RFC: Renaming the openSUSE Board
Hey, this has been in the back of my mind since a long time. This is a request for comment for change to the openSUSE Guiding principles. Reality? -------- When the project invented the openSUSE Guiding Principles that people are supposed to adhere to, we also needed to invent a group of people that could enforce those principles. Because enforcing those rules could mean, in the worst case, to exclude someone from the project, we wanted to give this group of people some democratic legitimization. By giving the community members the say on who is in this group with voting, limiting members terms, making sure it's not dominated by one company etc. We explicitly codified what this group of people is supposed to do and what it is not supposed to do. We named this group openSUSE Board. Also: In businesses, non-profits and in many other Open Source projects a board of directors is the governing body that sets the strategy, oversee management, finances, protects the interests of stakeholders etc. Consequences? ------------- By now we learned that by naming this group of people doing this job "openSUSE Board" we have awakened expectations that go way beyond the responsibilities this group of people has. Examples: Frequently in openSUSE Board elections people run on a platform that says they will be able to change some aspect of the project. It often makes the wrong people apply to the openSUSE Board. Whenever we need to form a new group of people that takes care of some aspect of this project, people think this new group has to get legitimacy from the openSUSE Board. But the board does not do this. It keeps people from *taking* responsibility. openSUSE Sponsors, especially SUSE, are using the openSUSE Board as "confidant" to bring forward requests. Instead of using it as consultants how to bring forward their requests to the community. It hinders direct communication and the establishment of other communication channels with project members. A *lot* of confusion happens as people wait for the openSUSE Board to decide and give directions, to solve disagreements with two viable options or to "start" some project. Again, it keeps people from *taking* responsibility. A *lot* of in-fighting about gaining/keeping/expanding control over the openSUSE Board because it's mistaken as source of "power". It needlessly makes this community a hostile place. Every new board basically goes to this phase of discovery what their job actually is and struggles with the wrong expectations. It makes the very hard job the openSUSE Board members have, *way* harder than it needs to be. Future? ------- The "Governance" paragraph of the openSUSE Guiding Principles is changed and the openSUSE Board gets a different name that does not invoke the comparison to the concept of a "board of directors". The job of the group of people formerly know as openSUSE Board gets easier to do. The reality is clear to contributors that they have to organize *any* group of people to work on something themselves. The shortcomings of the infrastructure to form new groups of contributors taking care of some aspect of this project is becoming the responsibility of the existing contributors. The shortcomings in the communication structure of our project become clear and are not overlaid by the expectations that you just have to go to the "board of directors" and they will drip the information down into the organization for you. The *stupid* in-fighting about expectations to the board *and* control over it hopefully stop if people realize what the openSUSE Board actually is. Proposal! --------- We rename the group of people that is now called the openSUSE Board to openSUSE Mediators. We change the "Governance" paragraph of the openSUSE Guiding Principles to read: https://en.opensuse.org/index.php?title=User:Hennevogel/Guiding_Principles_Governance&diff=188081&oldid=188078 Comments? Henne -- Henne Vogelsang http://www.opensuse.org Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson
Le 17/07/2024 à 19:39, Henne Vogelsang a écrit :
Hey,
this has been in the back of my mind since a long time. This is a request for comment for change to the openSUSE Guiding principles.
Good summary, I like it a lot :-) I let it below in case somebody miss the original post. at the same time, may be the use of the *project* mailing list itself(this one) may have to be reconfigured to be *the place where contributors organize they own project and seek for help* jdd
Reality? --------
When the project invented the openSUSE Guiding Principles that people are supposed to adhere to, we also needed to invent a group of people that could enforce those principles.
Because enforcing those rules could mean, in the worst case, to exclude someone from the project, we wanted to give this group of people some democratic legitimization. By giving the community members the say on who is in this group with voting, limiting members terms, making sure it's not dominated by one company etc.
We explicitly codified what this group of people is supposed to do and what it is not supposed to do. We named this group openSUSE Board.
Also: In businesses, non-profits and in many other Open Source projects a board of directors is the governing body that sets the strategy, oversee management, finances, protects the interests of stakeholders etc.
