July 2024 - openSUSE Project - openSUSE Mailing Lists

Status of the foundation?
by Martin Schröder 18 Aug '24

18 Aug '24

Hi, what's the status of the openSUSE foundation? Wikipedia has this: "The project is self-organized without a legal structure, although the establishment of a foundation has been under consideration for some time." citing an article from 2020(!). Best Martin

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TSP for openSUSE Conference 2024
by ddemaio openSUSE 06 Aug '24

06 Aug '24

Hi all, We will not be accepting any more TSP requests for the openSUSE Conference 2024. We've had a large amount of requests and will do our best to accommodate those that have already been submitted requests. If you know any companies that would like to sponsor the conference, please have them view the prospectus at https://en.opensuse.org/images/f/f6/OSC24prospectus.pdf or people can also donate at https://geekos.org/sponsorship/ to assist with more travel support. v/r Doug

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openSUSE Board minutes 2024-07-08
by ddemaio openSUSE 02 Aug '24

02 Aug '24

Board Meeting Monday 2024-07-08 14:00 CEST Present: Doug, Gerald, Neal, Simon, Shawn, Patrick Missed: Guests: From Previous Meetings We never made a formal decision on the policies for Permanent bans. Syncing after openSUSE Conference Shawn could not attend in person Gerald attended on Thursday, then sick and stuck in bed the following days :-( Those present in person report many constructive discussions. Talk generally perceived well. Only one member noting "If the name changes I'll leave". Several raised a desire to consider alternate names to "Geeko(s)". General feedback at the event was people were fine with renaming part of the talk at oSC24, less so with a removing the commuity brand outlook and splitting up the projects Discord/Matrix/IRC feedback has generally been ambivalent. A fair bit of narrative of "being forced" by SUSE. It seems that there is enough positive desire within the community to a good extent since this shouldn't just be the board driving proposals. It seems that more contributors are open to the idea of changing then the general userbase, at the same time there are some more SUSE employees that are less likely to want to change. Board to await the maturation period for the community to discuss before moving forward with a planning/phased approach Action Item: Gerald, statement from the board after discussion dies down.

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openSUSE Board minutes 2024-06-03
by Neal Gompa 28 Jul '24

28 Jul '24

Sorry about the delay, but here they are... = Board Meeting Monday 2024-06-03 14:00 CEST = * Present: Doug, Gerald, Neal, Patrick, Shawn, Simon * Excused: * Missed: * Minutes: Neal * Guests: Georg == Organizational == * Minutes of last meeting (on Wiki)? * Meeting times before openSUSE Conference == Update the meeting bot for the mailing list == * Currently its still sending out the wrong time, * Can be done following https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_best_practices#Meeting_reminder/invi… * AI: Gerald to follow up * Pull request with change created: https://github.com/openSUSE/mail-reminder/pulls == Trademark Issue == * AI: Gerald to follow up == GDPR Update == Doug notes that for those having issues with "other" on onetrust form in some browsers has been fixed. Suggests implementing a workflow involving GDPR officers to ensure user identity deletion via a p.o.o. ticketing system. The tool facilitates validations, ensuring compliance and proper handling of privacy-related processes. == Proposal for Permanent Records of Banned Persons == * Establish permanent records for banned individuals to ensure consistency and transparency in enforcement. * Current decisions rely on collective memory, which is unreliable over time. * Records should be maintained and accessible to moderators, the board and membership officials. == Proposal for openSUSE Ban Process Regulation == * The openSUSE community upholds a strict code of conduct to ensure a respectful and productive environment. Bans may be issued for violations, escalating from temporary bans to permanent and lifetime bans. ** Temporary Bans: Issued for initial or minor infractions, typically lasting up to three months. ** Six-Month Bans: Serve as a clear warning that any further violations will result in a permanent ban. ** Permanent Bans: Imposed for repeated or severe violations. Individuals may apply for reinstatement after one year; however, reinstatement is not guaranteed and subject to Board review. ** Lifetime Bans: Reserved for the most egregious violations, including but not limited to harassment, ban evasion, and misuse of resources. Lifetime bans are irrevocable. * What about Revoking memberships? * What about Revoking IDP Account access? If so, how does it affect people who need it for their job? * A final warning may precede a permanent ban, making clear the consequences of further infractions. All bans are documented to ensure transparency and consistency in enforcement. -- Neal Gompa (ID: Pharaoh_Atem)

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Geeko Foundation - Potential future structure
by Patrick Fitzgerald 25 Jul '24

