Simon,
Please see my responses below:
"I think we can work towards a new governance system without having rolls
that tell people what to do. We are a community of volunteers who will
volunteer there time where they see fit (Including looking at better
governance)"
--> I respectively disagree wholeheartedly. Without any sense of direction, vision, guidance, and leadership, we will remain stagnant where we are. I understand we are a community of volunteers, but in many other non-paid groups, there are still leaders who delegate responsibilities and roles to other members and act as the central reporting and communications channel to the community at-large. That's what most boards and/or leadership groups are tasked with doing at the heart of the mission, or goal of the project.
"Under our current system people can't tell anyone what to do, in certain
cases they can tell people they can't do something, such as you can't
submit that update as it doesn't meet our current packaging standards or
as part of a conflict resolution process the board may tell someone they
can't do something, personally I don't want to see that aspect of our
governance changing. At the same time we could do a better job of
guiding people who want to be guided into the most useful places. Which
is something the current board struggles to have time for in its current
format."
--> I partially disagree, where you say that aspect of our governance shouldn't change. ALL aspects of our governance need to be on the table including that. What we do from there is for another day, but leaving anything off the table is poor due diligence as a whole. I do think that we need to do a better job at understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals that make up our community but there still has to be a framework. Without that, new users who want to contribute have nowhere to go. We do not have a "concierge desk" that helps connect those users with the leads of a team who could help guide them. I do agree that this is not the job of the board, I think that's where we need a specific role in the overall management of openSUSE (or whatever we're going to be called) who is friendly, and NOT technically knowledgeable. They just have to know who and where to send people. Think of them as a friendly telephone operator.
" The issue that then needs to be dealt with is how the groups communicate
between each other if there are conflicts between them. I guess one
model could be if the Community Council and Technical Board each
appointed two members (Or people on there behalf) to the foundation
board. But there are many other models, that's just one I thought of
now. But this starts to do a better job at getting the right people into
the right roles."
--> This is why there are often committees or SIGs who have leaders that answer to a larger board. But at the end of the day, there needs to be ONE arbiter who has the final say. Usually that's an Executive Director in a non-profit organization or someone in the C-Suite in the business world. Either way, all workflows need a termination point - they cannot loop forever.
PS - Thank you for continuing to support Enlightenment. I still fire up my e16 WM from time to time!
------------------
Now for my two cents:
I am in the openSUSE BAR (
https://meet.opensuse.org/bar) almost every day. The BAR is a great place to discuss ideas over video in real-time with other members of the community. Hiding behind mailing lists is one thing, defending your position in public is another. I invite any of you that have an opinion on this topic to respectfully come to the BAR and discuss your points with others in there. That kind of dialogue is what leads to compromise, unity, and understanding of other viewpoints. The BAR is open to all and does not require permission to join from anyone else. Thanks to some that frequent the BAR, I was able to gain additional perspectives on the governance and branding issues at hand that did not change my mind, but they changed the reasoning of my stance (which IMO is more important).
I work for a consulting firm in a senior leadership position, and from afar I have been able to understand that:
1. We do really lack overall leadership (the buck stops here so to speak)
2. We are stagnant (where's the vision of the project, yes we have work to do whether it's volunteer or not).
3. I'm not asking for metrics, but it would be nice to know if we are meeting our mission (every group has a mission)
4. We have a community that's larger than we think, made up of passionate people from all over the world. This diversity is our strength, yet we aren't maximizing the potential
Here are my ideas for governance:
- Starting from the top, we have an overall board with a board chair but let me take that one step further, why not make it a Steering Committee if we don't want to call it a board. They are our community leaders who represent us to the open-source, personal, business communities at the end of the day. They are the ones who interact with SUSE when required. They are the ones that make the final call about who does what and when.
- If SUSE is asking us to rebrand, we should ask them to remove the requirement that a member of SUSE be on the board. Without that, we lack the ability to create an "untainted" identity in the greater open-source ecosphere.
- The steering committee could establish subcommittees or appointees for:
-- Financial (interfaces with the foundation),
-- Technical (incorporating the role of the Heroes, but with guidance and leadership)
-- Social (community engagement, conflict resolution)
I think opening up those avenues allows those that don't want to or have the time to commit to the steering committee full-on to still have a say and then from there if they want to run for steering committee, they have the institutional knowledge of people and project to be confident in that position, thus avoiding the "What was I thinking when I did this" moment which causes a lack of energy, or a disengagement from the project.
As always, I appreciate everyone's insight as I get to meet more of you across the community and the globe. Thank you for sharing your experiences, highs and lows, and even a cold beverage when the time allows.
Bill Schouten - ctlinux
(openSUSE Heroes team, openSUSE Discord/Matrix moderator)