Gesendet: Montag, 04. April 2022 um 12:05 Uhr Von: "Richard Brown" rbrown@suse.de An: "Sarah Julia Kriesch" ada.lovelace@gmx.de Cc: project@lists.opensuse.org, factory@lists.opensuse.org Betreff: Re: How to build a FOSS maintainer community (Was: Planning decomission of software.opensuse.org) Thanks for your feedback, maybe the below will clear up where I'm coing from.
Thank you! It is nice, if both sides are accepting feedback.
One of the fundemental lessons of "The Open Organisation" is that leaders in open organisations are _not_ intended to be role models, but to provide, nuture, and support an environment where people can define their own role.
Then I want to reference also from the recommended books. The Open Organization Leaders Manual, p.78: "Exponential leadership occurs when an individual's impact gets multiplied. Exponential leaders compound and integrate the strengths of teams (groups of people) to create new organizational capabilities. They create new leaders and catalyze vibrant ecosystems of teams that channel their passion and energy toward a shared organizational purpose to deliver rapid results. Their leadership contributions have a powerful effect, with the potential to profoundly influence an organization's culture."
Look into our community and our situation. How do you define people with passion for their role in the community? Are these people role-models or how do you define them?
We need exactly such people and such a situation. We had less candidates during the last election. If I am watching around in different areas, the Global Localization Team (as an example) is without any Coordinator at the moment. Who is executing the "Exponential Leadership" to make contributions to openSUSE fetching and who should be responsible for that (in your opinion)?
The book stresses this point repeatedly, both directly, and implicitly with its constant deliniation between 'leaders' and 'associates'.
The Board is designed to be a body that adds some of that necessary provisioning, nuturing and support to the openSUSE organisation. It is not designed to be a body of role models, and I think that's fine.
The Board is elected by the community. The book The Open Organization is also describing, how people with reputation can grow in such roles. My own Manager (in the company) is saying: "With freedom comes responsibility" Therefore, you are receiving responsibilities, if you are contributing on a good way. Then connect that with the cite above.
After all, it is hard to do the duty of conflict resolution and still keep on everyones good side.
And on that note, considering your threat regarding the moderators, I will quote again from the book (it IS a good book)
"Proactively invite feedback and then thank those who give it to you. Feedback is a gift. As a leader or manager, if you react defensivly, you are unlikely to get that gift again"
That is one reason, that I said "Thank you!" to you above.
Best regards, Sarah