Mailing List Archive

Individual Member Election Statistics
Before the election, the issue of influence of corporate entities in
the individual member election was raised. As a result, the election
inspectors agreed it would be beneficial to analyze the election
results to help quantify the role employers played in the election.
While each vote is anonymous, the affiliates that each Individual
Member specified when applying for Foundation Membership was recorded
with the vote. That stated affiliation is the basis for the analysis
below. We are not drawing any conclusions in this report, rather we
are attempting to present the information relevant to the questions
asked prior to the election. We hope the community finds this useful
in discussions on how to move forward.

Keep in mind that the affiliation field is free-form and not verified,
and members may have provided incorrect or unusable data. For
instance, it is apparent that some people misinterpreted the field,
needlessly providing multiple affiliations, affiliations that clearly
don't match the criteria specified on the form, or just plain
non-sequiturs. Therefore the numbers below should be close to
reality, but may not be exact.

The following table lists the election results for the top 11
candidates, including the weighted vote (the sum of all the votes cast
for that candidate), the percent of the total weighted vote which was
cast for that candidate, the number of voters who individually cast at
least part of their vote for that candidate, and the percentage of the
total voters who cast at least part of their vote for that candidate.

Results for top 11 Candidates
+----------------------+----------+-----------+--------+---------+
| Name | Weighted | %Weighted | Voters | %Voters |
+----------------------+----------+-----------+--------+---------+
| Rob Hirschfeld | 2195.00 | 14.57 % | 510 | 26.74 % |
| Monty Taylor | 1968.25 | 13.06 % | 370 | 19.40 % |
| Hui Cheng | 1712.12 | 11.36 % | 336 | 17.62 % |
| Joseph George | 1364.38 | 9.05 % | 388 | 20.35 % |
| Yujie Du | 732.25 | 4.86 % | 193 | 10.12 % |
| Troy Toman | 669.12 | 4.44 % | 208 | 10.91 % |
| Anne Gentle | 558.12 | 3.70 % | 265 | 13.90 % |
| Thierry Carrez | 429.38 | 2.85 % | 235 | 12.32 % |
| Tim Bell | 427.75 | 2.84 % | 236 | 12.38 % |
| Tristan Goode | 422.00 | 2.80 % | 122 | 6.40 % |
| Jesse Andrews | 414.12 | 2.75 % | 205 | 10.75 % |
+----------------------+----------+-----------+--------+---------+

The following table lists the sources of votes for the top 11
candidates classified by the employer of the voter. Four categories
are listed; the first, "%Employer", is the percentage of voters for
that candidate with the same employer as the candidate. The second,
"%Major", is the percentage of voters from a "major" employer, which
is to say an employer that was specified by at least 5 voters overall
(there are about 20 "major" employers in the data set by this
calculation). The third, "%Minor", is the percentage from a "minor"
employer, i.e., one specified by less than 5 individuals. The last,
"%None", is the percentage who listed no affiliation.

Source of Votes for Top 11 Candidates
+----------------+-----------+-----------+--------+--------+-------+
| Name | Employer | %Employer | %Major | %Minor | %None |
+----------------+-----------+-----------+--------+--------+-------+
| Rob Hirschfeld | Dell | 86 % | 5 % | 4 % | 5 % |
| Monty Taylor | HP | 75 % | 9 % | 9 % | 6 % |
| Hui Cheng | SINA | | | 27 % | 52 % |
| Joseph George | Dell | 88 % | 5 % | 3 % | 4 % |
| Yujie Du | 99cloud | | | 28 % | 54 % |
| Troy Toman | Rackspace | 76 % | 12 % | 6 % | 6 % |
| Anne Gentle | Rackspace | 39 % | 28 % | 23 % | 9 % |
| Thierry Carrez | Rackspace | 34 % | 32 % | 21 % | 13 % |
| Tim Bell | CERN | | | 25 % | 11 % |
| Tristan Goode | Aptira | | | 24 % | 9 % |
| Jesse Andrews | Nebula | | | 27 % | 14 % |
+----------------+-----------+-----------+--------+--------+-------+
[Some values have been omitted to preserve anonymity.]


The following table shows how voters who identified as affiliates of
"major" employers (see above) voted. Only the "major" employers with
at least 50 affiliated voters and at least 10% of their affiliates
voting for at least one candidate employed by the subject employer are
listed to preserve anonymity.

The first column after the name of the organization indicates the
number of voters claiming affiliation with that organization. Three
percentages are then listed: the first, "%Only Affiliated" is the
percentage of those voters who voted only for candidates employed by
their affiliate organization. The second, "%Including Affiliated", is
the percentage who voted for at least one candidate employed by their
affiliate organization. The third, "%Non Affiliated" is the
percentage who did not vote for any employee of their affiliate
organization.

How Affiliates Voted
+-----------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| | Number | %Only | %Including | %Non |
| Name | Affiliated | Affiliated | Affiliated | Affiliated |
+-----------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Dell | 470 | 81 % | 97 % | 3 % |
| HP | 304 | 55 % | 91 % | 9 % |
| Rackspace | 244 | 25 % | 85 % | 15 % |
+-----------+------------+------------+------------+------------+

This script was used to produce these tables:

https://github.com/jeblair/election/blob/master/vote-stats.py

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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
James,

interesting numbers, thanks for collecting them.
To be careful in drawing conclusions: It seems that the employees of different large involved companies handled this quite differently.

