Shouldn't the board be include people outside of the community who can provide disinterested oversight? What are the duties of the board that require them to be interested in or active in Perl or even a member of TPF?
Hi, thanks for your feedback.
Having somebody with TPF experience is nice as the person would understand how TPF works, what our mission is and what our pain points are. That said, I imagine somebody disinterested may add value.
Are you talking about something like an advisory board? It'd be interesting to have such role of people but do you have somebody specific in your mind? If not, what kind of people are suitable for that role?
I understand the desire to have someone with direct TPF experience but I think if you really want to bring in outsider viewpoint you should make this, 'or equivalent experience contributing to a open source Perl project' or similar. There's a lot of people in the community that have added a ton of value in lots out ways outside of working in TPF.
Also I'd recommend trying to find a way to bring on people from corporate leadership positions at companies using Perl. For example a VP or Director level position at a company that uses Perl heavily. Ideally from a company having a big impact on the way programmers seen the future (think AWS, Azure, etc.)
John,
Sorry for the late response - I have been thinking about it.
I agree that outside viewpoint will add value. It is especially unsafe when a nonprofit's board is full of people who have the same perspective. In fact, when I ran the Grants Committee at TPF, I made sure we have good mixture of people - mix of geographical locations and mix of background. Although there is no set rule on its membership, I was fortunate to have somebody with community leadership, academic background and TPF sponsorship by their employer.
"Corporate leadership positions at companies using Perl" - I am not sure whether such people should be a board member or something more external such as an advisory board. Regardless it's the right thing for us to involve them as appropriate, and actually we do for some. Note that, as you may know, there's something TPF does and does not, and it should be clarified that TPF does not govern or control Perl development community.
I'll open the discussion with the board. Thank you for your feedback.