On Fri, May 15, 2020 at 7:32 AM Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de> wrote:

On 5/15/20 8:32 PM, Neal Gompa wrote:

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On Fri, May 15, 2020 at 6:55 AM Ish Sookun <ish.sookun@lasentinelle.mu> wrote:

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Dear community members,

A call for the re-election of the openSUSE Board was made by openSUSE member Pierre Böckmann [1] on the 13th of March 2020.

The openSUSE Board election rules [2] state the following regarding "forced re-election",

« If 20 per cent or more of the openSUSE members require a new board, an election will be held for the complete elected Board seats. »

Therefore, the Election Committee is setting up an electronic petition whereby openSUSE members can state whether they support a re-election of the Board by casting a vote. The procedure will follow similar rules as the previous electronic elections.

openSUSE members [3] having an active membership will receive their voting link and credential on their member email alias. Once they log onto the voting platform they will be presented a question that asks:

"Are you in favour of a re-election of the Board?"

There will be only one answer to select and which states:

"Yes, I call for a re-election of the openSUSE Board"

Members who want to sign the petition to call for a non-confidence vote can do so by voting yes.

The petition will allow the Election Committee to measure whether 20% of the community are in favour of a re-election.

This doesn't make sense to me. So you're going to rate this by level of participation? Why not have both the Yes and No options?

The Election Rules / Constitution requires 20% of the total membership to agree not 20% of people who participate in a vote, so I guess the election officials decided that a "No" option wouldn't add any meaningful info as 20% of members need to actively say "Yes".

Makes sense, I suppose. -- 真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Fri, May 15, 2020 at 8:32 PM Andreas Jaeger <aj@suse.com> wrote:

On 15.05.20 12:54, Ish Sookun wrote:

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Dear community members,

A call for the re-election of the openSUSE Board was made by openSUSE member Pierre Böckmann [1] on the 13th of March 2020.

The openSUSE Board election rules [2] state the following regarding "forced re-election",

« If 20 per cent or more of the openSUSE members require a new board, an election will be held for the complete elected Board seats. »

Therefore, the Election Committee is setting up an electronic petition whereby openSUSE members can state whether they support a re-election of the Board by casting a vote. The procedure will follow similar rules as the previous electronic elections.

openSUSE members [3] having an active membership will receive their voting link and credential on their member email alias. Once they log onto the voting platform they will be presented a question that asks:

"Are you in favour of a re-election of the Board?"

There will be only one answer to select and which states:

"Yes, I call for a re-election of the openSUSE Board"

This will cause confusion, since it's not clear that if I'm against it, I have to say abstain.

So, let's add:

"No, I do not call for a re-election. Note that not voting is automatically counted as NO"

Otherwise, your email with the ballot needs to say very clearly that people need to NOT vote if they disagree since this calls all members.

I don't think it's confusing. It's a petition and makes things a lot simpler. It's the responsibility of those who called for this to mobilise and get enough people to "sign it". If such petition passes then we will vote. Cheers, Maurizio -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Le 15/05/2020 à 16:32, David Mulder a écrit :

openSUSE, and we're given 1 option. I second the request for a 'NO' option on the petition.

but then we are going to have long discussion around: difference between people that voted No and people that didn't voter. Just say clearly on the mail "people that want to make for a reelection have to vote, others don't need to vote at all" jdd -- http://dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

but then we are going to have long discussion around: difference between people that voted No and people that didn't voter.

Just say clearly on the mail

"people that want to make for a reelection have to vote, others don't need to vote at all"

OK, I agree on that. I think the message should also clearly state then that this is a *petition*, not an opportunity to *vote*. So, something like: "people that want to start a re-election must *sign this petition*, others don't need to participate" or something to that effect. -- *David Mulder* Labs Software Engineer, Samba SUSE 1800 Novell Place Provo, UT 84606 (P)+1 801.861.6571 dmulder@suse.com <http://www.suse.com/> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

PLEASE! On 5/15/20 11:32 AM, Maurizio Galli (MauG) wrote:

On Sat, May 16, 2020 at 2:21 AM David Mulder <dmulder@suse.com> wrote:

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OK, I agree on that. I think the message should also clearly state then that this is a *petition*, not an opportunity to *vote*. So, something like:

Quoting the original email from Ish: "Therefore, the Election Committee is setting up an electronic petition [...]"

