[opensuse-project] openSUSE Board F2F meeting summary
The openSUSE board met for a day long meeting on March 22nd in Nuremberg and via video link. We would like to report to the community some of the goals and actionable items that resulted from that meeting. 1. The members of the board discussed ways to make our communication better. The most perceived problems are A) requests to our private address (board@o.o) don't receive a timely response and B) the process how we reach decisions on requests is not well defined. Although we are unable to respond to all requests with an immediate resolution, the board will in the future provide an acknowledgment and a time frame for an expected response. To ensure that, we are going to implement some kind of ticket system for the board. To solve the second problem we agreed that we are going turn down the notch on voting a bit to make it possible for single board members to address "simple" issues on their own. We rather want to act as what we are, a group of friends, then voting on everything. This also addresses the problem that it's not always clear what is a response from the board and what is an opinion of a single board member. In the future you get the groups formulated opinion from board@opensuse.org and everything else are individual opinions. Additionally this makes it easy to identify issues that are not "simple" and need further discussion and most likely voting in either the project meeting or our mailing lists. 2. We talked about what we think are the projects strengths that need emphasizing right now and agreed to stress the fact that we are all here to have FUN together. That we rather want to have a bit creative ANARCHY without the need of complex, excessive bureaucracy and rules. And that we are here to collaborate and help each other out, not to make life harder for each other. We are going to make those points abundantly clear in the near future and let them guide us in what we do. 3. For starters one thing that all members of the board are tired of is the mood, tone and behavior of certain people on our mailing lists. It's seldom FUN, SIMPLE and COLLABORATIVE to bring up an issue on, say, opensuse-project. We need to change this to get the mailing lists back to being a productive, fun, collaborative place where we listen to arguments and address problems in a constructive and open way. Each and every one of us wants to discourage mailing list vandals who only state opinions, while expecting someone else to make the fix. As a board we invite the community to actively deter these unproductive activities through social pressure. Making the lists fun will invite existing contributors who aren't on the list(s) to join and to entice new people onto the list(s). 4. The board members will continue to strive to ensure the project IRC meetings are much more exciting, efficient and of value to the community members by striving to: 1. Provide an agenda before hand so that all members are informed as to what will be discussed 2. Only meet when there is an agenda 3. Time box the meeting to 1 hour with a proactive moderator tasked with keeping the meeting on topic and within time boundaries 4. Get rid of general items(boring) and replace with specific agenda items and reports. 5. Have the meeting moderator (rotating) be responsible for finalizing the agenda, rejecting or deferring topics as required. 6. Hold project meetings at 20:00 UTC on every other Wednesday. The board also reviewed the initial ideas covering the fiscal management of community funds and the project sponsorship program. These will be developed into proposals to be presented to the community at a later date. We thank the community for your continued support and look forward to serving you. The openSUSE Board -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
* Alan Clark
The openSUSE board met for a day long meeting on March 22nd in Nuremberg and via video link. We would like to report to the community some of the goals and actionable items that resulted from that meeting.
....
3. For starters one thing that all members of the board are tired of is the mood, tone and behavior of certain people on our mailing lists. It's seldom FUN, SIMPLE and COLLABORATIVE to bring up an issue on, say, opensuse-project. We need to change this to get the mailing lists back to being a productive, fun, collaborative place where we listen to arguments and address problems in a constructive and open way. Each and every one of us wants to discourage mailing list vandals who only state opinions, while expecting someone else to make the fix. As a board we invite the community to actively deter these unproductive activities through social pressure. Making the lists fun will invite existing contributors who aren't on the list(s) to join and to entice new people onto the list(s).
... tks, addressing item #3 is needed and welcomed. There appears too much of an "us vs them" additude and derogatory comments about decisions and programmers skills/direction. A change will be invigorating. tks again -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711 http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, 05 Mar 2012 22:06:15 -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
tks, addressing item #3 is needed and welcomed. There appears too much of an "us vs them" additude and derogatory comments about decisions and programmers skills/direction. A change will be invigorating.
100% agreed. Of late there has been an awful lot of shouting and it seems like less listening. I'm glad to see the board come back from their future meeting (March 22? ;) ) with this item; I just hope that the active determent of the community doesn't escalate things - IOW, I hope the determent that's applied is effective at deterring the misbehaviour of the few. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 03/05/2012 08:38 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
On Mon, 05 Mar 2012 22:06:15 -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
tks, addressing item #3 is needed and welcomed. There appears too much of an "us vs them" additude and derogatory comments about decisions and programmers skills/direction. A change will be invigorating.
