A bit of a deeper dive on this, and to be read alongside @EyalRozenberg response:
Letter and intent of the statutes § 10 are quite clear - there’s only contribution as the gating criteria for membership, plus commitment to continue for at least 6 more months. There’s no wiggle room here - but interestingly the statutes’ translation contain a glaring translation error, which might have contributed to the misreadings: the authoritative German version says, roughly translated:
b.) after non-arbitrary assessment by the Membership Committee, or via confirmation by other trustees, [members] have made non-trivial or not obviously insignificant contributions. A non-exhaustive list includes among others …
For reference, here’s the current translation - you notice the stark semantic difference:
“… have not made trivial or obviously insignificant contributions and the contributions are provable by the arbitrary assessment of the Membership Committee or confirmed by members. These include in a non exhaustive list among other things …”
I do therefore stand by my assessment, that the actions of the MC (even more so the incident in 2023, and of course the case of @gmasei) were arbitrary, and not covered by letter, nor intent of the statutes. The way the original section § 10 (2) is phrased, makes that quite obvious to me, and @EyalRozenberg has explained it with a simile.
Furthermore, I stand by my request towards the MC, to at least grant @gmasei and future cases of non-renewal-for-perceived-infractions a proper hearing, and a process according to § 10 (2). They deserve that courtesy, and I guess we all here also now deserve an answer from the MC on what they plan to do about that - and not just interjections from @PaoloVecchi .
And finally: it appears the current reading of the statutes, and the basis for the MC decision, is based on a non-professional opinion. All that while attempts to seek a legal assessment earlier where thwarted, then altogether cancelled by the current board majority. Which is interesting in its own right, given the clamour of the past few years, when it came to legal questions.
There’s quite a bit more to say on the topic of integrity (vision and intentions of the founders, the mission statement, and the overall idea of what TDF should protect against) - but that’s for another day.
Best, Thorsten