Best, Maurizio

This is NOT a VOTE. This is a PETITION, called for by openSUSE member Pierre Böckmann on the 13th of March 2020, calling for a NON-CONFIDENCE/FORCED RE-ELECTION VOTE to then be held by the Community. The ONLY reason it is using the voting system is because we have no other validating method to properly field a PETITION. But, this IS a PETITION. It is up to Mr. Böckmann and his supporters to find enough Qualified openSUSE Members in Good Standing to sign this petition. They would do so by using the voting system to "SIGN" the petition. As in ALL such PETITIONS, there is a time limit, which is when the PETITION signing comes to an end. If a minimum 20% of the Community DOES NOT SIGN the petition by the deadline, then this whole matter comes to an end. Another such PETITION cannot be held until after the next BOARD ELECTION. If a minimum 20% of the Community DO sign the PETITION, then a NON-CONFIDENCE/FORCED RE-ELECTION VOTE will be promptly held. It will require that at least 20% of the Community must take part in the VOTE. The Majority Decision of the vote of at least 20% of the Community would then determine if the Board Members must step down and a Forced Re-Election is then held. There are Three Steps: 1) Petition, requires 20% signing by Members. 2) If Petition is successful, NON-CONFIDENCE/FORCED RE-ELECTION VOTE that requires participation of at least 20% or more of the Members. 3) If the Majority Vote in "2" is in favour of the RE-ELECTION, the Board must step down and a FULL BOARD ELECTION must then be held. Not complicated at all, really, and would have been much simpler than that if the original guideline had been properly thought out and presented with complete details. It would have saved the Elections Officials and anyone else, including the Board, a lot of stress and anxiety trying to set up a FULLY OPEN, FULLY UNBIASED, FULLY FAIR Method to take care of this DILEMMA. Agreed? -- -Gerry Makaro Member of openSUSE Election Officials Team openSUSE Member aka Fraser_Bell on the Forums, OBS, IRC, and mail at openSUSE.org Fraser-Bell on Github -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 5/15/20 2:18 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

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On Friday, 2020-05-15 at 13:15 -0700, Fraser_Bell wrote:

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There are Three Steps:

1) Petition, requires 20% signing by Members.

2) If Petition is successful, NON-CONFIDENCE/FORCED RE-ELECTION VOTE that requires participation of at least 20% or more of the Members.

3) If the Majority Vote in "2" is in favour of the RE-ELECTION, the Board must step down and a FULL BOARD ELECTION must then be held.

Not complicated at all, really, and would have been much simpler than that if the original guideline had been properly thought out and presented with complete details.

...

Doubt. I don't understand the purpose of step 2. If step 1 was sucessful, why not go to voting a new board directly?

- -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from openSUSE 15.1 x86_64 at Telcontar)

Actually, it is quite simple Carlos. A petition is a petition. It does not qualify as a Community vote. If 20% sign the petition, it forces a vote. Then, in that vote, let's say that 100% of the Eligible Members vote. The 20% who signed the petition vote in favour of a recall, but let's say no one else does. That means, in that vote by the full Community, 80% vote against the recall. Do you suggest that 20% of the Members should have a veto over the 80% Majority? -- -Gerry Makaro Member of openSUSE Election Officials Team openSUSE Member aka Fraser_Bell on the Forums, OBS, IRC, and mail at openSUSE.org Fraser-Bell on Github -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Fri 2020-05-15, Fraser_Bell wrote:

This is NOT a VOTE.

This is a PETITION, called for by openSUSE member Pierre Böckmann

Agreed.

The ONLY reason it is using the voting system is because we have no other validating method to properly field a PETITION.