100% agreed. Of late there has been an awful lot of shouting and it seems like less listening.
I'm glad to see the board come back from their future meeting (March 22? ;) ) with this item; I just hope that the active determent of the community doesn't escalate things - IOW, I hope the determent that's applied is effective at deterring the misbehaviour of the few.
Jim
Hi, The next project meeting is scheduled for March 7@ 2000 UTC As for deterrents, we need *everyone* in the community to speak up and to know they will be fully supported by the board when they confront misbehavior. Cheers, Peter -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, 05 Mar 2012 22:56:18 -0800, Peter Linnell wrote:
The next project meeting is scheduled for March 7@ 2000 UTC
I was making a bit of a joke that the meeting Alan was talking about was held on "March 22", which hasn't happened yet.
As for deterrents, we need *everyone* in the community to speak up and to know they will be fully supported by the board when they confront misbehavior.
Agreed, but I have a feeling it's going to take more than just community pressure. Maybe the 'consequences' of community pressure will be enough (I hope that's the case). Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 2012-03-06 19:27:04 (+0000), Jim Henderson
On Mon, 05 Mar 2012 22:56:18 -0800, Peter Linnell wrote:
The next project meeting is scheduled for March 7@ 2000 UTC
I was making a bit of a joke that the meeting Alan was talking about was held on "March 22", which hasn't happened yet.
As for deterrents, we need *everyone* in the community to speak up and to know they will be fully supported by the board when they confront misbehavior.
Agreed, but I have a feeling it's going to take more than just community pressure. Maybe the 'consequences' of community pressure will be enough (I hope that's the case).
We hope so too. If not, we'll take other measures. Letting our communication channels be vandalized by a few stops now. It's our tool, and it's up to all of us to take it back. For those who believe that's too harsh, please have a good look at this: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4216011961522818645 As well as this: http://communitymgt.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Anti-patterns As many other comparable projects, we have every single one of those anti-patterns. Let's actively work on improving the situation. Communication and social pressure should be enough to resolve most. cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- we haz green _\_v http://fosdem.org -- we haz conf
Hi, This sounded like a productive meeting! Just one question: Le lundi 05 mars 2012, à 18:58 -0700, Alan Clark a écrit :
are, a group of friends, then voting on everything. This also addresses the problem that it's not always clear what is a response from the board and what is an opinion of a single board member. In the future you get the groups formulated opinion from board@opensuse.org and everything else are individual opinions.
I'm obviously not aware of how things work in the openSUSE Board today, but isn't it just a matter of using "I" vs "we" when answering? Having to use board@opensuse.org is a bit cumbersome (that's your issue, so no big deal; although I can imagine this adding some bureaucracy). But this is also intimidating for people talking to the board -- it's more friendly to have a mail from Andrew (saying "we believe that XYZ") than a mail from "Board". Anyway, it's just a detail that caught my eye, no big deal :-) Cheers, Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hey, On 06.03.2012 08:53, Vincent Untz wrote:
This sounded like a productive meeting! Just one question:
Le lundi 05 mars 2012, à 18:58 -0700, Alan Clark a écrit :
are, a group of friends, then voting on everything. This also addresses the problem that it's not always clear what is a response from the board and what is an opinion of a single board member. In the future you get the groups formulated opinion from board@opensuse.org and everything else are individual opinions.
I'm obviously not aware of how things work in the openSUSE Board today, but isn't it just a matter of using "I" vs "we" when answering?
Sure that's possible too.
Having to use board@opensuse.org is a bit cumbersome
Au contraire :-) It will "just" be one aspect of using some kind of ticket system for requests to board@.
But this is also intimidating for people talking to the board -- it's more friendly to have a mail from Andrew (saying "we believe that XYZ") than a mail from "Board".
Sure it's more personal and less intimidating. But it's also the source of at least one major confusion in the past year and we would like to avoid that in the future... Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, openSUSE http://www.hennevogel.de Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
participants (7)
-
Alan Clark
-
Henne Vogelsang
-
Jim Henderson
-
Pascal Bleser
-
Patrick Shanahan
-
Peter Linnell
-
Vincent Untz