Consequences? -------------
By now we learned that by naming this group of people doing this job "openSUSE Board" we have awakened expectations that go way beyond the responsibilities this group of people has. Examples:
Frequently in openSUSE Board elections people run on a platform that says they will be able to change some aspect of the project. It often makes the wrong people apply to the openSUSE Board.
Whenever we need to form a new group of people that takes care of some aspect of this project, people think this new group has to get legitimacy from the openSUSE Board. But the board does not do this. It keeps people from *taking* responsibility.
openSUSE Sponsors, especially SUSE, are using the openSUSE Board as "confidant" to bring forward requests. Instead of using it as consultants how to bring forward their requests to the community. It hinders direct communication and the establishment of other communication channels with project members.
A *lot* of confusion happens as people wait for the openSUSE Board to decide and give directions, to solve disagreements with two viable options or to "start" some project. Again, it keeps people from *taking* responsibility.
A *lot* of in-fighting about gaining/keeping/expanding control over the openSUSE Board because it's mistaken as source of "power". It needlessly makes this community a hostile place.
Every new board basically goes to this phase of discovery what their job actually is and struggles with the wrong expectations. It makes the very hard job the openSUSE Board members have, *way* harder than it needs to be.
Future? -------
The "Governance" paragraph of the openSUSE Guiding Principles is changed and the openSUSE Board gets a different name that does not invoke the comparison to the concept of a "board of directors".
The job of the group of people formerly know as openSUSE Board gets easier to do.
The reality is clear to contributors that they have to organize *any* group of people to work on something themselves.
The shortcomings of the infrastructure to form new groups of contributors taking care of some aspect of this project is becoming the responsibility of the existing contributors.
The shortcomings in the communication structure of our project become clear and are not overlaid by the expectations that you just have to go to the "board of directors" and they will drip the information down into the organization for you.
The *stupid* in-fighting about expectations to the board *and* control over it hopefully stop if people realize what the openSUSE Board actually is.
Proposal! ---------
We rename the group of people that is now called the openSUSE Board to openSUSE Mediators. We change the "Governance" paragraph of the openSUSE Guiding Principles to read:
Comments?
Henne
Am 17.07.24 um 19:39 schrieb Henne Vogelsang:
Hey,
this has been in the back of my mind since a long time. This is a request for comment for change to the openSUSE Guiding principles.
I am 100% agreeing with this proposal and IMHO it is a very good idea. +1 I'm making the exception of keeping the fullquote below, just in case someone did not get the original message.
Reality? --------
When the project invented the openSUSE Guiding Principles that people are supposed to adhere to, we also needed to invent a group of people that could enforce those principles.
Because enforcing those rules could mean, in the worst case, to exclude someone from the project, we wanted to give this group of people some democratic legitimization. By giving the community members the say on who is in this group with voting, limiting members terms, making sure it's not dominated by one company etc.
We explicitly codified what this group of people is supposed to do and what it is not supposed to do. We named this group openSUSE Board.
Also: In businesses, non-profits and in many other Open Source projects a board of directors is the governing body that sets the strategy, oversee management, finances, protects the interests of stakeholders etc.
Consequences? -------------
By now we learned that by naming this group of people doing this job "openSUSE Board" we have awakened expectations that go way beyond the responsibilities this group of people has. Examples:
Frequently in openSUSE Board elections people run on a platform that says they will be able to change some aspect of the project. It often makes the wrong people apply to the openSUSE Board.
Whenever we need to form a new group of people that takes care of some aspect of this project, people think this new group has to get legitimacy from the openSUSE Board. But the board does not do this. It keeps people from *taking* responsibility.
openSUSE Sponsors, especially SUSE, are using the openSUSE Board as "confidant" to bring forward requests. Instead of using it as consultants how to bring forward their requests to the community. It hinders direct communication and the establishment of other communication channels with project members.
A *lot* of confusion happens as people wait for the openSUSE Board to decide and give directions, to solve disagreements with two viable options or to "start" some project. Again, it keeps people from *taking* responsibility.
A *lot* of in-fighting about gaining/keeping/expanding control over the openSUSE Board because it's mistaken as source of "power". It needlessly makes this community a hostile place.