Our election rules state "If 20 per cent or more of the openSUSE members require a new board, an election will be held for the complete elected Board seats." without going into details how "require a new board" is practically supposed to work. It makes sense to use the existing voting infrastructure etc., and I support that.

But, this IS a PETITION. It is up to Mr. Böckmann and his supporters to find enough Qualified openSUSE Members in Good Standing to sign this petition. They would do so by using the voting system to "SIGN" the petition.

Still agreed so far.

If a minimum 20% of the Community DOES NOT SIGN the petition by the deadline, then this whole matter comes to an end.

This is confusing use of the English language at best, incorrect at worst. It should better read "Unless a minimum of 20% of the community SIGNS the petition...". (Let's avoid the phrases like "does not sign".)

If a minimum 20% of the Community DO sign the PETITION, then a NON-CONFIDENCE/FORCED RE-ELECTION VOTE will be promptly held. It will require that at least 20% of the Community must take part in the VOTE.

I do not find any foundation for this step in the openSUSE Election Rules at https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules . To be clear, and I am writing the following as a member, as chair of the board, and one of the handful people by now probably more familiar with our election rules than anybody else: I firmly believe the following interpretation of our election rules is incorrect, and conversations I've had with Richard Brown (my predecessor on the board for many years and someone who helped refine those rules) and Pierre Böckmann (who initiated the motion) are consistent with my understanding.

There are Three Steps:

1) Petition, requires 20% signing by Members.

2) If Petition is successful, NON-CONFIDENCE/FORCED RE-ELECTION VOTE that requires participation of at least 20% or more of the Members.

3) If the Majority Vote in "2" is in favour of the RE-ELECTION, the Board must step down and a FULL BOARD ELECTION must then be held.

Here are the two steps that I believe are the actual process: 1) Petition, requires 20% signing by members. 2) If the petition passes, a reelection is going to take place for the five elected board seats. (In particular there is not a step in between these two, the board does not step down, and only the elected seats are up for, well, election.) I very much hope this is a misunderstanding or unclear wording on your end, not an official statement by the election officials. In my role as chair will reach out to that group of four election officials (Ish, Edwin, Ariez, and yourself) to seek a unified statement. All others I'd like to ask to give this a few days and await an official update from the election officials (and/or myself). Thank you, Gerald -- Dr. Gerald Pfeifer <gp@suse.com>, CTO @SUSE + chair @openSUSE

On 5/16/20 2:46 AM, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:

On Fri 2020-05-15, Fraser_Bell wrote:

I very much hope this is a misunderstanding or unclear wording on your end, not an official statement by the election officials.

Sorry, yes, my confusion as well as the most recent member of the officials. Ish has clarified it in his response. Although, I must say, the thought that a minority can cause a full re-election of the elected Board Officials deeply distresses me. In that case, if that happens, I personally will be considering giving up my openSUSE Membership and leaving openSUSE. Not that anyone will really miss me, anyway, but I believe in Democratic Rule by the Majority and I will Stand or Fall on that, so this is a matter of Principle with me. -- -Gerry Makaro openSUSE Member aka Fraser_Bell on the Forums, OBS, IRC, and mail at openSUSE.org Fraser-Bell on Github -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 18/05/2020 08.31, Simon Lees wrote:

Hi Gerry,

On 5/17/20 7:04 AM, Fraser_Bell wrote:

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On 5/16/20 2:46 AM, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:

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On Fri 2020-05-15, Fraser_Bell wrote:

I very much hope this is a misunderstanding or unclear wording on your end, not an official statement by the election officials.

Sorry, yes, my confusion as well as the most recent member of the officials.  Ish has clarified it in his response.

Although, I must say, the thought that a minority can cause a full re-election of the elected Board Officials deeply distresses me.

In that case, if that happens, I personally will be considering giving up my openSUSE Membership and leaving openSUSE.

Not that anyone will really miss me, anyway, but I believe in Democratic Rule by the Majority and I will Stand or Fall on that, so this is a matter of Principle with me.

