Dear openSUSE community members,
this is a call for a no-confidence vote against the current openSUSE board.
We should initiate a poll, asking the community whether it wishes a full re-
election of the openSUSE board.
Reasoning:
In advance of the last board member elections Sarah’s application as a
candidate raised concerns regarding the expressed opinion and wording. Those
concerns were a matter of discussion on the mailing list with a lot of partly
harsh words on both sides.
Throughout the weeks before the election and throughout the election weeks
Sarah’s application and its wording and expressed opinion had at no point been
ruled as violation of Guidelines or the Code of Conduct. There has even never
been any discussion about it. If there would have been any evidence or
indication of a violation those points should have been a topic and should
have lead to ruling Sarah out of candidacy. But for good reasons that has
never happened.
Despite those mentioned public criticism the *community members decided to
legitimately elect Sarah* as a new board member.
Later, like Marina states in her mail to the community in behalf of the board,
2/3rds of the board members decided in the weeks after the election to force
Sarah to resign from the board due to claimed breaches of the guiding
principles and the Code of Conduct of which there has never been any evidence
or indication and has never been considered and discussed throughout the weeks
before the election and the election weeks itself.
Even worse, like Christian stated in an answer to the mentioned board
statement, at least parts of the board itself breached the guiding principles
and Code of Conduct in a very heavy way which even lead to Christian's
decision to step down, too.
As a result the community has been very upset about the incidents which are
subject to this mail. Criticism and distrust in the board had already been
around since Sarah and shortly after Christian resigned from the board but
even intensified after the board decided to try shutting down speculations and
discussions around the reasons for both to step down with their statement
published by Marina.
As a member of the openSUSE community those last few weeks and its incidents
which became finally public are raising serious concerns about whether the
openSUSE board is really still making decisions in the full interest of the
complete community or rather is putting its own interests above those of the
community and respecting the community's elections and the community's rules
itself.
Therefore we, as the electing community, should initiate a poll and see
whether the needed 20% of the community members are in favor of making a clean
new start by re-electing the complete openSUSE board instead.
Kind regards
Pierre Böckmann
P.S.
Though a few details have become known, we don't know all of the in-depth
details.
Therefore I want to assure that this mail is not intended to be disrespectful
towards the board and/or its members as well as each individuals work in favor
of the openSUSE project and the openSUSE community.
Nonetheless we can not and should not ignore what has happened in the last few
weeks and the unacceptable nature and disrespect towards the community
elections outcome, rules and principles.
Additionally I am well aware that not everyone will be happy or be agreeable
to my proposal of a full re-election of the openSUSE board. Be assured, I took
the time and thoroughly thought out this step and that I think that this
proposal is in the best interest of openSUSE as a project and a community.
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