Every new board basically goes to this phase of discovery what their job actually is and struggles with the wrong expectations. It makes the very hard job the openSUSE Board members have, *way* harder than it needs to be.
Future? -------
The "Governance" paragraph of the openSUSE Guiding Principles is changed and the openSUSE Board gets a different name that does not invoke the comparison to the concept of a "board of directors".
The job of the group of people formerly know as openSUSE Board gets easier to do.
The reality is clear to contributors that they have to organize *any* group of people to work on something themselves.
The shortcomings of the infrastructure to form new groups of contributors taking care of some aspect of this project is becoming the responsibility of the existing contributors.
The shortcomings in the communication structure of our project become clear and are not overlaid by the expectations that you just have to go to the "board of directors" and they will drip the information down into the organization for you.
The *stupid* in-fighting about expectations to the board *and* control over it hopefully stop if people realize what the openSUSE Board actually is.
Proposal! ---------
We rename the group of people that is now called the openSUSE Board to openSUSE Mediators. We change the "Governance" paragraph of the openSUSE Guiding Principles to read:
Comments?
Henne
-- Stefan Seyfried "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." -- Richard Feynman
Actually something like that sounds like a good first "quick fix" step, before inventing/naming a bunch of other teams. Set expectations correctly. Lubos On Wed, Jul 17, 2024 at 7:40 PM Henne Vogelsang <hvogel@opensuse.org> wrote:
Hey,
this has been in the back of my mind since a long time. This is a request for comment for change to the openSUSE Guiding principles.
Reality? --------
When the project invented the openSUSE Guiding Principles that people are supposed to adhere to, we also needed to invent a group of people that could enforce those principles.
Because enforcing those rules could mean, in the worst case, to exclude someone from the project, we wanted to give this group of people some democratic legitimization. By giving the community members the say on who is in this group with voting, limiting members terms, making sure it's not dominated by one company etc.
We explicitly codified what this group of people is supposed to do and what it is not supposed to do. We named this group openSUSE Board.
Also: In businesses, non-profits and in many other Open Source projects a board of directors is the governing body that sets the strategy, oversee management, finances, protects the interests of stakeholders etc.
Consequences? -------------
By now we learned that by naming this group of people doing this job "openSUSE Board" we have awakened expectations that go way beyond the responsibilities this group of people has. Examples:
Frequently in openSUSE Board elections people run on a platform that says they will be able to change some aspect of the project. It often makes the wrong people apply to the openSUSE Board.
Whenever we need to form a new group of people that takes care of some aspect of this project, people think this new group has to get legitimacy from the openSUSE Board. But the board does not do this. It keeps people from *taking* responsibility.
openSUSE Sponsors, especially SUSE, are using the openSUSE Board as "confidant" to bring forward requests. Instead of using it as consultants how to bring forward their requests to the community. It hinders direct communication and the establishment of other communication channels with project members.
A *lot* of confusion happens as people wait for the openSUSE Board to decide and give directions, to solve disagreements with two viable options or to "start" some project. Again, it keeps people from *taking* responsibility.
A *lot* of in-fighting about gaining/keeping/expanding control over the openSUSE Board because it's mistaken as source of "power". It needlessly makes this community a hostile place.
Every new board basically goes to this phase of discovery what their job actually is and struggles with the wrong expectations. It makes the very hard job the openSUSE Board members have, *way* harder than it needs to be.
Future? -------
The "Governance" paragraph of the openSUSE Guiding Principles is changed and the openSUSE Board gets a different name that does not invoke the comparison to the concept of a "board of directors".
The job of the group of people formerly know as openSUSE Board gets easier to do.
The reality is clear to contributors that they have to organize *any* group of people to work on something themselves.
The shortcomings of the infrastructure to form new groups of contributors taking care of some aspect of this project is becoming the responsibility of the existing contributors.
The shortcomings in the communication structure of our project become clear and are not overlaid by the expectations that you just have to go to the "board of directors" and they will drip the information down into the organization for you.
The *stupid* in-fighting about expectations to the board *and* control over it hopefully stop if people realize what the openSUSE Board actually is.