It would be really sad to see you leave the project. As probably the only other person who has read the election rules as much as Gerald and Richard in the last few years, while I agree with there interpretation I think looking toward the foundation we can certainly improve on them and I'd like you to be a part of that. But i'd prefer to do that after the current process is finished largely because the process is to remove me.

I would also be sad. Please stay and work towards improving the rules. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.1 x86_64 at Telcontar)

On Sat, 2020-05-16 at 14:34 -0700, Fraser_Bell wrote:

On 5/16/20 2:46 AM, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:

...

On Fri 2020-05-15, Fraser_Bell wrote:

I very much hope this is a misunderstanding or unclear wording on your end, not an official statement by the election officials.

Sorry, yes, my confusion as well as the most recent member of the officials. Ish has clarified it in his response.

Although, I must say, the thought that a minority can cause a full re-election of the elected Board Officials deeply distresses me.

In that case, if that happens, I personally will be considering giving up my openSUSE Membership and leaving openSUSE.

Not that anyone will really miss me, anyway, but I believe in Democratic Rule by the Majority and I will Stand or Fall on that, so this is a matter of Principle with me.

I think the point you are neglecting to consider is that the 20% rule is not "The membership should be proactively asked to see whether 20% of them disagree with the democractically elected Board and to trigger a reelection" But the 20% rule is more "if 20% of the membership is driven enough to, themselves, proactively push for re-electing the whole Board, then that re-election is triggered" Given we're a project where 1 person can contribute and change a lot technically, if the Board is ruling in a way to, speaking frankly, piss off 20% of the membership enough to drive them to campaign against the Board, then maybe re-electing the Board is the best option for community harmony. That said, I think the rule was never written with the idea of the election committee getting involved. I certainly always envisioned that such cases requiring far more proactive engagement from the disgruntled 20% than just 1 person calling for a vote of no confidence..a call that wasn't even seconded on the mailinglist.. However, I think the election committees compromise of a petition does a good job of keeping with the spirit of the rule and requiring people to step up if they are unhappy even if it undoubtly does lower the bar for a re-election than I would have expected by proactively engaging with the not-seconded call. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Hello, Am Montag, 18. Mai 2020, 14:34:55 CEST schrieb Simon Lees:

On 5/18/20 8:37 PM, Richard Brown wrote:

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On Sat, 2020-05-16 at 14:34 -0700, Fraser_Bell wrote:

...

Although, I must say, the thought that a minority can cause a full re-election of the elected Board Officials deeply distresses me.

In that case, if that happens, I personally will be considering giving up my openSUSE Membership and leaving openSUSE.

Gerry, I have to admit that I disagree with your opinion about the 20% rule - but nevertheless, I'd be be sad to see you leaving. Even if, and especially because ... [...]

...

...

so this is a matter of Principle with me.

... I really like people who stand for their principles. We need more of them, not less ;-) (Besides that, I like your music ;-)

...

I think the point you are neglecting to consider is that the 20% rule is not "The membership should be proactively asked to see whether 20% of them disagree with the democractically elected Board and to trigger a reelection"

But the 20% rule is more "if 20% of the membership is driven enough to, themselves, proactively push for re-electing the whole Board, then that re-election is triggered"

That's something that is not defined in the rule. Of course we can speculate in both directions how it was meant ;-) I know from some associations in germany that their rules state that members have a right to get the list of members if they want to start a non-confidence vote so that they can contact all members. (Without this rule, the board could keep the membership list secret and easily prevent the non-confidence vote to succeed.) That rule is even more extreme than "the membership gets asked" - and still, I haven't seen a non-confidence vote in the associations I know in all the years I remember.

...

Given we're a project where 1 person can contribute and change a lot technically, if the Board is ruling in a way to, speaking frankly, piss off 20% of the membership enough to drive them to campaign against the Board, then maybe re-electing the Board is the best option for community harmony.

Given some of your mails in the last months, I'm surprised to say: I couldn't agree more (well, except s/maybe// ;-)

...