Best,
--
Kurt

> -----Original Message-----
> From: James E. Blair [mailto:corvus@inaugust.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2012 5:38 PM
> To: OpenStack Foundation Mailing List
> Subject: [OpenStack Foundation] Individual Member Election Statistics
>
> Before the election, the issue of influence of corporate
> entities in the individual member election was raised. As a
> result, the election inspectors agreed it would be beneficial
> to analyze the election results to help quantify the role
> employers played in the election.
[...]
> How Affiliates Voted
> +-----------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
> | | Number | %Only | %Including | %Non |
> | Name | Affiliated | Affiliated | Affiliated | Affiliated |
> +-----------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
> | Dell | 470 | 81 % | 97 % | 3 % |
> | HP | 304 | 55 % | 91 % | 9 % |
> | Rackspace | 244 | 25 % | 85 % | 15 % |
> +-----------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
>
> This script was used to produce these tables:
>
> https://github.com/jeblair/election/blob/master/vote-stats.py
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foundation mailing list
> Foundation@lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation
>
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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
On Tue, 2012-10-02 at 08:37 -0700, James E. Blair wrote:
> Before the election, the issue of influence of corporate entities in
> the individual member election was raised. As a result, the election
> inspectors agreed it would be beneficial to analyze the election
> results to help quantify the role employers played in the election.

James and co - that's an excellent piece of work, really fascinating.
Well done.

This kind of transparency is really great to see - I'm sure we'll all
judge these stats differently and draw different conclusions on what
this means for the future, but at least we're making those judgements
based on real data.

Thanks again,
Mark.


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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
Going to try to graph some of this, but adding to the discussion a run of

https://gist.github.com/3403165

output as of this morning:

[.(1103, u'hp'),
(1040, u'none'),
(1034, u'dell'),
(1033, u'rackspace'),
(104, u'mirantis'),
(104, u'did not provide'),
(76, u'cisco'),
(74, u'ibm'),
(65, u'emc'),
(57, u'suse'),
(42, u'canonical'),
(33, u'red hat'),
(32, u'nebula'),
(30, u'dreamhost'),
(27, u'intel'),
(25, u'cloudscaling'),
(22, u'morphlabs'),
(21, u'vmware'),
(17, u'comcast'),
(15, u'sina')]


-Matt

On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 9:04 AM, Mark McLoughlin <markmc@redhat.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 2012-10-02 at 08:37 -0700, James E. Blair wrote:
>> Before the election, the issue of influence of corporate entities in
>> the individual member election was raised. As a result, the election
>> inspectors agreed it would be beneficial to analyze the election
>> results to help quantify the role employers played in the election.
>
> James and co - that's an excellent piece of work, really fascinating.
> Well done.
>
> This kind of transparency is really great to see - I'm sure we'll all
> judge these stats differently and draw different conclusions on what
> this means for the future, but at least we're making those judgements
> based on real data.
>
> Thanks again,
> Mark.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foundation mailing list
> Foundation@lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
On 10/02/2012 12:04 PM, Mark McLoughlin wrote:
> On Tue, 2012-10-02 at 08:37 -0700, James E. Blair wrote:
>> Before the election, the issue of influence of corporate entities in
>> the individual member election was raised. As a result, the election
>> inspectors agreed it would be beneficial to analyze the election
>> results to help quantify the role employers played in the election.
>
> James and co - that's an excellent piece of work, really fascinating.
> Well done.
>
> This kind of transparency is really great to see - I'm sure we'll all
> judge these stats differently and draw different conclusions on what
> this means for the future, but at least we're making those judgements
> based on real data.
>
> Thanks again,

+1

-Sean

--
Sean Dague
IBM Linux Technology Center
email: sdague@linux.vnet.ibm.com
alt-email: sldague@us.ibm.com


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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
http://www.music-piracy.com/?p=750 put together some thoughts on the
matter, as well as a couple new graphs from the numbers.

I'm not happy with the numbers. Dell's foundation membership versus
their community contributions in folsom in particular is extreme.
Explaining their election results being provided by an 88% and an 86%
contribution by their own company is impossible for me to do with any
existing data. I can't say for certain that someone actively intended
to manipulate the election results. But I think we're all aware of
what the numbers look like. And to be very blunt. They look
artificial. HP, Rackspace, and Dell all look very anomalous in some
of the results.

Of course, there may be more data out there to explain how these
numbers correlate. Please by all means provide more data if you can.

The question that remains however, is...

Are the foundation elections being manipulated?

I'd say the data we have points more to yes than no. That's an issue.
And I as a member and developer am concerned.

-Matt

On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 10:57 AM, Sean Dague <sdague@linux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> On 10/02/2012 12:04 PM, Mark McLoughlin wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, 2012-10-02 at 08:37 -0700, James E. Blair wrote:
>>>
>>> Before the election, the issue of influence of corporate entities in
>>> the individual member election was raised. As a result, the election
>>> inspectors agreed it would be beneficial to analyze the election
>>> results to help quantify the role employers played in the election.
>>
>>
>> James and co - that's an excellent piece of work, really fascinating.
>> Well done.
>>
>> This kind of transparency is really great to see - I'm sure we'll all
>> judge these stats differently and draw different conclusions on what
>> this means for the future, but at least we're making those judgements
>> based on real data.
>>
>> Thanks again,
>
>
> +1
>
> -Sean
>
> --
> Sean Dague
> IBM Linux Technology Center
> email: sdague@linux.vnet.ibm.com
> alt-email: sldague@us.ibm.com
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foundation mailing list
> Foundation@lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
On 10/02/2012 01:29 PM, Matt Joyce wrote:
> The question that remains however, is...
>
> Are the foundation elections being manipulated?

I would like to understand why you're asking such unfair question. Do
you think that people got elected without deserving their seat? If you
think this is the case, please speak up: you can talk to Jonathan or to
the Foundation's lawyer.

The thing is that the Foundation was designed to have very little
barrier to entry for Individual members. With such design, of course
large corporations will have more members and of course they will vote
for their colleagues, if nothing else because those are names they
recognise.

With such design, the Foundation has put in place checks and balances
*after* the joining process to avoid giving too much power to Platinum
sponsors and corporations in general. Like all systems, it can be
improved but we need to at least make it run a few times before saying
it's broken.

