El dc 05 de 03 del 2008 a les 18:36 +0100, en/na jdd va escriure:

Magnus Boman a écrit :

...

Novell does not chose 3 members. They will decide the '5th' member. Anyone working for Novell, and contributing to openSUSE should be allowed to put their hands up to be on the board. But it is up to Novell employees and non-Novell employees to vote for them to actually get the spot.

this is unusefull world, sorry.

Can a Novell employee vote against his employer? to be fired?

so there will always be 3 novell and 2 non-novell

I don't mean at all novell employees are not good persons, but nobody can have two hats...

They should if they want to be reelected. That is why we should be able to vote or not to vote them.

jdd

-- Jordi Massaguer i Pla openTrends Solucions i Sistemes, S.L. Torre Llacuna C/Llacuna 166, 10º 1ª A 08018 Barcelona Phone: (+34) 93 320 84 14 Fax: (+34) 93 300 35 27 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, 2008-03-05 at 18:36 +0100, jdd wrote:

Magnus Boman a écrit :

...

Novell does not chose 3 members. They will decide the '5th' member. Anyone working for Novell, and contributing to openSUSE should be allowed to put their hands up to be on the board. But it is up to Novell employees and non-Novell employees to vote for them to actually get the spot.

this is unusefull world, sorry.

Can a Novell employee vote against his employer? to be fired?

Yes, a Novell employee can go against his employer and no, I don't think they will be fired for it. I can not guarantee that off course.

so there will always be 3 novell and 2 non-novell

I don't mean at all novell employees are not good persons, but nobody can have two hats...

So should all non-Novell employees have to disclose where they work, what interest their employer might have in openSUSE, SLE or anything else that the board might be able to influence?

jdd

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Il giorno mer, 05/03/2008 alle 18.36 +0100, jdd ha scritto:

Magnus Boman a écrit :

...

Novell does not chose 3 members. They will decide the '5th' member. Anyone working for Novell, and contributing to openSUSE should be allowed to put their hands up to be on the board. But it is up to Novell employees and non-Novell employees to vote for them to actually get the spot.

this is unusefull world, sorry.

Can a Novell employee vote against his employer? to be fired?

so there will always be 3 novell and 2 non-novell

I don't mean at all novell employees are not good persons, but nobody can have two hats...

I wonder why and with what purpose you are trying to put a negative accent on the fact that there are three Novell employees in the board (2 elected by the community). 1. This point is NOT under discussion in this thread and it's not what Pascal asked to us. 2. There would be no openSUSE without Novell and without the help of the same Novell employees who will be the potential candidates to the board election. 3. The Novell employees you'll vote are the same guys who work on the distribution, fix the bugs you report and already take the decisions which influence openSUSE, investing in the project a lot of time if not all their work time. I don't really see the point in thinking they'll act against the community interest, because they are actually a part of it. About the risk they're fired for voting against a Novell decision, well, I don't think that's possible, considering Novell is authorising the board and in any case, it would cause a huge damage to Novell's image causing a big loss in the community trust and participation, which is not what they want. 4. As in all things, the trust must be reciprocal. They need to trust us and we need to trust them. I think they started in the right way, with the idea of the board and of giving us the possibility to vote. So please, don't see negative aspects where there aren't that many. To conclude, please keep on topic. The questions Pascal asked were on the rules/organisation for the elections, not on the number of Novell employees who will be member of the board. Regards, Alberto --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 jdd wrote:

Alberto Passalacqua a écrit :

...

...

I don't mean at all novell employees are not good persons, but nobody can have two hats...

I wonder why and with what purpose you are trying to put a negative accent on the fact that there are three Novell employees in the board (2 elected by the community).

I don't at all. Novell is perfectly right to want a majority in the board, they pay enough for that... I only say than nobody can be trusted if he have an interest conflict (sorry, I don't know exactly the english word: "conflit d'intérêt" in freench).

You mean "conflict of interests". Well, if Novell wanted to do that, they 1) could do so without consulting the board, any time 2) wouldn't need a board in the first place

I mean: if Novell wants to do some sort of openSUSE config and the community at large dont like it (say, include zmd...), how are the Novell folks be able to vote?

The board is _not_ in charge of technical aspects. On purpose, and by design (it's stated in the board's mission).

and, of course, Why would Novell ask for some official board member if he was not sure they will follow he's instructions? I only want to know when a particular people speak if he speaks for the electors or for Novell.

For the community. And it's up to you and every one else to vote for people you trust, think are dedicated people and agree with on their opinions.