That said, I think the rule was never written with the idea of the election committee getting involved.

I'm not sure if the people who wrote this rule thought about how it would work in practise. I'd guess that they hoped there would never be a need for this rule to be used - and IMHO that's the most likely explanation why the 20% rule doesn't go into all details.

...

I certainly always envisioned that such cases requiring far more proactive engagement from the disgruntled 20% than just 1 person calling for a vote of no confidence..a call that wasn't even seconded on the mailinglist..

I'm not going to re-read the full discussion, but I remember some mails that were quite close to seconding that call. And, see below, stating that in public clearly isn't easy.

When looking at this the problem we have is with things like mail spoofing etc The only way we can actually be sure that the opinion's we are getting are actually from members is with Helios and its then obvious that its best that the board isn't handling that process.

There's another thing I'd even consider more important than the technical difficulties of requiring people to send mails: the chilling effect. I can imagine that a requirement to send a mail to a public mailinglist (including public archives) would stop several people from signing the non-confidence vote/petition. Not because they aren't pissed off enough, but because they are afraid of getting punished (in whatever way) for stating their opinion. Just as a hypothetical example: let's say Richard would send a public statement that the board pissed him off and should resign. Some board members are his colleagues, and I'm somewhat sure that they would (diplomatically spoken) like him less after reading such a statement. As a result, working together for sure won't be easier afterwards - even if it's completely unrelated to what the board did. Of course this isn't limited to colleagues working in the same company. It also applies to community members, and I'd hate to see friendships breaking because of "what? you voted against the board?!" IMHO _that_ is the most important reason why using Helios makes sense - it limits the amount of people who can see who voted against the board to the election commitee (I hope using voter aliases gets enabled to ensure this!) and limits the chilling effect. Actually I'd even love to see a second option to choose, maybe "ignore me". It wouldn't have an impact on the end result (we'd still need 20% of the members asking for a re-election), but if only a few people choose it, it would make it impossible even for the election commitee to know who voted against the board because "$person voted" would no longer be equal to "$person voted against the board". Don't get me wrong: I trust the election commitee. Nevertheless, I'd still prefer a solution that doesn't even need any trust when it comes to such sensitive data - data that is probably more sensitive than which candidates you vote for in a board election. But maybe I'm just too paranoid from years of AppArmor development and several so-called "AppArmor WTF moments"[1] ;-) TL;DR: There are good reasons why elections have secret ballots. A non-confidence vote is more sensitive, therefore it also has to have secret ballots (with the obvious exception that a brave person needs to publicly start it).

...

However, I think the election committees compromise of a petition does a good job of keeping with the spirit of the rule and requiring people to step up if they are unhappy even if it undoubtly does lower the bar for a re-election

Yeah with the perspective of an upcoming foundation I think whatever we come up with needs to have only one clear interpretation

Agreed, and ideally it should also include a timeline - two months are clearly too long. (Not meant as critism of the election commitee - I can imagine that it wasn't easy to come up with a good way to handle this without having any guidelines in our election rules.)

Even with issues around email addresses etc I think documenting that 20% of membership must +1 an email to openSUSE project would probably be workable.

I completely disagree with requiring +1 mails to opensuse-project (unless you want to make the board really untouchable by abusing the chilling effect - but then, it's easier to simply drop the 20% rule ;-) Using a petition with non-public list of signers is the only sane way how the 20% rule can work in the way it's intended, because being afraid of getting punished (in whatever way) for signing the non-confidence vote should never ever be a reason not to sign. Regards, Christian Boltz [1] AppArmor WTF moments are the moments when you check your audit.log or use aa-logprof to update your AppArmor profiles, and see that a program wants permissions you'd never expect it needs. As an extreme (and luckily made up) example: if ping would require read access to your home directory, that would qualify ;-) -- // If non-crazy input manages to reach this code path, // we should consider it a bug. [from MediaWiki 1.27.4 languages/LanguageConverter.php] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Saturday, 2020-05-16 at 02:32 +0800, Maurizio Galli (MauG) wrote:

On Sat, May 16, 2020 at 2:21 AM David Mulder <dmulder@suse.com> wrote:

...

