Hi list,

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On Sun, Feb 9, 2020 at 2:12 PM Sarah Julia Kriesch <ada.lovelace@gmx.de> wrote:

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Dear openSUSE community,

I would like to apologize to all who have felt to be ignored as Advocates or tackled by what I said in the last weeks. I didn't want to hurt you, and have to admit that - since we are such a big community - I wasn't aware of all activities and contributions by all Contributors in our special and local groups.

nice to see, that at least you take over responsibility for what you said in the community. I'm not from Asia, but I felt quite disturbed by what you said about communities and continents. For me, and I guess this is something we all should stick to, we are one, big openSUSE community, working on one big project, called openSUSE. This is something I guess, most free software projects should have in common. It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from or how much money you earn, we treat everybody with the same respect and rights, as long as they stick to the "general principals of Netiquette", which might be described already in our "Guiding principles".[1] And yes, this includes treating every country/continent with the same respect and give them the same amount of budget to support local events. Maybe this is something the board could put on it's agenda. How money is spent? Which continent gets how much support per fiscal year? Make this transparent please :). Furthermore, I would expect from the openSUSE board to care about all openSUSE-related events and even a short research would have shown that we have had a lot of events in Asia over the last years [2], which means in China, Taiwan, Indonesia and Japan. Of course, there are a lot of Asian countries left to visit for the openSUSE Asia summit, but keep in mind that this needs a lot of organization on-site and a lot of volunteers as well. And it seems that we had a lot of contributors from those countries in the past and people taking over active leadership of organizing the Asia summit and that's why it happened in those specific places. But more than that, on our events.o.o [3] we have an archive of events from all over the world. Yes, we have some missing spots where we can become better in the future, but always keep in mind, that you need local enthusiast willing to organize or go to a local event representing openSUSE. Fortunately we have a paid position regarding this community management and engagement sponsored by SUSE, which most of you know. It's Doug DeMaio visiting a lot of places all over the world and representing openSUSE and trying to support local volunteers as good as possible. But sometimes, local volunteers are more into submitting to OBS or translation and less going to conferences and standing at a conference booth. And we should respect that as well. We have as well, a TravelSupportProgram [4] that most communities don't have, which means, we engage locals to travel to their local free software events and represent openSUSE by giving a talk or having a conference booth there. Overall I guess, we are not as bad as described in those mails here and I really don't see the immediate need to change everything we are doing already - as it seems we are not doing so bad. Maybe communication can be improved, like summaries about local conferences where we sponsored some money or materials, but this needs some volunteers willing to write a few lines as well. I hope everybody got a better picture and I expect the board from knowing all the links I posted anyways. While I don't understand some of Sarah's points, I'm more into sharing knowledge than into fighting, this I'll leave up to other big guys in black shirts ;). We should come to a clear and transparent process where every community member can see how and in which amount which event/location is sponsored, so that we don't create disadvantages by different budgets. And if budgets are unequal, than everybody should stand behind this because we, as a community, decided to have a big and fancy openSUSE Conference in Europe and openSUSE Asia Summit in Asia once a year. Yes, that maybe means that we will not have money left for an openSUSE summit Africa or SouthAmerica - although I would love to see those events. But if we buildup transparent decision and transparent money flows, than we all can stand behind those decisions and be less skeptical about how the board distributes the budget of the openSUSE project. Always remember: "We want to have a lot of fun!" - and fighting is not about fun. All the best, Thorsten [1] https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Guiding_principles [2] https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Asia_Summit [3] https://events.opensuse.org/ [4] https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Travel_Support_Program -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon 2020-02-10, Thorsten Bro | openSUSE Member wrote:

And yes, this includes treating every country/continent with the same respect

Yes, totally agreed.

and give them the same amount of budget to support local events. Maybe this is something the board could put on it's agenda. How money is spent? Which continent gets how much support per fiscal year? Make this transparent please :).

This is definitely something we (both SUSE and openSUSE from a board, marketing,... perspective) are aiming for -- directionally. I'm saying directionally since I don't think that Austria (9 million people) and Australia (26 million people) should necessarily get exactly the same, or looking at continents, Asia and Australia. And maybe there's more need in some parts of the world than others, where there's also other parties sponsoring, plus the cost to support an event can vary widely. And in some countries we have stronger communities already (which we want to support), in some it may be budding communities (which we also want to support). So, I think this is a complex set of questions that needs to be looked at individually. But "yes!" to striving for balance and "yes!" to working towards increased transparency. I hope this makes sense?

keep in mind, that you need local enthusiast willing to organize or go to a local event representing openSUSE.

openSUSE.Asia Summit last fall was my first event in my new role, and the energy and enthusiasm I felt among people from different countries and what they were driving at home was amazing. It really motivated me, and I hope we can keep supporting and growing such initiatives.

Maybe communication can be improved, like summaries about local conferences where we sponsored some money or materials, but this needs some volunteers willing to write a few lines as well.

Sharing positive news and successes (even) more would be nice, and could inspire others in our communities (and outside, to possibly join or do similarly in theirs). Gerald -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org