[aprssig] The APRS Working Group????

[steve at dimse.com]

> On Feb 14, 2022, at 6:33 PM, Andrew Pavlin <spam8mybrain at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> Ah, that is interesting history to know. But since that elite Working Group still owns the protocol specification and related stuff, and some of them are still alive, they have to choose to abdicate the throne to someone else (individually or collectively), or carry on as-is. Otherwise, we're kind of stuck in limbo.

The APRS WG only owns the copyright to the document describing the protocol. That point may be moot. According to Ian he never gave anyone else an editable copy, and he cannot find it, though he is looking. If he does find it, there is no APRSWG to enforce a copyright. And in any case KD9PDP says he has essentially written it without the original which would not be subject to the copyright.

What is the "related stuff" you refer to? I can't think of anything APRSWG owns other than the copyright to that one document.
> 
> Brings up an interesting point: who inherits Bob's two votes as Technical Chair? There was nothing in that charter about the resignation or other loss of a WG member.

The two vote oddity was added as a way to placate Bob who was upset the Sproul brothers had twice the votes he did. 

There is a way to add members, 67% of existing votes can add members, 75% can remove members. If someone is added as technical chair they would get two votes. If this organization is resurrected, the existing members could simply not add a technical chair to keep one vote per person, or give someone the title and a second vote.

> But if we can scrounge up a quorum of the remaining members, it could become a moot point, as long as we can get one more decision out of them to hand over the rights and ownership to the new proposed organization (or reactivate the Working Group as an active organization).
> 
> Re: rule by the elite: any other kind of organization is still the same thing, because people who aren't on the inside Ruling Council (or whatever the organization calls it) aren't going to get anywhere unless an insider chooses to support their point. So we need to get "honest politicians" for any new organization.
> 
There is a difference between representative government and an oligarchy. Without time limited terms and general membership votes you have an oligarchy without any responsibility to the user base. I think that is wrong.

Steve K4HG