Top Posting because I want to broadly address all of the topics spread across Francoise's recent 6 mailings to this mailinglist. However, before I start, I want to give very brief history lesson from my perspective which should hopefully give some context from where I am coming from. I've been involved in the Project since it started in 2005. At that time 'SUSE' (and therefore openSUSE) were owned and operated as a part of Novell. Our project was born as a continuation of the 'SUSE Linux' boxed sets, which were being de-emphasised by Novell while focus was being given to the 'SUSE Linux Enterprise' product line. When this Project started it therefore inherited a fair bit from it's past life as a corporate product. There were Novell employees who were effectively 'imposed' on the Project, for example we had a 'Program Manager' and there were roles within the Project which could ONLY be carried out by Novell employees. This general 'Novell are in charge' feeling was a source of constant pain, and even though the Project made huge strides towards improved Governance, such as when we started having a Board in 2007, the friction continued to grow. In 2011 I witnessed firsthand, both in these lists, and in person at oSC 11, this friction coming to a head, with a strong clear message from the Project that it wanted more independence and the ability to set it's own direction. It's co-incidental that at exactly this time Novell were purchased by the Attachmate Group, but I saw how this change of Corporate Leadership gave formerly-Novell, now SUSE-the-business-unit-within-Attachmate an opportunity to address those issues. This trend has continued with the recent merge of the Attachmate Group with the Microfocus Group, which has expended significant effort to respect, protect, and improve the relationship between SUSE-the-corporate sponsor and the openSUSE Project This was done without much funfair or announcements, but to be honest, I think this was a good thing as it's allowed a gradual evolution over the last 4 years. Small, incremental changes over time, which when combined add up to a dramatic difference from how things were back then. However, this recent barrage of threads show there are a number of misconceptions lurking around so here's my efforts to address them. --- So, addressing SUSE's "Dictatorship" of openSUSE, the Community Manager role, and 'just do it'. openSUSE is an independent project, run by it's community. This projects leadership body is the Board, which consists of 6 people, 5 of which are voted on by the community, with the Chairman (me) appointed by SUSE. In order to protect against any organisation having absolute control of the openSUSE Project, no organisation is allowed to have more than 2 elected Board members, meaning that even at a 'worst case' SUSE can only employ 50% of the openSUSE Projects Board Members. The current Board only has two SUSE employees (30%), me and Robert. Since joining the openSUSE Board in 2013, I cannot recall a situation where I saw any evidence that SUSE exerted any pressure on any Board member - We *all* act first as openSUSE contributors who in good faith are trying to do their best for the openSUSE Project. There is no longer an openSUSE Program Manager hired by Novell/SUSE with responsibilities to manage the openSUSE Project/Program There is no longer an openSUSE Community Manager hired by Novell/SUSE with responsibilities to manage the openSUSE Community There is no longer an openSUSE Team/Boosters hired by Novell/SUSE to provide core engineering for the openSUSE Distribution This Chairman position is the *only* position in the openSUSE Project where SUSE 'impose' a paid employee with a specific role & responsibility on the Project which cannot be shared by anyone else. And in that role, my first responsibility is to act in the best interest of the openSUSE Project as part of the openSUSE Board. In addition to that, the Chairman is meant to act bi-direction conduit, communicating the Projects needs to SUSE and visa versa. I am not a Dictator, I can think of no example where I've ordered anyone to do anything. And I would expect people to stare at me funny and tell me 'no', if I tried. I also think it's worth considering that as I was a community member without a @suse.com email address for many years, and a Board member elected by this community in 2013. I believe Management at SUSE considered that when choosing me for the role of Chairman, and I think goes a way to show the nature of the relationship they wish to have with openSUSE. openSUSE is in charge of openSUSE Every position/role in the community is open for anyone who's willing and able to do the work. (with the single exception of Chairman) In order to take a role in the openSUSE community, you need to step up and do the work. We don't vote, the Board doesn't appoint people to