On 2012-01-31 17:40:08 (+0100), Jos Poortvliet <jos@opensuse.org> wrote:
On Friday, January 27, 2012 08:29:30 Jim Henderson wrote:
On Fri, 27 Jan 2012 06:38:57 +0100, Marco Michna wrote:
Aloha,
Respectfully, I disagree. Fortunately, we're not required to agree on all things. That would be awfully boring.
[bunch of ranting, raving, swearing, and ad-hominem attacks]
Nice that you put it that way ... shows how much respect you have!
Well, when someone writes to me things like:
You don't have to defend yourself. Marco acts like a 6 year old and should be treated as such - ignore. It's not a character flaw to tune out at that point. Actually I respect you greatly for responding the way you did to him, I would've put his mail on ignore (as I bet many others already have done). There's no excuse for the rudeness he displayed.
More on topic.
Yes, becoming openSUSE Member is something you got because you contributed. That contribution doesn't go away, hence you shouldn't be kicked out. Yet the problem is real - some don't care about participating as member. That is, they don't vote, which is the major thing a member does. There is nothing else a member can do that a non-member can not.
So, I propose that those who don't care about the vote for 2 years become non- voting members. I think it respects their wishes. Of course they keep their mail address (the only perk of being member) and nothing else changes. They just don't count in the statistic and don't vote. If they want to change their status they can ask the membership committee to re-instate them as voting members.
This makes clear what members are interested in the governance of openSUSE. Others are members just as much and through contributions they influence openSUSE on a technical level. But the voting procedure is about governance - things like the conference and travel money and sponsorship. I get it completely if you don't care about that but you should still be able to be member. But that membership should count as part of those who vote. If and when we transition to a Foundation we need to have this procedure in any case - you can't make certain decisions lawfully if you have only 30% of your members vote... So having 'non-voting' members solves that problem.
And if you don't vote out of protest, I'm sure we can add a "I don't like anything" as option to votes to solve that part. At least then we know who doesn't vote for a reason (protest) or because he/she doesn't care and it'll be actually meaningful.
All in all I think this way we can have our cake and eat it too: we know who regularly votes; it's clear who doesn't care or protests; our numbers are actually meaningful; yet we don't take anything from anyone (membership depends on contributions, yet if you don't want to be bothered by the voting stuff that's fine).
Acceptable compromise?
+1! Let's add that as a TODO for the board, to refine the election process to include a "none of the above" option, as well as to arrange a "non-voting member" status. Or at least to discuss it :) It has been discussed at length here, but not always in a very productive manner thanks to some ... erm ... So let's pick it up soon, try to summarize and try to find something that works. (I won't start it right now because I'm still in FOSDEM mode ;)) (And, of course, it doesn't have to be the board, except for actually changing the election or membership process, but anyone can take on the job of summarizing and proposal of a concise decision to the list.) cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- we haz green _\_v http://fosdem.org -- we haz conf