RE: Rebranding of the Project

(speaking as a board member.....)

Richard, to "rescind" requires prior agreement. So you agreed.

That board meeting lasted 2 days (crazy, I know). You presented to us on the first day. We discussed your presentation last, from memory - the next day, and voted on it. So it wasn't after the meeting after all.

We reached out to you and informed you of the vote, and your response was:

"Ok, I'll try not to take it personally. :)"

No objection. You could have raised it as an issue with us then and there, but you didn't. You could have convinced us, but you didn't.

Therefore, we thought that the matter was dealt with.

Then you started accusing the board of "censorship", when there was no such thinking on the boards decision.

- Were you able to give your presentation? (yes)

- Did the board alter any content that was not part of the your original presentation?

I know that we didn't. Things might have been changed by Robert - but that's on him (and SUSE, as he was speaking on their behalf), not the board.

My recollection of events was that we just figured that it was better to clearly contrast a community opinion - yours - with SUSE's, originally was to be Andy Fitzsimon's presentation. Andy is not part of the community, and also couldn't make it. We saw Robert as a great substitution to achieve that aim.

The best way to fix this whole issue would have been to raise it with us at the time, not say "ok" with a smiley emoji. Or even at the face to face with the board at the last session - but you weren't there either.

BUT, we do agree that the priority should be on re-branding. Everything else will follow. So lets focus on that!

(As for the heated discussion at the conference, I stand by every word.)

-----Original message-----
From: Richard Brown <rbrown@suse.de>
Sent: Monday 8th July 2024 10:29
To: project@lists.opensuse.org
Subject: Re: Rebranding of the Project

On 2024-07-08 09:21, Patrick Fitzgerald wrote:
> In regard to Richards proposal, I think that this is not a major
> priority and should be addressed down the line.
> 
> When presented the idea at the board meeting prior to the conference,
> I mentioned that to him and he agreed.

Since that meeting, the Board intervened and forcefully changed who was 
allowed to present the topic at oSC on behalf of SUSE.
This was an act that I believe to be in contravention of the Board's own 
rules about directing contributors and grossly exceeded it's 
responsibility to "Community community interests to SUSE"
This is at least the second time in recent memory where the Board had 
directly intervened and directed contributors - my previous example 
would be when the Board forced the continuation of "MicroOS Desktop KDE" 
after it was removed due to lack of maintainers after a year+ long 
deprecation period.

I therefore want to make the following very clear:

I rescind any agreement I may have had with your view that the 
governance issues are 'not a major priority'

I currently hold no confidence in the current openSUSE Board and think 
it's absolutely essential the openSUSE project establishes a new 
governance model.

Given the heated discussion we had at openSUSE Conference, I would have 
expected you to have implicitly understood that fact and not tried to 
make it sound like I supported your view that our governance problems 
are not a major priority.

I had no intention to join this thread here, but your misrepresentation 
of my views had to be corrected.

With all that said, I do believe the greater priority is the branding 
issue.

SUSE's needs as the legal trademark holder cannot be ignored, whereas 
the openSUSE Board can be.

So, both are important, but the Branding issue is the most urgent and 
pressing one that needs to be addressed.
I think it might make sense to address it in the context of reworking 
our governance, it might not.
But if we do not address our governance at the same time as the 
branding, it is something that needs to be resolved pretty quickly 
afterwards.

-- 
Richard Brown
Distributions Architect
SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH, Frankenstraße 146, D-90461
Nuremberg, Germany
(HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg)
Managing Directors/Geschäftsführer: Ivo Totev, Andrew McDonald, Werner 
Knoblich