I'd like to bring the focus on the people that have been elected, help
them do the interests of the category they've been elected to represent.
If they do then we can stop the speculations around OpenStack and the
power of its corporate members (there are quite a few haters out there
that do that job nicely already). If they don't, then we have tools in
the bylaws to remove them.

/stef

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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
I'll respond in line. Since there is a bit more here than a single
simple response.

On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 3:06 PM, Stefano Maffulli <stefano@openstack.org> wrote:
> On 10/02/2012 01:29 PM, Matt Joyce wrote:
>> The question that remains however, is...
>>
>> Are the foundation elections being manipulated?
>
> I would like to understand why you're asking such unfair question.

I don't think it is an unfair question. The data has some pretty
glaring anomalies which I've taken the time to point out. I believe
that's acceptable open debate under the community code of conduct, and
as I said I think it's important. Quantifying our metrics and
measuring what we can is the first step. Correlating is the second.
If we wish to be able to provide useful recommendations based on the
data released earlier in this thread we'll need a healthy
participatory discussion on what this data can be tied to and whether
or not it is relevant. This will provide us with a path to provide
formal peer reviewed analysis and recommendations built not on the
data we have and not the data we don't.

> Do you think that people got elected without deserving their seat? If you
> think this is the case, please speak up: you can talk to Jonathan or to
> the Foundation's lawyer.

I assess "deserving their seat" as being a function solely of the
election. As it should be and is claimed to be.

As stated, the foundation membership requires ALL members to avoid
manipulating the election results. However the data seems to indicate
that manipulation may have occurred. If I had specific and DEFINITE
evidence of manipulation I would of course forward that to the
foundation lawyer. I have been clear in saying I have no such
evidence. However there is clearly a large number of anomalies in the
election results that would be best explained as being the result of
manipulation ( as far as I can tell ). The real cause for concern
here is that there is no way to confirm that manipulation of the
election did not occur, and there are unexplained anomalies in the
results that very clearly affected the elections in a serious way. 4
out of 11 of the top results in the election were elected by
co-workers ( greater than 75% of their total votes came from their own
employees), and not by a matched percentage of outside users. With
three companies having members totally nearly the entirety of the rest
of the membership each, I cannot discount the possibility that
intentional manipulation has occurred. I just can't. The numbers are
there. It's just plain overwhelmingly suspicious.

So I have to ask if the election procedures as they exist today
reflect the foundation users real desires. Based on the numbers I
have, I suspect that is not the case. So, do I believe that people
got elected without "deserving" their seats?

Let me respond by saying.

Logically I cannot say definitely that the people elected in the
foundation elections were done so without outside manipulation. There
are anomalies in the data we have that cause me to believe there is a
very real possibility that the election was manipulated.

However, without proof that the election was manipulated, it would
appear we must accept the results of the election as being valid.
Thus the members elected deserve their seats as far as procedure
dictates ( or my understanding of procedure anyways ).

The fact remains however, that there is no means to verify the
election was not manipulated, and there is evidence that suggests it
may have been. I am concerned by that and I think open discussion and
debate concerning that issue is valuable to the foundation and the
openstack community. More to the point it's necessary. People will
look at these numbers and draw conclusions from them on their own.
Fact is I can't explain the numbers as they exist today without
assuming direct manipulation of the election.

> The thing is that the Foundation was designed to have very little
> barrier to entry for Individual members. With such design, of course
> large corporations will have more members and of course they will vote
> for their colleagues, if nothing else because those are names they
> recognise.

Yes, this has been said before. However, without a means to verify
that manipulation of the election has not occurred, and with clear
anomalies in the election results that remain unexplained I have to
ask if this was the right call. As far as I can tell we've provided a
means to game the elections and eliminated any means of verifying the
authenticity of the results. We don't have a specified threshold of
percentage error we're willing to tolerate here. This is entirely too
ambiguous for me, and with three companies that do NOT represent the
3/4ths of the global openstack community driving the foundation
membership ( as far as any numbers I've seen can indicate ), I have to
ask if this works at all. This is pretty damned important and the
numbers don't assuage my concerns, they exacerbate them.

> With such design, the Foundation has put in place checks and balances
> *after* the joining process to avoid giving too much power to Platinum
> sponsors and corporations in general. Like all systems, it can be
> improved but we need to at least make it run a few times before saying
> it's broken.

There's a heck of a lot more that we can do to track this stuff. I am
pleased as punch to see the data sets and collection utilities we have
seen brought forth by the community. I think a healthy analysis of
that data, and the collection of more data can be used to help
identify problems in the electoral process. I think discussion and
debate is a good thing even at this early juncture. However, at the
same time the severity of the anomalies in out first ever elections
are severe and that DOES taint the election results.

The checks and balances in place today do nothing to limit or even
identify external manipulation of the foundation membership elections.
I'm all for not solving problems we don't have, but the numbers as
they exist today tell us we have a problem we need to solve. Direct
manipulation of the foundation membership election is not only
possible, the numbers as they exist today match what a manipulation of
the foundation membership elections would look like had it definitely
occurred.

> I'd like to bring the focus on the people that have been elected, help
> them do the interests of the category they've been elected to represent.
> If they do then we can stop the speculations around OpenStack and the
> power of its corporate members (there are quite a few haters out there
> that do that job nicely already). If they don't, then we have tools in
> the bylaws to remove them.