25 Jul '24

Hi All, Given the current state of proceedings we thought it would be good to have a bit a of reference of current and future status of the Geeko Foundation. The plan is a kind of a meta-organisation (as you will see) that enables multiple "projects" to be share funding, infra and travel support under a common entity. Each "project" can have it's own "board" for management. This is not meant to be a contribution to naming debate, as we feel that whatever is chosen can fit into this structure. Take a look.. it is available here: https://geekos.org/the-future/ Thanks - Patrick -- -------------------------------- Patrick Fitzgerald All Support queries to: isupport(a)i-layer.com <mailto:isupport@i-layer.com>

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Rebranding of the Project
by Shawn W Dunn 25 Jul '24

25 Jul '24

Pursuant to Richard and Robert's talk at oSC 2024: https://media.ccc.de/v/4411-we-re-all-grown-up-opensuse-is-not-suse This is a topic that needs to be discussed as a community, especially as it's currently a request from SUSE. I do want to be clear, this message is me posting as "Community Member SFalken" not "openSUSE Board Member SFalken" Myself, I'm in favour of "rebranding" the community project, and making it clear that openSUSE != SUSE. Far too much of the time in our support channels is spent clearing up these misconceptions, where new users (and even some experienced users), are saying things like "SUSE Should do $x" or "Why doesn't SUSE do $x?". I'm less certain that I agree with Richards proposal of the individual projects sort of "go their own way", at least as he's laid it out, but again, this is absolutely a topic that deserves consideration. Thoughts?

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openSUSE Board Meeting in 3 Minutes
by Simon Lees 24 Jul '24

24 Jul '24

Apologies all, I just noticed we seem to still be having issues with our meeting reminder bot. So unfortunately today you get me as a manual reminder 3 minutes before the meeting start. The next meeting will be at 12UTC on Monday 2 weeks from now (2024-08-05) in case it forgets again The biweekly board conf call will be held in two days at 14:00 Europe/Berlin time (CET = UTC+1) Meeting will be in the regular Board Meeting Room https://meet.opensuse.org/OSBoard Current Topics: https://code.opensuse.org/board/tickets/issues?status=Open&tags=meeting Board Members: If you cannot participate, please advise by replying to this mail. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B

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RFC: Renaming the openSUSE Board
by Henne Vogelsang 22 Jul '24

22 Jul '24

Hey, this has been in the back of my mind since a long time. This is a request for comment for change to the openSUSE Guiding principles. Reality? -------- When the project invented the openSUSE Guiding Principles that people are supposed to adhere to, we also needed to invent a group of people that could enforce those principles. Because enforcing those rules could mean, in the worst case, to exclude someone from the project, we wanted to give this group of people some democratic legitimization. By giving the community members the say on who is in this group with voting, limiting members terms, making sure it's not dominated by one company etc. We explicitly codified what this group of people is supposed to do and what it is not supposed to do. We named this group openSUSE Board. Also: In businesses, non-profits and in many other Open Source projects a board of directors is the governing body that sets the strategy, oversee management, finances, protects the interests of stakeholders etc. Consequences? ------------- By now we learned that by naming this group of people doing this job "openSUSE Board" we have awakened expectations that go way beyond the responsibilities this group of people has. Examples: Frequently in openSUSE Board elections people run on a platform that says they will be able to change some aspect of the project. It often makes the wrong people apply to the openSUSE Board. Whenever we need to form a new group of people that takes care of some aspect of this project, people think this new group has to get legitimacy from the openSUSE Board. But the board does not do this. It keeps people from *taking* responsibility. openSUSE Sponsors, especially SUSE, are using the openSUSE Board as "confidant" to bring forward requests. Instead of using it as consultants how to bring forward their requests to the community. It hinders direct communication and the establishment of other communication channels with project members. A *lot* of confusion happens as people wait for the openSUSE Board to decide and give directions, to solve disagreements with two viable options or to "start" some project. Again, it keeps people from *taking* responsibility. A *lot* of in-fighting about gaining/keeping/expanding control over the openSUSE Board because it's mistaken as source of "power". It needlessly makes this community a hostile place. Every new board basically goes to this phase of discovery what their job actually is and struggles with the wrong expectations. It makes the very hard job the openSUSE Board members have, *way* harder than it needs to be. Future? ------- The "Governance" paragraph of the openSUSE Guiding Principles is changed and the openSUSE Board gets a different name that does not invoke the comparison to the concept of a "board of directors". The job of the group of people formerly know as openSUSE Board gets easier to do. The reality is clear to contributors that they have to organize *any* group of people to work on something themselves. The shortcomings of the infrastructure to form new groups of contributors taking care of some aspect of this project is becoming the responsibility of the existing contributors. The shortcomings in the communication structure of our project become clear and are not overlaid by the expectations that you just have to go to the "board of directors" and they will drip the information down into the organization for you. The *stupid* in-fighting about expectations to the board *and* control over it hopefully stop if people realize what the openSUSE Board actually is. Proposal! --------- We rename the group of people that is now called the openSUSE Board to openSUSE Mediators. We change the "Governance" paragraph of the openSUSE Guiding Principles to read: https://en.opensuse.org/index.php?title=User:Hennevogel/Guiding_Principles_… Comments? Henne -- Henne Vogelsang http://www.opensuse.org Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson

