Hi Pierre, Thanks for your responses, I have some followup questions. On Tue, 2020-08-11 at 15:47 +0200, Pierre Böckmann wrote:
I'm dissapointed to find that your platform seems to be entirely based on effectively re-hashing the failed no-confidence vote. My views on that matter are not only well documented, but the vote failed, so it seems a peculiar decision to run primarily on the same topic.
I am disappointed, too, that you pick a single point and pretend this would be all I base my campaign on - though that is absolutely untrue.
Skipping over responding to this train of thought in the name of compromise, collaboration, and wishing to avoid being baited into conflict.
I was really hoping for some insights into how you'd operate as a Board member once given the responsibilities of the office.
I'd operate as a selected representative of the community, speaking in behave of those uncomfortable with the happenings of the last few month, and even more important: I will do so with all my passion for openSUSE as a community and a distribution.
If you are elected, do you not feel that you would have a responsibility to act on behalf of ALL of the openSUSE community, not just a minority of your own chosing?
- Are there some lines which deserve immediate sanction?
This is a bit general and therefore hard to answer. Sometimes it really does not only depend on the severity of the action or breach, but on the circumstances that led to the action or breach.
At least we can surely agree, that any action that would be of legal relevance, deserves immediate sanction.
On that I wholeheartedly agree, and I can speak from experience that the Board has had issues of such relevance in the past. And I apologise for such a vague and general question, but I assume you can understand that any issue of potentially legal relevance needs some discretion when talking about on a public forum.
- The Board's role includes "Facilitate decision making processes where needed."; should the Board decide when "when needed" applies, or should the Board only involve themselves when invited by community members who wish their help in decision making processes?
The openSUSE board consists of openSUSE members and therefore, as a normal member, they should be able to suggest where help might be needed - especially if those help might be needed in areas where they contribute.
On this point I agree, but we've had cases of community members feeling imposed upon by "the Board" when the reality was individual Board members were just acting in as enthusiastic individuals in a similar way we'd encorage all openSUSE members to act. We've also had Board members overeach their position and (intentionally or not) effectively bully other contributors into accepting their desired way as the only acceptable way. I wouldn't want to see Pierre the Board Member fall fate to either such confusion. How will you work to avoid such confusion if you are elected?
- Should the Board set the direction for the Project or should the direction be set by contributions?
As before, the openSUSE board consists of openSUSE members and any member can make contributions, that is true to those being members of the board, too. Therefore I think the board should be able to set directions, but should not do so in case they are against the community's will and wishes. As well as in cases where those directions result in radical changes to the community structure or to the community's projects the community should have a saying about whether they want those directions set or not. As a do-o-cracy this already does apply in some ways automatically, where there are no contributors to drive the direction forward we'd come to a standstill. In cases where there are opposing contributions setting opposing directions the board should be able to help in the "decision making process".
Do you not see a potential conflict of interest in Board members setting a "decision making process" for conflicts they might be causing by pushing forward a direction that differs from other contributors? Shouldn't contributions be treated equally regardless of whether the contributor is a Board member, regular member, or just a regular contributor off the street? How would you avoid or settle such conflicts of interests?
- What is your opinion of the Project's key sponsor (SUSE)?
I doubt this is a relevant point that says anything about how much I am willing and capable of working in the community interests when elected to the openSUSE board, but let me share a short anecdote: I was once asked by a professor that the HTW Berlin which company I'd love to work for after finishing my studies - I answered SUSE.
Although that maybe says it all, I'd want to stress the fact that I value SUSEs contributions to openSUSE to the highest. That though does not change my mind about the foundation plans which I want to support and push forward.
Interesting, should we interpet this response as a suggestion that your foundation plans do not feature SUSE being a key sponsor of any future Foundation? Most versions of Foundation plans discussed and presented by previous Boards all continued to feature SUSE in some key role, it sounds like you have different ideas, so please, elborate. Regards, -- Richard Brown Linux Distribution Engineer - Future Technology Team Phone +4991174053-361 SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, D-90409 Nuernberg (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Geschäftsführer: Felix Imendörffer -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org