On Sat, 25 Aug 2018 at 20:52, Bryan Lunduke <bryan@lunduke.com> wrote:
On 2018-08-25 00:22, Richard Brown wrote:
I would like you to consider the following - Board members are individuals elected by a popular vote, with the top 2-3 of any years votes being the new members of the Board
This election model means that upon joining the Board, 1-2 of the Boards new members have the awkward position of feeling that they are everybodies "second favourite" choice
Correct. That's how every election -- in every industry/government across the globe -- works. If someone doesn't want to "come in second" they don't run for office.
Even popular people lose. Just how it works. That's life.
But the Board is not 'running for office' in a sense that can be considered analogous to any industry or government. openSUSE Board Members are not empowered to create laws or sign orders which others are duty bound to follow Especially when you consider our primary role being one of dispute resolution and judgement, we have more in common with Jurors than company Board Members or Elected politicans
So taking the soccer club sponsorship decision as an example. When the feedback started coming in questioning the decision, I would have strongly supported any Board member taking the opportunity to give the project a 'peek behind the curtain' about the decision making process.
I'm getting some mixed signals here, my friend. :)
Just a few days ago you chastised others for being public about Board decisions:
"Replying a little seriously, and to justify my vote publicly (which is something I shouldn't have to do, given the Board's rule that decisions made collectively are defended collectively, but someone seems to have forgotten that... :-/ )" - Richard Brown, Tuesday
And you are either acting intentionally obtuse or don't notice the huge monumental difference between a situation where Board members are required to stand up publicly as individuals and justify their decision in public, and a situation where the Board collectively owns both the decision "we as a group feel X" and the dissent "but a number in our group also felt Y" The Project elected a Board to do a specific job. We're not Board members as part of some political or business exercise, but to serve the Project in a very specific way, doing an often ugly job so no one else has to. This has an analogue in juries around the world, an equally thankless task, but important one. One where the words and statements of jurors made during their deliberations cannot be made public. The outcome of that deliberation, the decision of guilt or innocence, and the number of jurors for and against a decision are shared as an output of those deliberations, but the deliberations themselves are sacrosanct and forbidden from being aired in any court in order to ensure that those decisions can be made without any fear of external influence. The Board have been elected to a position where they are the final arbiters of any decision that gets to their desk. If an issue gets to their desk it can be argued that it only does so because no other contributor was willing or able to make the decisions via our usual (very public) means. We are after all, decision makers and arbiters of last resort - the community should be taking care of any issue that it can long before it ever ends up needing a Board decision. I think it is therefore highly important that those decisions which are trusted to the Board, are conducted in a way that empowers each Board member to act on their conscious, without fear of public reprisals after the fact. Hence, the model I strongly advocate for in my posts and the model which every openSUSE Board has generally operated under since at least my involvement, and I suspect long before. If the Project wishes to fundamentally change the role and purpose of the Board then I'd be willing to see that go to a Membership vote. But the absolute transparency you seem to advocate for, would not get my vote - if such an idea is popular, I would suggest the Board as we know it would be pointless - we might as well have anyone and everyone making every decision in public. There would be no point having elections to entrust specific people with the additional responsibility of arbitrating disputes and making decisions which no one else was able to make. I think such a situation would dramatically decrease the Project's ability to deal with sponsors - They often require, for practical and financial reporting reasons, to be able to discuss any potential sponsorship with an element of privacy. Such discussions could never happen without a trusted body like a Board capable of having such discussions in private. And on the more common situation of the Board dealing with disputes between contributors, either absolute transparency or the dissolution of the Board would mean the only way of dealing with such situations would be public trials. Which I can only imagine how badly that would end up, no matter how they were structured. The Board serves an important role in the Project. It needs an element of privacy to accomplish that role, much in the same way that Jurors do. It also needs the trust of the Project, which is why members are selected in the way that they are. I think that trust is best served by the Board operating as a cohesive unit, collectively given a broad mandate by the Project, rather than as an unstructured gaggle of individuals all seeking to build their own personal reputations for their own personal gain. Sure, my view of Board work is often selfless and thankless, and it's true, doing things more publicly could build superstar heroes out of some Board members, and pantomime villains out of others. But the Board isn't here to be a reality-side-show for the Project, we have a job to do, and we need an environment that allows us to do that job effectively. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org