And note that Novell is the only company to have board member "tagged"

How do you mean ? The chair ? No, Fedora does the same. [...] cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- I took the green pill _\_v FOSDEM::23+24 Feb 2008, Brussels, http://fosdem.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHzyDOr3NMWliFcXcRAh/CAJ9rQSrAcDTBHBcnMUGoc3d6M3I0oACgshkH xlm57ZEAXvyHi6EX0mhfBFQ= =+3Ep -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am Donnerstag, 6. März 2008 schrieb jdd:

the only way to have only one community. think of that, it's fairly important.

You're still overemphasizing the inner-board votings. What's far more important is having a representative _inside_ of Novell. Believe it or not, but Novell has by far more power on the technical direction of openSUSE than your amd example. We (both Novell and openSUSE) want to change that for the future, but to go there, Novell has to know pretty well what the community wants. And _that_ is the thing the board was created for: an official part of the community where representaives of Novell and the community are grouped together as one bridge between these worlds. So don't think of the board as a small parlament (as it's in many other projects), think of it as rather as class representative. Greetings, Stephan --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

jdd a écrit :

so why this novell/non novell system, at first, if the board have no problem?

so I meant "no power" jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://clairedodin.voices.com/ http://www.clairedodin.com/ http://claire.dodin.net/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Magnus Boman a écrit :

I am a Novell employee.

how could I know if you didn't say it? and probably neither novell can know if your alias is personal

During the day, I spend my time onsite at customers helping them with various Novell products.

good

A lot of my spare time, I spend in the openSUSE community.

there, do you use your novell account/e-mail? nor for criticism, just to know what is the use

If we did not have this Novell/non Novell system, would you allow me to run for the board? If so, do you realize that we could potentially end up with 5 Novell employees on the board?

and? how many employees do have Novell? all over the world? I'm pretty sure any non officially suse related people could be on the board and novell don't know :-)) I think this risk is far smaller than the one of having a community split. The real problem than it seems than novell says they do this system to ensure they will be non novell people in the board, what seems to me ridiculous, when we all try for years to say that there is no difference, we all are the same community. in fact, with this system, any novell employee will be obliged to tag himself as so, even if not at all in the official opensuse team... sorry jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://clairedodin.voices.com/ http://www.clairedodin.com/ http://claire.dodin.net/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

>>> On 3/6/2008 at 11:02, Bernhard Walle  wrote:
> * jdd  [2008-03-06 09:55]:
>> Magnus Boman a écrit :
>>
>>> I am a Novell employee.
>>
>> how could I know if you didn't say it? and probably neither novell
can know 
>> if your alias is personal
> 
> Well, if the "real name" is used, then I guess we have a list of
> Novell empolyees somewhere. :)))
> 

Sure.. be it only in eDirectory... but it's there ;)

Dominique
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Le jeudi 06 mars 2008 à 09:55 +0100, jdd a écrit :

how many employees do have Novell? all over the world? I'm pretty sure any non officially suse related people could be on the board and novell don't know :-))

It might make sense to request from candidates that they tell who their employer is, even if it's not related to their openSUSE involvement.

I think this risk is far smaller than the one of having a community split.

I don't quite see why there'd be a split.

The real problem than it seems than novell says they do this system to ensure they will be non novell people in the board, what seems to me ridiculous, when we all try for years to say that there is no difference, we all are the same community.

Keep in mind that this thread is not about changing the 2 Novell and 2 non-Novell rule in the board. However, in the future, and the board might want to discuss this, it might be easier to have a rule like this one we have in the GNOME Foundation: "no more than 50% of the elected board members may be affiliated with the same company" (it's 40% for the GNOME Foundation, but there are more board members).

in fact, with this system, any novell employee will be obliged to tag himself as so, even if not at all in the official opensuse team...

Don't know why this would be a problem ;-) Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, 6 Mar 2008, jdd wrote:

Stephan Kulow a écrit :

...

And _that_ is the thing the board was created for: an official part of the community where representaives of Novell and the community are grouped together as one bridge between these worlds.

so why this novell/non novell system, at first, if the board have no problem?

don't think I try to cause problems, I only try to clarify to avoid future problems... and I don't like the separation novell/non novell (anyway we have to trust novell to say who is appointed by novel :-))

I must admit, I like the idea to have 2 Novell people elected by the community. I think this shows to Novell that these individuals are really important to the community and that in non public Novell concerns that they should be consulted to ensure that Novell understands the community. I am sure that Novell must have/make decisions on things that should not be made public but kept internal to Novell. Having these people that we have elected ensures that they are community minded and approved by the community. -- Boyd Gerber ZENEZ 1042 East Fort Union #135, Midvale Utah 84047 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Alberto Passalacqua wrote:

Il giorno mer, 05/03/2008 alle 18.36 +0100, jdd ha scritto:

...

Magnus Boman a écrit :

...