positions. People need to step up and say "I'm doing this, who's with me?" and then get to work doing it. SUSE contribute to openSUSE in that same way, as peers, as equals with no automatic privilege, power, or control because of their status as SUSE employees. This is how they want to operate ("Open Source is in our Genes" is not just an empty marketing slogan for the company) and in 'real terms' there are probably more SUSE employees contributing to openSUSE right now than there ever has been. But we're discussing the roles and 'nature' of their contribution to the openSUSE Project, not the number of contributors who share the same employer. If we (the openSUSE community) feel there are things lacking in our community, roles missing, jobs not getting done, it's our responsibility, not SUSE's, to find people to do them, and then actually do them. --- --- Regarding the 'Freight Train' I think the actual 'members of the Freight Train team' is not important What is important, is that the 'Freight Train' concept is a promise from SUSE is that they will take very seriously any reports that suggest SUSE is failing to "contribute to openSUSE as peers". For example, there have been 'Freight Train'-style escalations which were ultimately handled by me and the highest levels of senior management at SUSE. That's we the community need to know, SUSE (as an organisation) want to ensure it's contributes to openSUSE do not unduly impact the contributions of others to the openSUSE Project, and if there is every a conflict, it will be dealt with. --- --- Regarding Money SUSE is currently the primary financial sponsor of the openSUSE Project. In that role, they administrate the 'openSUSE Projects' money, I think they act in good faith on behalf of our Project. They do a lot of work for us which is both very boring and also very taxing (both in terms of work, and probably also actual TAX). Since 2011, they have demonstrated their ability to work with the community to give the community more involvement with how the openSUSE Project spends the money provided by SUSE, such as the TSP. Since joining the Board in 2013, I cannot think of a single example where the openSUSE Project has been prevented from spending money where we needed it (see Booth Boxes, openSUSE Asia, Hackathons, TSP as examples all originated by suggestions from the community). If there are concerns about how SUSE sponsors the openSUSE Project, I'd like to hear them and I promise to relay them to SUSE, but I don't think a major restructuring in this area would be beneficial (and who the heck would be willing to do it anyway?) --- --- Regarding TSP reimbursements (80% vs 100%) When the TSP was formed, the decision was made by the TSP Team to reimburse 80% of the travel/hotel costs. This was to preserve the concept that openSUSE contributors are making personal sacrifice to do openSUSE stuff (both in terms of time & money) and that the TSP exists to *help* those people when they need it The TSP is not a reward system for openSUSE contributions. It's not intended to remove the need for openSUSE contributors to spend money while contributing to openSUSE. The TSP exists to help make it a little easier, and requiring contributors to still spend 20% of their own money when attending events representing openSUSE, we're able to sponsor more people, which is also a good thing. The Board regularly reviews and discusses the TSP, and makes recommendations regarding its operating practices and procedures. In our last review at the beginning of this year, we recommended the reimbursement level stays at 80%, and therefore I do not expect that practice to be changed any time soon. --- --- Final Thought While I think it's a 'good thing' to have conversations like this from time to time, I think we as a Project really need to move on from the old 'us vs them' mentality. Yes, like I accept when discussing the history at the beginning of this post, I understand where some of these concerns come from, but I ask everyone to take a fresh look at actually where openSUSE is *today* and work on fixing *those* problems. And I think many of those issues we do face today are best addressed by hard work and action, and less by long discussion threads. I'd like to see more email threads proposing possible solutions to the problems people feel the Project has, rather than threads which start by asking open-ended questions about those problems. Otherwise I fear we'll just find ourselves running in circles, and that's neither fun, not productive. Regards, Richard Brown openSUSE Board Chairman On 13 June 2015 at 11:17, Françoise Wybrecht <fwybrecht@ioda-net.ch> wrote:
On 13/06/15 10:01, jdd wrote:
Le 13/06/2015 09:35, Dimstar / Dominique Leuenberger a écrit :
oh... and who is the freight train team?
yes +1 to who is in the team ?
thanks
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