Re: [opensuse-project] Re: Board Meeting Minutes of August 21 2018
4.9.18 (Wt), Richard Brown
I object to not discuss it.
From this thread I get that: - Community wants the votes to be public
Some of the community wants the votes to be public. There are others who do not.
I don't really need public votes, if Board votes on things requiring privacy.
I agree with your principle. My point is, the Board should only be deciding on topics where there is a good reason not to make it public.
What was the good reason for the board to decide on the football team and not to make it public?
Because, unlike the vast amount of other sponsorships which the Project decides upon without the Board's direct involvement, the unusual nature of this one led to the marketing team (who normally decide on sponsorships) asking the Board for our opinion.
OK. So this was not a decision but an opinion. And the final decision was made (or not yet?) by marketing team, I supouse. I think, in this particular case Board could pass their opinion as description of thoughts even if contradicting (with names? Board internally decide) to the marketing team (like "more of us think that but some think different", more detailed of course). If marketing team doesn't specified that this could be discussed in public and need private opinion of Board, I would insert into minutes only "Board issued opinion on sponsorship opportunity as requested by marketing team". (I don't know how marketing team works on sponsorship and how much public they are. I'm sorry, if this is some kind of bad interpretation of situation.) If marketing team doesn't need keep this sponsorship private why not starting discussion right here, just as it was with foundation options, when everybody could write their opinions on various options.
We have the Board so the Project has people who can make unpopular, but trusted decisions.
I disagree. I believe the Board should make popular decisions, which represent what the community wants.
From our Wiki[1]: Facilitate decision making processes where needed. Facilitate decision is not the same as decide and it also doesn't include anything about unpopular decisions.
Indeed, so on the topic that decided this, I think there is a case to be made that the Board could consider suggesting a way to allow the marketing team to decide about sponsorships without involving the Board. I would fully support such an effort.
But without such a way, we end up being the only process left
And that process in which the Board makes decisions is one which doesn't make those votes public, because the Board is designed and structured for making decisions only in cases where no other process or community mechanisms exist.
The Board should only be making decisions _as_a_last_resort_.
When that is the case, we need to have the freedom to make those decisions with private voting (but public minuting).
As many decisions as possible should be made by people other than the Board - like our wiki says "community mechanisms exist to accomplish the goals of the project" - the Board is there for when those community mechanisms don't exist, or fail to work for the Project.
If the Board's function is only to make popular decisions, then we might as well not have a Board and put everything to a popular vote. And such an option is not viable in many of those cases.
I really like the idea for the cases in which it is possible.
I really think those cases should be none of the Board's business, and should be handled elsewhere in the Project.
To kinda sum up my toughts: - Board could recognize if meeting item needs voting (now it looks like voting on football team sponsorship was unnecessary) - Board could internally clearly to all Board members decide if current case requires privacy and how much (sometimes Board is the last resort [no community mechanism], but the case is public) - Board could internally also clearly to all Board members decide if they can share their opinions or votes (if case is public, why vote and not discuss it in public? or discuss it in public then public/private vote?) best regards, Patryk 'Sanchez' Zera -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
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Patryk Zera