Personally I think everyone who ran for the director positions was
well qualified and even among the folks I've identified as having
anomalous results I think the folks are exceptionally capable and well
qualified for the director seats. Heck I think I even voted for rob
hirschfeld ( whom was identified as having anomalous results ). I
certainly think Monty Taylor ( also anomalous results ) is an amazing
contributor and will do phenomenal work on the board. I don't think
either of these guys from my past experience would ever seek to
manipulate the elections themselves. But I have no doubt people in
our industry would take actions that could be construed as direct
manipulation. I'm not about to call anyone out as being unqualified.
That's not the point of this thread or my post. Nor is it the goal of
this discussion to assist new directors. This thread is regarding the
analysis of data returned from foundation election audits. I want to
make that audit more complete. I want to be able to identify
suspicious anomalies in our electoral data results. I want a baseline
that I can correlate to our existing community participation metrics
that can explain the way the voting is occurring. I want to formalize
our approach to analyzing results and then be able to provide
quantifiable metrics to support recommendations for how elections can
happen better. In that I think you may have missed my goal entirely
as well as the point of releasing this data.

Stefano. I love OpenStack as much as you do. And I respect everyone
in this community. This is not an attack on the community, or the
directors. This is an honest nothing held back discussion of hard
numbers. That is all. I do have opinions, and they color the tenor
of my text. I do my best to remain objective. I fail occasionally
and I apologize for that in advance. But this isn't a bogus issue.

TL;DR summary.

If a company had intended to directly manipulate the foundation
elections and proceeded in the most obvious manner, the election
results demonstrated by Dell in this data set would very nearly match
what you would expect. You can call that coincidence if you want.
But it's not just Dell. HP matches it, and Rackspace is right there
next to them sitting in the exact same predictable distribution range.
I am concerned because every ounce of data we have screams that there
is a clear correlation to direct manipulation of the election and
nothing to explain that correlation is anything but that.

-Matt

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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
I applaud James and Matt for taking their time to quantify our
election metrics and measuring what we can do next.

Source of Votes for Top 6 Candidates
+----------------+-----------+-----------+--------+--------+-------+
| Name | Employer | %Employer | %Major | %Minor | %None |
+----------------+-----------+-----------+--------+--------+-------+
| | Dell | 86 % | 5 % | 4 % | 5 % |
| | HP | 75 % | 9 % | 9 % | 6 % |
| | SINA | | | 27 % | 52 % |
| | Dell | 88 % | 5 % | 3 % | 4 % |
| | 99cloud | | | 28 % | 54 % |
| | Rackspace | 76 % | 12 % | 6 % | 6 % |

From the Source of Votes, the Top 6 Candidates all have a single
source accounting for more than half of their votes, be it %Employer
or %None. Basically HP, Dell, Rackspace and None represent almost 90%
of the global openstack community driving the foundation membership
(5000 strong or is it?) and they like to vote.

We can look into how Linux Foundation runs its individual membership program.

