On October 3, 2015 at 6:03:32 PM, Cornelius Schumacher (cschum@suse.de(mailto:cschum@suse.de)) wrote:
On Saturday 03 October 2015 08:56:20 Robert Schweikert wrote:
I think this is a bit too simplistic. By casting a vote for the board elections the voter has a certain influence on the direction of the project, and we can argue about this as part of this discussion. Thus, with a large number of inactive "openSUSE Members", per the member definition, the problem arises is two fold.
Voting for the board does not influence the direction of the project as by our guiding principles the board does not direct the project: "The board should provide guidance and support existing governance structures, but shouldn't direct or control development, since community mechanisms exist to accomplish the goals of the project."
b.) If everyone votes then one can argue that those that are generally inactive have an undue influence over the direction of the project by casting their vote.
Do you seriously think that this is a problem? Is there any evidence that people who do nothing than voting change the outcome of votes in any way?
To me this sounds like a very theoretical argument.
The problem does not necessarily need to be solved by culling the membership list. Other approaches may be feasible.
Exactly. The other approach is to just let it be. It doesn't create real problems and our energy is much better spent on taking care of the active people and get things done in what we want to deliver to our users.
Could maybe a solution to this “inactive member vote” idea be to have a smaller set of decisions made by a smaller group. We all understand that the Board is here “to” help the community but “not to” direct the community. Many of us also think that by voting, we are indeed influencing how the project is managed, when in reality the Board feels that they are not really there to steer the project but to be an aid. That indicates having a passive nature to their involvement. We all know that all the members of the Board are active members of the community. Then, why not let the Board vote for its own new addition? My reasoning here would solve some issues: 1, Thinking that by voting you are electing people who are going to champion your ideas about the project 2, Avoid inactive members of the community voting overcoming the vote of the active members 3, Follow an open source idea where the ones that do, decide 4, Help the community in the same way that they do, without getting the perspective that their group leads the project PS: I would say also that we could follow current rules for selecting a candidate and how many periods that person could stay in the Board.
Anyway as Richard pointed out, a change in governance model needs a vote by "openSUSE Members" which brings us back to the original problem. Of course we can choose to change the governance model with the current voting structure.
There is no change in our governance structure needed.
There is no quorum defined for board elections, so the number of inactive voters doesn't change the results of the election in any way.
Additionally there are no rules defined for any other votes by the members. Our community is an informal one governed by the open source process, where consensus and decisions by those who do the work govern the project, not formal votes. It's simply not true that changes to the governance model need a vote. That's not how the openSUSE community is built.
Our community is governed by doing, by communication, and by the values outlined in the guiding principles.
The board would be well advised to follow its mandate to support the community, its values, and the structures which are there. There is no need for erecting formalities which are neither supposed to be there nor helpful. Better spend your time and energy on wholeheartedly supporting what the community does.
And I'm sorry if this discussion drifts into the meta regions of discussing governance of the project. These discussions are harder to do productively and they can't easily be concluded compared to when you just can write a piece of code solving the problem. But they are important, as they help to create clarity about how the community is understanding its values. This is what guides how we work.
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