On Mon, 24 Jun 2019 at 16:14, Stasiek Michalski <hellcp@opensuse.org> wrote:
I might be repeating myself, but the 2010 foundation proposal did not have a chairman in place, instead having an X people board with President, Vice President and Treasurer as additional people for taking care of foundation specific tasks [1, 2]. This sounds like a better way to go than relying on 2 separate boards.
The Board discussed the 2010 proposal. It is not the basis of this current proposal. While it is always good to look at past efforts, the reality is that the Project and SUSE are both very different organizations than we were in 2010. The inclusion of the continuation of the Chairperson position in the current proposal is intentional. This inclusion in the proposal was added without any discussion with or involvement of the current Chairperson, who had been under the assumption the role would no longer exist. In other words - I wasn't joking when I said "they didn't ask me" during the discussion panel on this topic at openSUSE Conference ;) Even with the Foundation Board retaining a Chairperson appointed by SUSE, I would expect the nature of the role to change. I think it highly unlikely that any Foundation could have any appointed position having a veto like my role currently holds. Such veto power would undermine legal mandated requirements for operating independently. For example, IANAL but I imagine tax authorities would have concerns about a tax-exempt foundation being directly veto control by SUSE, a profit-seeking corporation. But on the flipside, as we have repeatedly stated through this effort, the Foundation will seek to formalise and reinforce many aspects of the Project's relationship with SUSE. Ensuring SUSE has guaranteed representation on the Board is one way of doing that. Remember the Chairperson can be replaced by SUSE at any time, and the elected members of the Board can request that at any time. Having that position be at the mercy of the elected members keeps the position very much under the influence of the community at large,which I think is very beneficial for such an role. Therefore I see where my Board colleagues are coming from with including that in the current draft of the plan. Regards, Richard -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org