On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 4:09 PM, Matt Joyce <matt@nycresistor.com> wrote:
> I'll respond in line. Since there is a bit more here than a single
> simple response.
>
> On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 3:06 PM, Stefano Maffulli <stefano@openstack.org> wrote:
>> On 10/02/2012 01:29 PM, Matt Joyce wrote:
>>> The question that remains however, is...
>>>
>>> Are the foundation elections being manipulated?
>>
>> I would like to understand why you're asking such unfair question.
>
> I don't think it is an unfair question. The data has some pretty
> glaring anomalies which I've taken the time to point out. I believe
> that's acceptable open debate under the community code of conduct, and
> as I said I think it's important. Quantifying our metrics and
> measuring what we can is the first step. Correlating is the second.
> If we wish to be able to provide useful recommendations based on the
> data released earlier in this thread we'll need a healthy
> participatory discussion on what this data can be tied to and whether
> or not it is relevant. This will provide us with a path to provide
> formal peer reviewed analysis and recommendations built not on the
> data we have and not the data we don't.
>
>> Do you think that people got elected without deserving their seat? If you
>> think this is the case, please speak up: you can talk to Jonathan or to
>> the Foundation's lawyer.
>
> I assess "deserving their seat" as being a function solely of the
> election. As it should be and is claimed to be.
>
> As stated, the foundation membership requires ALL members to avoid
> manipulating the election results. However the data seems to indicate
> that manipulation may have occurred. If I had specific and DEFINITE
> evidence of manipulation I would of course forward that to the
> foundation lawyer. I have been clear in saying I have no such
> evidence. However there is clearly a large number of anomalies in the
> election results that would be best explained as being the result of
> manipulation ( as far as I can tell ). The real cause for concern
> here is that there is no way to confirm that manipulation of the
> election did not occur, and there are unexplained anomalies in the
> results that very clearly affected the elections in a serious way. 4
> out of 11 of the top results in the election were elected by
> co-workers ( greater than 75% of their total votes came from their own
> employees), and not by a matched percentage of outside users. With
> three companies having members totally nearly the entirety of the rest
> of the membership each, I cannot discount the possibility that
> intentional manipulation has occurred. I just can't. The numbers are
> there. It's just plain overwhelmingly suspicious.
>
> So I have to ask if the election procedures as they exist today
> reflect the foundation users real desires. Based on the numbers I
> have, I suspect that is not the case. So, do I believe that people
> got elected without "deserving" their seats?
>
> Let me respond by saying.
>
> Logically I cannot say definitely that the people elected in the
> foundation elections were done so without outside manipulation. There
> are anomalies in the data we have that cause me to believe there is a
> very real possibility that the election was manipulated.
>
> However, without proof that the election was manipulated, it would
> appear we must accept the results of the election as being valid.
> Thus the members elected deserve their seats as far as procedure
> dictates ( or my understanding of procedure anyways ).
>
> The fact remains however, that there is no means to verify the
> election was not manipulated, and there is evidence that suggests it
> may have been. I am concerned by that and I think open discussion and
> debate concerning that issue is valuable to the foundation and the
> openstack community. More to the point it's necessary. People will
> look at these numbers and draw conclusions from them on their own.
> Fact is I can't explain the numbers as they exist today without
> assuming direct manipulation of the election.
>
>> The thing is that the Foundation was designed to have very little
>> barrier to entry for Individual members. With such design, of course
>> large corporations will have more members and of course they will vote
>> for their colleagues, if nothing else because those are names they
>> recognise.
>
> Yes, this has been said before. However, without a means to verify
> that manipulation of the election has not occurred, and with clear
> anomalies in the election results that remain unexplained I have to
> ask if this was the right call. As far as I can tell we've provided a
> means to game the elections and eliminated any means of verifying the
> authenticity of the results. We don't have a specified threshold of
> percentage error we're willing to tolerate here. This is entirely too
> ambiguous for me, and with three companies that do NOT represent the
> 3/4ths of the global openstack community driving the foundation
> membership ( as far as any numbers I've seen can indicate ), I have to
> ask if this works at all. This is pretty damned important and the
> numbers don't assuage my concerns, they exacerbate them.
>
>> With such design, the Foundation has put in place checks and balances
>> *after* the joining process to avoid giving too much power to Platinum
>> sponsors and corporations in general. Like all systems, it can be
>> improved but we need to at least make it run a few times before saying
>> it's broken.
>
> There's a heck of a lot more that we can do to track this stuff. I am
> pleased as punch to see the data sets and collection utilities we have
> seen brought forth by the community. I think a healthy analysis of
> that data, and the collection of more data can be used to help
> identify problems in the electoral process. I think discussion and
> debate is a good thing even at this early juncture. However, at the
> same time the severity of the anomalies in out first ever elections
> are severe and that DOES taint the election results.
>
> The checks and balances in place today do nothing to limit or even
> identify external manipulation of the foundation membership elections.
> I'm all for not solving problems we don't have, but the numbers as
> they exist today tell us we have a problem we need to solve. Direct
> manipulation of the foundation membership election is not only
> possible, the numbers as they exist today match what a manipulation of
> the foundation membership elections would look like had it definitely
> occurred.
>
>> I'd like to bring the focus on the people that have been elected, help
>> them do the interests of the category they've been elected to represent.
>> If they do then we can stop the speculations around OpenStack and the
>> power of its corporate members (there are quite a few haters out there
>> that do that job nicely already). If they don't, then we have tools in
>> the bylaws to remove them.
>
> Personally I think everyone who ran for the director positions was
> well qualified and even among the folks I've identified as having
> anomalous results I think the folks are exceptionally capable and well
> qualified for the director seats. Heck I think I even voted for rob
> hirschfeld ( whom was identified as having anomalous results ). I
> certainly think Monty Taylor ( also anomalous results ) is an amazing
> contributor and will do phenomenal work on the board. I don't think
> either of these guys from my past experience would ever seek to
> manipulate the elections themselves. But I have no doubt people in
> our industry would take actions that could be construed as direct
> manipulation. I'm not about to call anyone out as being unqualified.
> That's not the point of this thread or my post. Nor is it the goal of
> this discussion to assist new directors. This thread is regarding the
> analysis of data returned from foundation election audits. I want to
> make that audit more complete. I want to be able to identify
> suspicious anomalies in our electoral data results. I want a baseline
> that I can correlate to our existing community participation metrics
> that can explain the way the voting is occurring. I want to formalize
> our approach to analyzing results and then be able to provide
> quantifiable metrics to support recommendations for how elections can
> happen better. In that I think you may have missed my goal entirely
> as well as the point of releasing this data.
>
> Stefano. I love OpenStack as much as you do. And I respect everyone
> in this community. This is not an attack on the community, or the
> directors. This is an honest nothing held back discussion of hard
> numbers. That is all. I do have opinions, and they color the tenor
> of my text. I do my best to remain objective. I fail occasionally
> and I apologize for that in advance. But this isn't a bogus issue.
>
> TL;DR summary.
>
> If a company had intended to directly manipulate the foundation
> elections and proceeded in the most obvious manner, the election
> results demonstrated by Dell in this data set would very nearly match
> what you would expect. You can call that coincidence if you want.
> But it's not just Dell. HP matches it, and Rackspace is right there
> next to them sitting in the exact same predictable distribution range.
> I am concerned because every ounce of data we have screams that there
> is a clear correlation to direct manipulation of the election and
> nothing to explain that correlation is anything but that.
>
> -Matt
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foundation mailing list
> Foundation@lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation



--
Sean

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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
Matt Joyce wrote:
>>> Are the foundation elections being manipulated?
>>
>> I would like to understand why you're asking such unfair question.
>
> I don't think it is an unfair question. The data has some pretty
> glaring anomalies which I've taken the time to point out.

I think those results are the *natural* consequence of the low barrier
to membership combined with using cumulative voting. Using an election
method specifically designed to preserve proportionality with a
membership method that doesn't preserve proportionality is not that good.

I'd agree that some companies displayed an impressive voting discipline,
but you could also trace that back to the low barrier to membership
issue: if you're not that involved in OpenStack, you're more likely to
vote for local candidates.

The affiliation limit worked well to avoid getting too many people from
the same over-represented-in-membership corporate entity, so I think
damage is limited. And we vote again in 3 months, with that data in mind.

Personally I regret that what should have been an "individuals elect
individual representative" case ended up being "company employees elect
company representative", but that's about it. We need to discuss how to
raise the bar of membership entry just enough to improve that.

--
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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
I agree.

