Hi Satoru,
Our current approved membership is based on merit. If you contribute substantially in one form or another, you can become a member. It is a form of appreciation, and this group of people are contributors. (Perhaps rename openSUSE Member as openSUSE Contributor?)
IMHO, we will make the same mistake again if we use the word 'Contributor' as a name for 'specifically distinguished contributors who have brought a continued and substantial contribution to the openSUSE project'.
One of the biggest reason why 'member' is not a good name for such contributors is, the word 'member' is a general noun and used in various contexts.
Refer to 'openSUSE:Community' page, for example. http://wiki.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Community
There's a mention: "... Some people think that anybody using openSUSE is a *member* of the community. Others think that being a *member* requires some sort of involvement: subscription to a mail list, registration as wiki editor through the Novell login, helper in the forums, regular use of an openSUSE IRC or other active involvement. In fact, if you think you are a *member*, want to be a *member*, ask if you are a *member*, then you probably are one :-)."
This mention is starkly inconsistent with our existing membership.
The word 'contributor' also is a general noun and used in various contexts in our community as 'person who contribute to openSUSE (or, any other upstream projects)'.
Everyone who contributes to openSUSE is a 'contributor', whether (s)he is applied or not. Renaming 'Member' to 'Contributor' will just make another problem - there will be 2 kind of contributors, contributors who are applied by Board and who are not yet applied.
Maybe we could just add a label like 'approved contributor'. -- Greets Marcus -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org