Novell does not chose 3 members. They will decide the '5th' member. Anyone working for Novell, and contributing to openSUSE should be allowed to put their hands up to be on the board. But it is up to Novell employees and non-Novell employees to vote for them to actually get the spot.

this is unusefull world, sorry. Can a Novell employee vote against his employer? to be fired? so there will always be 3 novell and 2 non-novell I don't mean at all novell employees are not good persons, but nobody can have two hats...

Again, as several people have replied already: it's * 4 elected * 1 appointed by Novell (chair) The differentiation between Novell and non-Novell for the 4 elected board members is only to try to guarantee a certain degree of independence. The appointed chair position is not up to discussion, we won't change that. You could have 4 elected board members who are all Novell employees and drive the board to the best interests of the community and another board with 4 non-Novell employees that ends up being useless or going against the community. It's a matter of trust in individuals. Whether they work for Novell or not isn't all that relevant wrt that. Personally, I'm rather under the impression we should have two lists, as the goal is clear and immutable (we _won't_ change the board composition rules, they're in the Guiding Principles): 2 NVL and 2 non-NVL. The NVL list is _not_ made by NVL. It will be a list composed of people who are members of the openSUSE community and want to be members of the board for the best of the community at large. The individuals who will be on that list are volunteering for it, they're not appointed by their employer to be on the list. They just happen to work for NVL, and they should clearly state that in their application, but it isn't the most important criterion for voting or not, at least IMHO. There are many much more important aspects.

I wonder why and with what purpose you are trying to put a negative accent on the fact that there are three Novell employees in the board (2 elected by the community). 1. This point is NOT under discussion in this thread and it's not what Pascal asked to us. [...] 3. The Novell employees you'll vote are the same guys who work on the distribution, fix the bugs you report and already take the decisions which influence openSUSE, investing in the project a lot of time if not all their work time. I don't really see the

.. their work time _and_ their free time for quite a lot of them. Again, we shouldn't make distinctions between Nvl and non-Nvl people, we're one community and most of the actions we are undertaking are precisely to break that barrier (membership and board). The 2 + 2 rule is just there as a safeguard and to lessen paranoia ;)

point in thinking they'll act against the community interest, because they are actually a part of it. About the risk they're fired for voting against a Novell decision, well, I don't think that's possible, considering Novell is authorising the board and in any case, it would cause a huge damage to Novell's image causing a big loss in the community trust and participation, which is not what they want.

I don't see that happening either. Remember it's Novell who proposed and wanted the board. And the board only has consultative powers (at least as of now, I have no idea whether that will change in the future), hence there isn't all that much that the board could do in terms of damaging Novell -- except not representing the best interests of the community.

4. As in all things, the trust must be reciprocal. They need to trust us and we need to trust them. I think they started in the right way, with the idea of the board and of giving us the possibility to vote. So please, don't see negative aspects where there aren't that many.

+1 cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- I took the green pill _\_v FOSDEM::23+24 Feb 2008, Brussels, http://fosdem.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHzx/pr3NMWliFcXcRAj62AKCLbSHlgxNpemkKzh6RuwvE7sJmNgCcD4LZ sVZ1zq41vz/BatmbcGNX/fw= =I941 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Hi all, Now that we've had a lot of discussion on the mailing list, I've taken the liberty of starting a page on the wiki to start narrowing down the discussion and generating a more concrete proposal. The page is here: http://en.opensuse.org/Board_election_proposals This is, I can't stress enough, a *draft* and meant to focus discussion -- so please approach it in that spirit and lets start getting this proposal hammered into shape so we're ready to move forward on the board election in a timely fashion. Best, Zonker -- Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier openSUSE Community Manager jzb@zonker.net http://zonker.opensuse.org/ http://www.dissociatedpress.net/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 jdd wrote: [...]

The main practical problem I see is "are counted only once when casting ballots for the board" this seems very hard to achieve exactly. The only way is paper mail (and it's not without fault).

It's not that hard if only members can vote. I'm not saying that's necessarily what we should do (still open to discussion), but from a technical point of view, it does make it possible, simply by requiring to be authenticated with ones iChain login to be able to vote, and associate each vote with the authenticated user name. Of course, prerequisite being that one person only received member status once (i.e. not with different names/email addresses). While it isn't possible to make sure at 100% that there is no abuse wrt member status (one individual making several requests with fake identities), the risk is low IMO, as we do some research on each membership request before granting it. cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- I took the green pill _\_v FOSDEM::23+24 Feb 2008, Brussels, http://fosdem.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFH1c7mr3NMWliFcXcRAhn/AJ9ow3MJhgsXkpNyaycI7voEa7OXZwCeKHvF TEgO2qN7yTIsXSYFk1tRYfM= =sXKA -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org