TDF/Membership Role
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This page to explain the role, the position of the members of The Document Foundation
The bylaws of membership are in the statutes [1], [2] under § 10 Board of Trustees, especially (1) a.), b.) and d.)
Vote for the official bodies, and if you so like stand for elections to be a part
- As a member of The Document Foundation you are allowed to vote for the Board and the Membership Committee and of course to stand for election of these official bodies of TDF.
Thus you have influence on how TDF is governed, which is what you deserve as member, because you are a contributor to our community.
Free @libreoffice.org mail address
From July 1st 2013, members can have a free @libreoffice.org email address. See the announcement and detailed information.
Contributing
- You can be a member when you are contributing to LibreOffice / The Document Foundation. Contributing in the sense of doing work within the projects of The Document Foundation. This as explained in the statutes under § 10 Board of Trustees, especially (1) a.), b.) and d.) You are expected to do so 'regularly' and the work has to be 'non-trivial'.
There is no limitation to the type of work: It may be all kind of contributions, somehow in connection with TDF and/or its projects. When for example, someone gives talks in his/her town about LibreOffice, and also connects with others from the project in the area/country or joins the international marketing list to share, those are relevant contributions. The same about writing blogs/articles when also connecting to the project. Or when someone does outstanding work in helping others on a mailing list or forum. But only putting a LibreOffice logo on one's website or blog does not count.
We also talk about regular work, not necessarily a lot. For example some code or translation every month surely fits. On the other hand, things like sharing social media messages, or telling about/explaining LibreOffice few times a year of course are really important, but as such too little for membership. Of course we do understand that for all volunteer work, all people are busy with other things too, and cannot be active constantly.
Background of all this is meritocracy: the people that do the work, must be the ones able to make decisions. And as member of The Document Foundation, you can vote for, or become member of, the Board or the Membership Committee.
Making a monetary contribution is appreciated too, and important for the success of our work. However membership and voting rights are, based on the principles of meritocracy, only open for people that actually work.
Renewal
- Membership needs to be renewed every year. The Membership Committee will send you a reminder for that.
When you are a member, its time to renew, but you have not contributed (for whatever reason) for more then twelve months, your membership cannot be renewed. Of course when you're again contributing, it's more then welcome to apply again for membership.