Proposal! ---------
We rename the group of people that is now called the openSUSE Board to openSUSE Mediators. We change the "Governance" paragraph of the openSUSE Guiding Principles to read:
Comments?
Henne
-- Henne Vogelsang http://www.opensuse.org Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson
-- Best regards Luboš Kocman openSUSE Leap Release Manager
On 7/18/24 3:09 AM, Henne Vogelsang wrote:
Hey,
this has been in the back of my mind since a long time. This is a request for comment for change to the openSUSE Guiding principles.
Reality? --------
When the project invented the openSUSE Guiding Principles that people are supposed to adhere to, we also needed to invent a group of people that could enforce those principles.
Because enforcing those rules could mean, in the worst case, to exclude someone from the project, we wanted to give this group of people some democratic legitimization. By giving the community members the say on who is in this group with voting, limiting members terms, making sure it's not dominated by one company etc.
We explicitly codified what this group of people is supposed to do and what it is not supposed to do. We named this group openSUSE Board.
Also: In businesses, non-profits and in many other Open Source projects a board of directors is the governing body that sets the strategy, oversee management, finances, protects the interests of stakeholders etc.
Consequences? -------------
By now we learned that by naming this group of people doing this job "openSUSE Board" we have awakened expectations that go way beyond the responsibilities this group of people has. Examples:
Frequently in openSUSE Board elections people run on a platform that says they will be able to change some aspect of the project. It often makes the wrong people apply to the openSUSE Board.
Whenever we need to form a new group of people that takes care of some aspect of this project, people think this new group has to get legitimacy from the openSUSE Board. But the board does not do this. It keeps people from *taking* responsibility.
openSUSE Sponsors, especially SUSE, are using the openSUSE Board as "confidant" to bring forward requests. Instead of using it as consultants how to bring forward their requests to the community. It hinders direct communication and the establishment of other communication channels with project members.
A *lot* of confusion happens as people wait for the openSUSE Board to decide and give directions, to solve disagreements with two viable options or to "start" some project. Again, it keeps people from *taking* responsibility.
A *lot* of in-fighting about gaining/keeping/expanding control over the openSUSE Board because it's mistaken as source of "power". It needlessly makes this community a hostile place.
Every new board basically goes to this phase of discovery what their job actually is and struggles with the wrong expectations. It makes the very hard job the openSUSE Board members have, *way* harder than it needs to be.
Future? -------
The "Governance" paragraph of the openSUSE Guiding Principles is changed and the openSUSE Board gets a different name that does not invoke the comparison to the concept of a "board of directors".
The job of the group of people formerly know as openSUSE Board gets easier to do.
The reality is clear to contributors that they have to organize *any* group of people to work on something themselves.
The shortcomings of the infrastructure to form new groups of contributors taking care of some aspect of this project is becoming the responsibility of the existing contributors.
The shortcomings in the communication structure of our project become clear and are not overlaid by the expectations that you just have to go to the "board of directors" and they will drip the information down into the organization for you.
The *stupid* in-fighting about expectations to the board *and* control over it hopefully stop if people realize what the openSUSE Board actually is.
Proposal! ---------
We rename the group of people that is now called the openSUSE Board to openSUSE Mediators. We change the "Governance" paragraph of the openSUSE Guiding Principles to read:
Comments?