OK, I agree on that. I think the message should also clearly state then that this is a *petition*, not an opportunity to *vote*. So, something like:

Quoting the original email from Ish: "Therefore, the Election Committee is setting up an electronic petition [...]"

True, but the subject has the word "vote" on it. It took me reading several replies till noticing the difference, that it is not a vote, but signing a petition, using a voting engine. Something in the wording is confusing people. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from openSUSE 15.1 x86_64 at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iHYEARECADYWIQQZEb51mJKK1KpcU/W1MxgcbY1H1QUCXr763xgcY2FybG9zLmUu ckBvcGVuc3VzZS5vcmcACgkQtTMYHG2NR9VsmgCeO7RRWmNMP9wRs/5xIPuUwUaw bckAnAkyYkBDRdV4ms6z6mXEhrvWKOss =UT4n -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Hi David, On Fri, 2020-05-15 at 08:32 -0600, David Mulder wrote:

It seems to me it would be very confusing. It gives the appearance that

my only voting choice is to agree to call for a re-election. This is not

like a typical petition. A petition normally requires leg work, with

door to door messaging. This is being sent to *every* member of

openSUSE, and we're given 1 option. I second the request for a 'NO'

option on the petition.

Let's suppose we provide Yes/No/Abstain options and the percentage turnout be like: Yes: 25% No: 35% Abstain: 26% Then, as per the rule [1] about re-election (at least) 20% of the members have petitioned for a non-confidence vote and we should proceed with that. The higher percentage of "No" is not helpful. The task of the Election Committee is to find whether we have 20% of the members petitioning for the non-confidence vote. Should we not focus on that only? Regards, Ish Sookun [1] If 20 per cent or more of the openSUSE members require a new board, an election will be held for the complete elected Board seats. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Hi Andreas, On Fri, 2020-05-15 at 13:54 +0200, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

So, let's add:

"No, I do not call for a re-election. Note that not voting is

automatically counted as NO"

Otherwise, your email with the ballot needs to say very clearly that

people need to NOT vote if they disagree since this calls all members.

My mistake here. I missed to clarify that since this is a petition, there is no other voting option, as your vote will count that you are "signing" the petition to call for the non-confidence vote. Based on further comments that we might get in the next few days, we will publish a wiki page to clarify these items. Regards, Ish Sookun -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Hi Gerald, On Fri, 2020-05-15 at 17:45 +0200, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:

I agree, adding a clear note to the ballot explaining that this is

a petition, not an election/vote, and that only the number of "Yes"

votes matters sounds very helpful.

Yes, sure. We will add a note and a link to the wiki page that provides more details about the petition. Regards, Ish Sookun -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Sat, 2020-05-16 at 14:34 +0200, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

What about changing it to something like:

"I sign the petition to call for a re-election of the board"

That makes it clear it's a petition and removes the word "Yes" which can

cause confusion (where's no?),

Thanks for the suggestion, Andreas. Regards, Ish Sookun -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Sorry Gerry, IMHO you have go this wrong. The 20% do not overturn the board they simply trigger a vote of no confidence which still has to be won by a majority of the whole membership to overturn the board. Regards, Ariez ajv@opensuse.org On 17/05/2020 10:30, Fraser_Bell wrote:

On 5/16/20 7:42 AM, Ariez J Vachha wrote:

...

Fellow openSUSE members,

For those who are struggling with the process. What is happening in simple bullet points is:

Our Election rules state:

...

If 20 per cent or more of the openSUSE members require a new board, an election will be held for the complete elected Board seats.

**So this is simply a petition to see if 20% of the members require a new board.**

* If you want to sign the petition - cast a vote. * If you don't want to sign the petition for whatever reason - don't vote * If 20% or more of the members sign the petition (by casting a vote) then, an election for the complete Board seats will be triggered. * If less than 20% of the members sign the petition, then an election only for the vacant seats will be triggered.