On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 1:07 AM, Thierry Carrez <thierry@openstack.org> wrote:
> Matt Joyce wrote:
>>>> Are the foundation elections being manipulated?
>>>
>>> I would like to understand why you're asking such unfair question.
>>
>> I don't think it is an unfair question. The data has some pretty
>> glaring anomalies which I've taken the time to point out.
>
> I think those results are the *natural* consequence of the low barrier
> to membership combined with using cumulative voting. Using an election
> method specifically designed to preserve proportionality with a
> membership method that doesn't preserve proportionality is not that good.
>
> I'd agree that some companies displayed an impressive voting discipline,
> but you could also trace that back to the low barrier to membership
> issue: if you're not that involved in OpenStack, you're more likely to
> vote for local candidates.
>
> The affiliation limit worked well to avoid getting too many people from
> the same over-represented-in-membership corporate entity, so I think
> damage is limited. And we vote again in 3 months, with that data in mind.
>
> Personally I regret that what should have been an "individuals elect
> individual representative" case ended up being "company employees elect
> company representative", but that's about it. We need to discuss how to
> raise the bar of membership entry just enough to improve that.
>
> --
> Thierry Carrez
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foundation mailing list
> Foundation@lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
> We need to discuss how to
> raise the bar of membership entry just enough to improve that.

Alternatively (or additionally), we could switch to Condorcet, which is
an election method that specifically does not fill the proportionality
criteria. 30% of voters won't give you anything, especially if the other
70% don't like you that much.

It would favor consensus candidates, which in this case (individual
member election) could be a good idea.

AFAIK there is a lawyer question about accepted election methods for
corporate boards under Delaware law, but I think that's an option that
we should definitely explore.

--
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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
Hi,

On 10/03/2012 10:07 AM, Thierry Carrez wrote:
> I think those results are the *natural* consequence of the low barrier
> to membership combined with using cumulative voting. Using an election
> method specifically designed to preserve proportionality with a
> membership method that doesn't preserve proportionality is not that good.
>
> I'd agree that some companies displayed an impressive voting discipline,
> but you could also trace that back to the low barrier to membership
> issue: if you're not that involved in OpenStack, you're more likely to
> vote for local candidates.

I mostly agree with you Thierry - although I will say that such voting
discipline typically requires very high profile candidates from the
company or some kind of "vote for me" campaign so that people are aware
who is running - I know I don't yet know thousands of my Red Hat
colleagues, for example. That said, no-one ever said election campaigns
were immoral - even if, by definition, they do manipulate the results of
elections ;-)

The natural follow-on question, then, is whether this natural
consequence of the membership rules is a desirable one or not? And if it
is not desirable, what can be done now, if anything, to remedy the
situation?

> The affiliation limit worked well to avoid getting too many people from
> the same over-represented-in-membership corporate entity, so I think
> damage is limited. And we vote again in 3 months, with that data in mind.

I would hate to see an "arms race" where other companies start
encouraging their employees to join and vote for "their" candidates -
this is the kind of short-term tactical behaviour which could result
from the impression of block voting from other participants, which would
have a long-term negative impact on the foundation.

> Personally I regret that what should have been an "individuals elect
> individual representative" case ended up being "company employees elect
> company representative", but that's about it. We need to discuss how to
> raise the bar of membership entry just enough to improve that.

... in a way that handles the fact that there are >6000 members already
signed up, many of whom would not meet any such raised bar.

Cheers,
Dave.

--
Dave Neary
Community Action and Impact
Open Source and Standards, Red Hat
Ph: +33 9 50 71 55 62 / Cell: +33 6 77 01 92 13

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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
People tend to vote as a herd. If a company has lots of contributors, I
would expect them to have lots of individual members and
disproportionate voting. I think this is the case with Rackspace, they
obviously have a lot of contributors and they naturally voted for their
coworkers. I have no problem with that.

There is another case, though, that I think has reared it's ugly head,
where companies asked people to join that were not contributing to
Openstack in any way, to help them win the election. I think this within
the rules, as I understand them, but extremely bad form, and something
that needs to be fixed.

We specifically avoided this at Cisco. We did encourage people to vote
for us, but only the openstack team.

I don't think anyone cheated, but, I think we need to look at how we can
run the election in the future to make sure that all the seats aren't
taken by large corporate entities that already have a voice on the
board. I think that was the initial reason we even had individual seats.

Rick
Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
On 04/10/2012, at 12:31 AM, "Rick Clark" <rick@openstack.org> wrote:

> People tend to vote as a herd. If a company has lots of contributors, I
> would expect them to have lots of individual members and
> disproportionate voting. I think this is the case with Rackspace, they
> obviously have a lot of contributors and they naturally voted for their
> coworkers. I have no problem with that.
>
> There is another case, though, that I think has reared it's ugly head,
> where companies asked people to join that were not contributing to
> Openstack in any way, to help them win the election. I think this within
> the rules, as I understand them, but extremely bad form, and something
> that needs to be fixed.
>

I'm concerned this problem will increase rapidly as larger companies discover this is an easy and cheap way to get a seat, or a second seat, or even take two individual seats on the Board.


> We specifically avoided this at Cisco. We did encourage people to vote
> for us, but only the openstack team.

Commendable approach!

Cheers
Tristan

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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
On 10/03/2012 02:39 AM, Thierry Carrez wrote:
>> We need to discuss how to
>> raise the bar of membership entry just enough to improve that.
>
> Alternatively (or additionally), we could switch to Condorcet, which is
> an election method that specifically does not fill the proportionality
> criteria. 30% of voters won't give you anything, especially if the other
> 70% don't like you that much.
>
> It would favor consensus candidates, which in this case (individual
> member election) could be a good idea.
>
> AFAIK there is a lawyer question about accepted election methods for
> corporate boards under Delaware law, but I think that's an option that
> we should definitely explore.

I support any and all efforts for us to use Condorcet instead of cumulative.

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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
I will take the action to talk with our attorney to understand the feasibility of using condorcet in the future.

