The Haskell Foundation needs a strong, effective, and legitimate board. This note describes how we plan to bootstrap the governance structure of the Foundation.
- -We propose to appoint a small Interim Board, with the following mission:
- -The Interim Board
- -The idea is that the entire membership of the permanent Board is filled through open nominations evaluated against written criteria. Members of the Interim Board can be nominated to the Foundation Board, but obviously their nomination should be judged by the other members.
- -It is up to the Interim Board to draft the terms of reference for the permanent Foundation Board, and it is up to the Foundation Board to maintain and refine those terms of reference. But here are some ideas as a starting point.
- -The Board provides the strategic leadership for the Foundation. More specifically
-Being a member of the Board is not an honorary post; it involves real work . There will typically be ad-hoc or permanent working groups, on which Board members are expected to serve or chair.
- -The Executive Director reports to the board, attends all board meetings, but does not vote.
- -Taken collectively, the board should
- -NB: nominations are also welcome from individuals who meet other criteria but do not represent any particular constituency.
- -Additionally, no two members should be paid employees of the same organisation
- -Simultaneously hitting all these criteria is nigh impossible. In particular, we do not want to tie the Board’s hands by specifying numbers of slots for the different constituencies described above. But these (after due process of refinement) are the criteria against which the Board can evaluate nominations, and each round of nominations is a fresh chance to rectify any imbalances. As such, the board’s composition should not be determined directly by representation of various constituencies, but rather by the ability of individuals, whatever their direct background, to understand and reflect the needs and priorities of these constituencies.
- -The Board should conduct its business as transparently as possible. Specifically:
- -In all cases there may be some aspects of the Board’s work that should properly be private, e.g. relating to security, staff, or money. The Board will have to make judgements about this, but the strong default is to work in public.
- -Sponsors (individuals and companies that make support the Foundation financially) play a key role; without them the Foundation is just another well-intentioned bunch of volunteers. So we propose to allocate three seats on the Board for sponsors. The exact number may change in the light of experience, but the underlying message is: sponsors are crucial, but not dominant. We hope to have lots of sponsors, so it’s impractical for them all to have a seat on the Board. It will be up to the sponsors (in consultation with the Board) to identify three people to serve on the board.
- -Most of the real work will get done by
- -The HF teams might, for example, include
- -It is not the purpose of this document to specify what these are, and in any case they may come and go. These teams are expected to be overseen by the HF, but to be clear, they may and will necessarily include many individuals not on the board, who can provide particular skills and expertise.
- -We considered establishing a formal Industrial Advisory Group, or Community Forum, but concluded that was too heavyweight for now. Maybe we’ll want that in the future.
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- The guidelines for respectful communication guide how the we aim to comport ourselves and act with respect in the community. We do not seek to impose these guidelines on members of the Haskell community generally. Rather it is a signal that we seek high standards of discourse in the Haskell community, and are willing to publicly hold ourselves to that standard, in the hope that others may voluntarily follow suit.
- + - +Prospective affiliates can find more information on what affiliating with the Haskell Foundation entails here.
- + - +The Haskell Foundation began with a conversation about the goals and and context for HF that changed as the conversation grew ever wider. As we resolved to launch HF this whitepaper is a snapshot of that conversation.
- + - +This page provides an overview of how we expect the Board to operate and its near term work and agenda.
- +This linked repository provides an overview of how we expect the Board to operate and its near term work and agenda.
+ - +The Haskell Foundation needs a strong, effective, and legitimate board. This note describes how we plan to bootstrap the governance structure of the Foundation.
- -We propose to appoint a small Interim Board, with the following mission:
- -The Interim Board
- -The idea is that the entire membership of the permanent Board is filled through open nominations evaluated against written criteria. Members of the Interim Board can be nominated to the Foundation Board, but obviously their nomination should be judged by the other members.
- -It is up to the Interim Board to draft the terms of reference for the permanent Foundation Board, and it is up to the Foundation Board to maintain and refine those terms of reference. But here are some ideas as a starting point.
- -The Board provides the strategic leadership for the Foundation. More specifically
-Being a member of the Board is not an honorary post; it involves real work . There will typically be ad-hoc or permanent working groups, on which Board members are expected to serve or chair.
- -The Executive Director reports to the board, attends all board meetings, but does not vote.
- -Taken collectively, the board should
- -NB: nominations are also welcome from individuals who meet other criteria but do not represent any particular constituency.
- -Additionally, no two members should be paid employees of the same organisation
- -Simultaneously hitting all these criteria is nigh impossible. In particular, we do not want to tie the Board’s hands by specifying numbers of slots for the different constituencies described above. But these (after due process of refinement) are the criteria against which the Board can evaluate nominations, and each round of nominations is a fresh chance to rectify any imbalances. As such, the board’s composition should not be determined directly by representation of various constituencies, but rather by the ability of individuals, whatever their direct background, to understand and reflect the needs and priorities of these constituencies.
- -The Board should conduct its business as transparently as possible. Specifically:
- -In all cases there may be some aspects of the Board’s work that should properly be private, e.g. relating to security, staff, or money. The Board will have to make judgements about this, but the strong default is to work in public.
- -Sponsors (individuals and companies that make support the Foundation financially) play a key role; without them the Foundation is just another well-intentioned bunch of volunteers. So we propose to allocate three seats on the Board for sponsors. The exact number may change in the light of experience, but the underlying message is: sponsors are crucial, but not dominant. We hope to have lots of sponsors, so it’s impractical for them all to have a seat on the Board. It will be up to the sponsors (in consultation with the Board) to identify three people to serve on the board.
- -Most of the real work will get done by
- -The HF teams might, for example, include
- -It is not the purpose of this document to specify what these are, and in any case they may come and go. These teams are expected to be overseen by the HF, but to be clear, they may and will necessarily include many individuals not on the board, who can provide particular skills and expertise.
- -We considered establishing a formal Industrial Advisory Group, or Community Forum, but concluded that was too heavyweight for now. Maybe we’ll want that in the future.
- -The guidelines for respectful communication guide how the we aim to comport ourselves and act with respect in the community. We do not seek to impose these guidelines on members of the Haskell community generally. Rather it is a signal that we seek high standards of discourse in the Haskell community, and are willing to publicly hold ourselves to that standard, in the hope that others may voluntarily follow suit.
- + - +Prospective affiliates can find more information on what affiliating with the Haskell Foundation entails here.
- + - +The Haskell Foundation began with a conversation about the goals and and context for HF that changed as the conversation grew ever wider. As we resolved to launch HF this whitepaper is a snapshot of that conversation.
- + - +This page provides an overview of how we expect the Board to operate and its near term work and agenda.
- +This linked repository provides an overview of how we expect the Board to operate and its near term work and agenda.
+ - +
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