I hope that helps.

Best Regards, Ariez Vachha ajv@opensuse.org

Doing it that way, Let me Clarify what kind of an undemocratic precedence you will be setting, scenario as follows:

1. At next election, I run for Board Member 2. I miss out on getting a seat by 1 person, like Vincenz did 3. Going from this precedence, I start a petition for recall 4. Then I am able to find 20% of the membership who voted for people who did not make it in, get them to back the petition. 5. New election is triggered.

In other words, now 20% of the Community has overturned the Board that was just elected by the Majority of the voters.

Or, another scenario, for some reason somebody just does not like someone on the Board, they can initiate the same minority toss-out of the Majority choice.

None of this is fair to the Community, the Voters, nor the Board Members themselves.

I cannot agree with that precedence.

And this, from Richard, who I most often tend to agree with:

...

I agree that Gerald’s interpretation of the rules is more consistent with my expectations as someone who had a hand in those rules over the years.

Then, perhaps if you had done a better job of defining this rule, the openSUSE Community, the Board, and the Elections Officials would not find themselves in this current conundrum.

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Calling on my Editor & Journalist background, as well as my University Political Science and Legal studies, let me explain: On 5/16/20 8:01 PM, Ariez Vachha - openSUSE wrote:

Sorry Gerry,

IMHO you have go this wrong. The 20% do not overturn the board they simply trigger a vote of no confidence which still has to be won by a majority of the whole membership to overturn the board.

Regards, Ariez ajv@opensuse.org

...

On 5/16/20 7:42 AM, Ariez J Vachha wrote:

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Fellow openSUSE members,

For those who are struggling with the process. What is happening in simple bullet points is:

Our Election rules state:

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If 20 per cent or more of the openSUSE members require a new board, an election will be held for the complete elected Board seats.

**So this is simply a petition to see if 20% of the members require a new board.**

* If you want to sign the petition - cast a vote. * If you don't want to sign the petition for whatever reason - don't vote

Right, this is a PETITION, it is NOT a VOTE OF NON-CONFIDENCE.

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* If 20% or more of the members sign the petition (by casting a vote) then, an election for the complete Board seats will be triggered.

A PETITION thereby forces the vacancy of the Board seats. This ALSO is NOT a VOTE of NON-CONFIDENCE. Instead, it summarily boots the Board Members the Majority of openSUSE Members have Elected Democratically. Therefore, 20% overrule the Community Majority.

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* If less than 20% of the members sign the petition, then an election only for the vacant seats will be triggered.

Again, this is NOT a VOTE of NON-CONFIDENCE. Therefore, in the real world, none of this is FAIR, EQUITABLE, or even LEGAL. And, this process is an insult to the Community and to the Entire Board. That is why I have Resigned from the Election Officials Team on a matter of Principle, and why I am ready to turn my back on any future involvement or volunteer work with openSUSE. I don't understand how anyone in their right mind would even run for Board Elections after this whole sordid affair!

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I hope that helps.

It does not. -- -Gerry Makaro -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 17/05/2020 04.30, Fraser_Bell wrote:

Doing it that way, Let me Clarify what kind of an undemocratic precedence you will be setting, scenario as follows:

Fraser, let me just add historic background: This rule with 20 % exists since the very first election AFAIR... So, there's nothing done especially for this part - it's just the first time it has been raised. Changing a 10+ year old rule now is bad precedence IMHO, if you have an idea on how to change it, bring up your proposal and I propose to not change the already started process. Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger aj@suse.com Twitter: jaegerandi SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, D 90409 Nürnberg (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) GF: Felix Imendörffer GPG fingerprint = EF18 1673 38C4 A372 86B1 E699 5294 24A3 FF91 2ACB -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Definitely on my list for later, and any input and help will be very welcome!

We already talked about that. If more input is wanted, I am all yours and trying my best to help improving that rule. Though I brought that all up, I nonetheless see that the rule need clarification at the very least. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org