Mark


On Wednesday, October 3, 2012 11:18am, "Monty Taylor" <mordred@inaugust.com> said:

>
>
> On 10/03/2012 02:39 AM, Thierry Carrez wrote:
>>> We need to discuss how to
>>> raise the bar of membership entry just enough to improve that.
>>
>> Alternatively (or additionally), we could switch to Condorcet, which is
>> an election method that specifically does not fill the proportionality
>> criteria. 30% of voters won't give you anything, especially if the other
>> 70% don't like you that much.
>>
>> It would favor consensus candidates, which in this case (individual
>> member election) could be a good idea.
>>
>> AFAIK there is a lawyer question about accepted election methods for
>> corporate boards under Delaware law, but I think that's an option that
>> we should definitely explore.
>
> I support any and all efforts for us to use Condorcet instead of cumulative.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foundation mailing list
> Foundation@lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation
>



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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 4:39 AM, Thierry Carrez <thierry@openstack.org>wrote:

> > We need to discuss how to
> > raise the bar of membership entry just enough to improve that.
>
> Alternatively (or additionally), we could switch to Condorcet, which is
> an election method that specifically does not fill the proportionality
> criteria. 30% of voters won't give you anything, especially if the other
> 70% don't like you that much.
>
> It would favor consensus candidates, which in this case (individual
> member election) could be a good idea.
>

I'm not an election system scholar, so please forgive what may be a naive
question.

I've looked at a couple of descriptions of Condorcet, and I don't see any
reason not to use it but I also don't see how it helps solve the problem of
a disproportionate number of foundation members being affiliated with a
small number of corporate entities. Is there an example or explanation of
using a Condorcet system to address this type of issue that you can refer
me to, or maybe you could summarize how you see it helping briefly? Perhaps
there is just some inherent feature of Condorcet systems that I'm not
grokking based on the reading I've done so far.

Thanks,
Doug


>
> AFAIK there is a lawyer question about accepted election methods for
> corporate boards under Delaware law, but I think that's an option that
> we should definitely explore.
>
> --
> Thierry Carrez (ttx)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foundation mailing list
> Foundation@lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation
>
Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
Monty Taylor wrote:
> I support any and all efforts for us to use Condorcet instead of cumulative.

Note that Condorcet is not perfect either. Large groups of coordinated
voters would still have an edge, and if one of them reaches 50% of
voters they can decide the whole election. It's just (much) better at
letting the majority declare who they dislike, which is a good way to
compensate groups representing 25% of the voters.

In short, even with Condorcet we'd still probably have to address the
low barrier to entry issue.

--
Thierry Carrez (ttx)


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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
Doug Hellmann wrote:
> I've looked at a couple of descriptions of Condorcet, and I don't see
> any reason not to use it but I also don't see how it helps solve the
> problem of a disproportionate number of foundation members being
> affiliated with a small number of corporate entities. Is there an
> example or explanation of using a Condorcet system to address this type
> of issue that you can refer me to, or maybe you could summarize how you
> see it helping briefly? Perhaps there is just some inherent feature of
> Condorcet systems that I'm not grokking based on the reading I've done
> so far.

It's not perfect, see my latest post. But with cumulative voting you
only get a chance to say who you like. With ranked choice you can also
say who you dislike. That helps consensus candidates who nobody hates.
As an example, with cumulative voting having 25% of the voters will get
you elected even if the 75% other don't like you. With Condorcet, not so
much.

--
Thierry Carrez (ttx)
Release Manager, OpenStack

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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 1:07 AM, Thierry Carrez <thierry@openstack.org> wrote:
> Matt Joyce wrote:
>>>> Are the foundation elections being manipulated?
>>>
>>> I would like to understand why you're asking such unfair question.
>>
>> I don't think it is an unfair question. The data has some pretty
>> glaring anomalies which I've taken the time to point out.
>
> I think those results are the *natural* consequence of the low barrier
> to membership combined with using cumulative voting. Using an election
> method specifically designed to preserve proportionality with a
> membership method that doesn't preserve proportionality is not that good.
>
> I'd agree that some companies displayed an impressive voting discipline,
> but you could also trace that back to the low barrier to membership
> issue: if you're not that involved in OpenStack, you're more likely to
> vote for local candidates.
>
> The affiliation limit worked well to avoid getting too many people from
> the same over-represented-in-membership corporate entity, so I think
> damage is limited. And we vote again in 3 months, with that data in mind.
>
> Personally I regret that what should have been an "individuals elect
> individual representative" case ended up being "company employees elect
> company representative", but that's about it. We need to discuss how to
> raise the bar of membership entry just enough to improve that.

Well said, Thierry.

d

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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
+1

We need to raise the bar on individual membership. Linux Foundation uses a membership fee of $99.00 USD
which also gets you into the conference, or something. It isn't an unreasonable amount for any company to pay
for it's employees to participate as members; but it will likely discourage silliness such as we have seen in this
initial election.

The other thing that we need to address is the carrot of the prospect for a Platinum or Gold member to have TWO
board seats. This should never have been permitted, as it simply begs to be exploited. Maybe the solution is to
limit any VOTING on the board such that only one vote per affiliated member be permitted.

Cheers,

Christopher Ferris
IBM Distinguished Engineer, CTO Industry and Cloud Standards
Member, IBM Academy of Technology
IBM Software Group, Standards Strategy
email: chrisfer@us.ibm.com
Twitter: christo4ferris
phone: +1 508 234 2986

-----Doug Hellmann <doug.hellmann@dreamhost.com> wrote: -----To: Thierry Carrez <thierry@openstack.org>
From: Doug Hellmann <doug.hellmann@dreamhost.com>
Date: 10/03/2012 12:21PM
Cc: foundation@lists.openstack.org
Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Individual Member Election Statistics



On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 4:39 AM, Thierry Carrez <thierry@openstack.org> wrote:
> We need to discuss how to
> raise the bar of membership entry just enough to improve that.

Alternatively (or additionally), we could switch to Condorcet, which is
an election method that specifically does not fill the proportionality
criteria. 30% of voters won't give you anything, especially if the other
70% don't like you that much.

It would favor consensus candidates, which in this case (individual
member election) could be a good idea.

