiki:
wiki.linux.org.au/Ctte/Multi_Tier_Membership
At this stage it's just a proposal, of course, and nothing has been finalised. I'm sure there will be questions so feel free to ask / discuss, but what I'd like feedback on in particular is:
* What additional membership benefits could LA provide that would be useful to you?
* What do you think would be a reasonable annual fee in exchange for those benefits?
* Should LA start pursuing companies as "Affiliate Members" (as they are listed in the proposal) or should we only allow individual memberships?
You'll notice the wiki page also links to another page with proposed constitutional amendments. I'll follow up on that shortly: it's kinda related, but gets into other areas as well.
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