[cabfpub] Election of S/MIME Vice Chair

[Stephen Davidson]

Hello Ryan:



Many thanks.  I confirm that:



*       Stephen Davidson (me) is the Chair
*       Mads Henriksveen is the Vice Chair



The election of the Vice Chair was “continued” via a consensus vote from the first meeting as an open agenda item and hence was taken up again at a subsequent meeting as reflected in the minutes.

The SMCWG Charter has been clear in guiding the WG but specific reference might be helpful for the “bootstrap/setup” scenario versus the periodic replacement of officers.

The Charter refers to 4.1(c) of the Bylaws, which may actually mean Bylaw 4.1.3.  The context of that section implies that it applies to subsequent elections.



Thank you for the GitHub work that you and the Infrastructure WG are doing; I think it will be a boon to the SMCWG.



Best regards, Stephen









From: Ryan Sleevi <sleevi at google.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 4, 2020 8:22 PM
To: Stephen Davidson <Stephen.Davidson at digicert.com>
Cc: CABforum1 <public at cabforum.org>
Subject: Election of S/MIME Vice Chair



Hey Stephen,



As I was trying to finish setting up the permissions for repositories following the separation of repositories [1], I realized I needed to set the S/MIME Chair and Vice Chair up.



It took me a while to dig through the minutes to find out how that went. Recall that the S/MIME Charter [2][3] established you as temporary chair, with the requirement that the SMCWG, in its first Working Group Teleconference, establish a chair and vice-chair.



It would appear that, on the first call [4] on July 22, you were elected as Chair. However, it looks like the WG diverged from its charter in that first call, in that it didn't establish a vice chair (as required by 3.1). It looks like the SMCWG also didn't hold a public vote for members (as required by 3.2.2), as abstensions were noted but not recorded in the minutes.



Looking at the minutes further, it looks like a Vice Chair was not elected until September 2 [5], and this was done by just a voice vote on the call.



The Forum Bylaws are a bit more restrictive here, as captured in 5.3.1(3), which states:

"After the charter is approved, the CWG MAY elect a new Chair and Vice Chair

elected by CWG members following the procedures of Bylaws Section 4.1 as
closely as possible. The initial term for CWG officers shall expire on November
30 of the next even-numbered year after the CWG is established in order to be
synchronized with the terms of Forum officers."



The Forum Bylaws Section 4.1 describes the Ballot process for selecting Chairs and Vice-Chairs. I don't see any record of a Ballot being followed, as we recently did for the Forum and SCWG Chair/Vice-Chairship.



I admit, I haven't seen how the CSC CWG handled this bootstrapping issue, so this is only my first time looking at a de novo CWG, but this feels like it might have missed some steps required in our Bylaws? Or does this highlight an area where the SMCWG charter was ambiguous, and something to think about for future charters?



Separate from those concerns, can you at least help me confirm that:

* You're the Chair

* Mads is the Vice-Chair



Thanks!



[1] https://archive.cabforum.org/pipermail/public/2020-October/015176.html

[2] https://cabforum.org/2020/02/12/ballot-forum-11-creation-of-s-mime-certificates-working-group/

[3] https://github.com/cabforum/forum/blob/5f2183ec1542bfc9b2b7888b94b4b8fffed3ccb9/SMCWG-charter.md

[4] https://lists.cabforum.org/pipermail/smcwg-public/2020-August/000014.html

[5] https://lists.cabforum.org/pipermail/smcwg-public/2020-September/000031.html

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