I'm not an election system scholar, so please forgive what may be a naive question.
I've looked at a couple of descriptions of Condorcet, and I don't see any reason not to use it but I also don't see how it helps solve the problem of a disproportionate number of foundation members being affiliated with a small number of corporate entities. Is there an example or explanation of using a Condorcet system to address this type of issue that you can refer me to, or maybe you could summarize how you see it helping briefly? Perhaps there is just some inherent feature of Condorcet systems that I'm not grokking based on the reading I've done so far.
Thanks,Doug

AFAIK there is a lawyer question about accepted election methods for
corporate boards under Delaware law, but I think that's an option that
we should definitely explore.

--
Thierry Carrez (ttx)

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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
With a community of this size and growing, one consideration might be to reduce the count of number of persons from one organisation from 2 to 1. This doesn't fix the low barrier of entry problem though.

In a worst case scenario (i like worst case scenarios) where we have several large organisations join the Golds and miss out on a Gold seat, then there's nothing to stop them taking 2 individual seats each with some mass mail outs, and right now there's no way I can think of to prevent that.

Making people pay for membership is something, but $99pa is a lot of money in developing nations, so that would discriminate.

Sent from my iPad.

On 04/10/2012, at 1:51 AM, "Mark Collier" <mark@openstack.org> wrote:

> I will take the action to talk with our attorney to understand the feasibility of using condorcet in the future.
>
> Mark
>
>
> On Wednesday, October 3, 2012 11:18am, "Monty Taylor" <mordred@inaugust.com> said:
>
>>
>>
>> On 10/03/2012 02:39 AM, Thierry Carrez wrote:
>>>> We need to discuss how to
>>>> raise the bar of membership entry just enough to improve that.
>>>
>>> Alternatively (or additionally), we could switch to Condorcet, which is
>>> an election method that specifically does not fill the proportionality
>>> criteria. 30% of voters won't give you anything, especially if the other
>>> 70% don't like you that much.
>>>
>>> It would favor consensus candidates, which in this case (individual
>>> member election) could be a good idea.
>>>
>>> AFAIK there is a lawyer question about accepted election methods for
>>> corporate boards under Delaware law, but I think that's an option that
>>> we should definitely explore.
>>
>> I support any and all efforts for us to use Condorcet instead of cumulative.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Foundation mailing list
>> Foundation@lists.openstack.org
>> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation
>>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foundation mailing list
> Foundation@lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation



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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
>
> Making people pay for membership is something, but $99pa is a lot of money in developing nations, so that would discriminate.
>


Plenty of organizations have discount pricing for developing nations. Members that reside in a developing nation could pay a discounted rate.

--
Eric Windisch




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Re: Individual Member Election Statistics [ In reply to ]
On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Christopher B Ferris
<chrisfer@us.ibm.com>wrote:

> +1
>
> We need to raise the bar on individual membership. Linux Foundation uses a
> membership fee of $99.00 USD
> which also gets you into the conference, or something. It isn't an
> unreasonable amount for any company to pay
> for it's employees to participate as members; but it will likely
> discourage silliness such as we have seen in this
> initial election.
>

It would also discourage individuals, students, and folks in countries
where $100 US is worth a lot more than it is in the US. It would in turn
not discourage large companies, since as you point out that's really not
all that much money, even for 1000 members from a company large enough to
have 1000 employees. I don't think a membership fee solves the problem.


>
> The other thing that we need to address is the carrot of the prospect for
> a Platinum or Gold member to have TWO
> board seats. This should never have been permitted, as it simply begs to
> be exploited. Maybe the solution is to
> limit any VOTING on the board such that only one vote per affiliated
> member be permitted.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Christopher Ferris
> IBM Distinguished Engineer, CTO Industry and Cloud Standards
> Member, IBM Academy of Technology
> IBM Software Group, Standards Strategy
> email: chrisfer@us.ibm.com
> Twitter: christo4ferris
> phone: +1 508 234 2986
>
> -----Doug Hellmann <doug.hellmann@dreamhost.com><doug.hellmann@dreamhost.com>wrote: -----
> To: Thierry Carrez <thierry@openstack.org> <thierry@openstack.org>
> From: Doug Hellmann <doug.hellmann@dreamhost.com><doug.hellmann@dreamhost.com>
> Date: 10/03/2012 12:21PM
> Cc: foundation@lists.openstack.org
> Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Individual Member Election Statistics
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 4:39 AM, Thierry Carrez <thierry@openstack.org>wrote:
>
>> > We need to discuss how to
>> > raise the bar of membership entry just enough to improve that.
>>
>> Alternatively (or additionally), we could switch to Condorcet, which is
>> an election method that specifically does not fill the proportionality
>> criteria. 30% of voters won't give you anything, especially if the other
>> 70% don't like you that much.
>>
>> It would favor consensus candidates, which in this case (individual
>> member election) could be a good idea.
>>
>
> I'm not an election system scholar, so please forgive what may be a naive
> question.
>
> I've looked at a couple of descriptions of Condorcet, and I don't see any
> reason not to use it but I also don't see how it helps solve the problem of
> a disproportionate number of foundation members being affiliated with a
> small number of corporate entities. Is there an example or explanation of
> using a Condorcet system to address this type of issue that you can refer
> me to, or maybe you could summarize how you see it helping briefly? Perhaps
> there is just some inherent feature of Condorcet systems that I'm not
> grokking based on the reading I've done so far.
>
> Thanks,
> Doug
>
>
>>
>> AFAIK there is a lawyer question about accepted election methods for
>> corporate boards under Delaware law, but I think that's an option that
>> we should definitely explore.
>>
>> --
>> Thierry Carrez (ttx)
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Foundation mailing list
>> Foundation@lists.openstack.org
>> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foundation mailing list
> Foundation@lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation
>

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