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Open Letter to the openSUSE Board, Project and Community (Final)
by Knurpht-openSUSE 21 Jul '24

21 Jul '24

Dear all, Let me first define a couple of things that the community is being faced with: - Our current governance is not working. With the things we're facing and the current model / Board rules, there is no good way the Board could drive the resulting changes coming up. Bi-weekly meetings will definitely not be enough. Furthermore, the Board has not shown any real proactive leadership in some situations where it should have. In the end, the reason I stepped down from it. - Whether we like it or not, we have to rebrand the Project. We can start working on it now and be proactive, or later be forced by f.e. some new owner of SUSE ( mind, SUSE has expressed their concern about such a thing happening and clearly stated that they do not want to get rid of the Project. ). To drive this we need something else than the Board as it is now. But keeping things as they are simply is an unrealistic option. - We need more contributors. It is a simple fact that we have been losing those, So, we have to question ourselves not only on how we're getting more people in, but also on how we keep them in. From what I've seen too many of them start enthusiasticly and get burnt out because lack of onboarding / mentoring. That said, I've also seen exceptions to that. What can we do? Proposal is a project-team that drives the changes. That project-team should exist of users/contributors/members with ampel experience in the Project/Community, people who know how things currently work. Basically they would come up with a plan, evaluate that with Board and Community and when ready execute the plan. A thing that should be taken into consideration is how f.e. our governance should relate/communicate to/with the Foundation. - The choice of a new name for the Project would best be a limited choice of ~3 names, that that team would have researched/checked, this to avoid having an endless list of non- workable options. - The rebranding of the distros as f.e. "openSUSE Tumbleweed" to "Tumbleweed" is already an ongoing thing. I don't see any reason to have a discussion about that again. - A vote on the Project logo has already been done, and was won by our LCP, no need to do that again. The people maintaining the distros have accepted LCP's logos as their distro logo, so using the same design for the Project makes sense since it gives a nice consistency. Hoping this finds you well, Best regards, -- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Forums Team openSUSE Mods Team

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[opensuse-project] How we will use the GSoC money
by Vincent Untz 18 Jul '24

18 Jul '24

Hi, (let's see how a public discussion about money goes :-)) The Google Summer of Code brings us great students, but also means that the openSUSE project will get $8000 (if I'm not mistaken) at the end of the summer. That's $500 per student. A while ago, I requested comments on my blog about what to do with the money, but didn't get any feedback. So I take this as "do what you feel is best", and this mail is about the plan. As a reminder, the main issue is that we will likely not have the openSUSE Foundation created in time for this. For instance, Google would like us to get some form filled before the end of June; this is not a mandatory timeline, but I think it shows that we won't be ready with the Foundation for that. The current plan is to give that money to another organization we feel close to, and I have two candidates in mind: - the Software Freedom Conservancy (http://sfconservancy.org/) it's a really nice org that provides a home for various cool projects (see http://sfconservancy.org/members/current/) and those projects help make openSUSE a great project. - the Desktop Summit (https://www.desktopsummit.org/) it's one of the biggest event this year, and this would help us have some more visibility (since we'd be sponsors, I guess). I'm sure they would welcome this to secure their budget. Note that an alternative solution would be to leave the money to Google for a future GSoC or similar program, but I feel it's better to use the money where it can make a difference today. Now, it's not too late to change the plan. If you have a better suggestion, please tell us. There's no need to argue forever about it, just explain why you think it's good. Keep in mind that if we cannot receive the money ourselves, this also means that we cannot use it to buy stuff for openSUSE. Pavol and I will take the final decision since we are the GSoC admins for openSUSE. Thanks, Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help(a)opensuse.org

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