Having thought about this for a day, I don't think it's the best solution for the future of openSUSE, mostly because openSUSE is changing. In an environment where SUSE was covering everything within openSUSE that it thought required financial investment and if SUSE wasn't willing to fund it we kinda made this model work. We are now entering into an environment where a foundation to help fund openSUSE exists, which depending on sponsorship may well end up providing us with a way to spend funding on areas the community feels are important but that SUSE isn't willing to invest in. Inevitably there will be disagreements about how money should be spent which will in turn become conflicts and land with the board having to make decisions or no decision. Instead wouldn't it be better if there were parts of the community looking into where we as a community have weaknesses and where the most effective places are to invest in order to strengthen those areas? The role shouldn't be telling people we think the project needs X,Y and Z so you must go work on it instead of what you normally do. But instead could be We think the project would really benefit if we had A,B and C, does anyone want to volunteer to do it? If not maybe we should invest some of our donations here. On the other hand we could implement this change in wording and then come up with a completely different governance method for dealing with the foundation. When the only Money openSUSE dealt with was the Travel Support Program the concept of the Board appointing a Treasurer to deal with it worked. But I hope the foundation gets to the point of having enough funding coming in that it can do something somewhat substantial at which point letting the board just appoint some people to deal with money will likely only lead to more arguments rather then less. So it would be nice to have enough robust procedures and processes that once they are agreed to people don't have as many things to argue about. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B
Moin, On 18.07.24 12:45, Simon Lees wrote:
On 7/18/24 3:09 AM, Henne Vogelsang wrote:
Proposal! ---------
We rename the group of people that is now called the openSUSE Board to openSUSE Mediators. We change the "Governance" paragraph of the openSUSE Guiding Principles to read:
Comments?
We are now entering into an environment where a foundation to help fund openSUSE exists, which depending on sponsorship may well end up providing us with a way to spend funding on areas the community feels are important but that SUSE isn't willing to invest in. Inevitably there will be disagreements about how money should be spent which will in turn become conflicts and land with the board having to make decisions or no decision.
I think this is another perfect example of grossly misinterpreting the boards role in this project. Some people have come together as a group and worked hard on setting up a legal entity. Those people have resources now, because people trust this group enough to hand them some. They can spend those resources in any way this group sees fit. The openSUSE Board should not be involved in what this groups does according to our guiding principles. The same way the openSUSE Board should not be involved in what I do for openSUSE. You can get involved if someone or some group frequently neglects our guiding principles in how they do things and someone complains about this, that's it. The same way the openSUSE Board will not decide if we use vim OR emacs in our distros, the openSUSE Board will not decide if the foundation will spend their money on openSUSE travel budget or zoo full of green kangaroos. It ain't your job 🙂 Henne -- Henne Vogelsang http://www.opensuse.org Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson
On 2024-07-22 14:08, Henne Vogelsang wrote:
Moin,
On 18.07.24 12:45, Simon Lees wrote:
On 7/18/24 3:09 AM, Henne Vogelsang wrote:
Proposal! ---------
We rename the group of people that is now called the openSUSE Board to openSUSE Mediators. We change the "Governance" paragraph of the openSUSE Guiding Principles to read:
Comments?
We are now entering into an environment where a foundation to help fund openSUSE exists, which depending on sponsorship may well end up providing us with a way to spend funding on areas the community feels are important but that SUSE isn't willing to invest in. Inevitably there will be disagreements about how money should be spent which will in turn become conflicts and land with the board having to make decisions or no decision.
I think this is another perfect example of grossly misinterpreting the boards role in this project. Some people have come together as a group and worked hard on setting up a legal entity. Those people have resources now, because people trust this group enough to hand them some. They can spend those resources in any way this group sees fit. The openSUSE Board should not be involved in what this groups does according to our guiding principles. The same way the openSUSE Board should not be involved in what I do for openSUSE.
You can get involved if someone or some group frequently neglects our guiding principles in how they do things and someone complains about this, that's it.
The same way the openSUSE Board will not decide if we use vim OR emacs in our distros, the openSUSE Board will not decide if the foundation will spend their money on openSUSE travel budget or zoo full of green kangaroos. It ain't your job 🙂
Henne
Thank you Henne, I agree wholeheartedly This is a message I feel the current Board have to wholly accept.
Op maandag 22 juli 2024 15:49:44 CEST schreef Richard Brown:
Thank you Henne, I agree wholeheartedly
Likewise
This is a message I feel the current Board have to wholly accept.
May I express my doubts that that will happen? -- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Forums Team openSUSE Mods Team
Le 22/07/2024 à 16:09, Knurpht-openSUSE a écrit :
Op maandag 22 juli 2024 15:49:44 CEST schreef Richard Brown:
Thank you Henne, I agree wholeheartedly
Likewise
This is a message I feel the current Board have to wholly accept.
May I express my doubts that that will happen?
not sure if the board have to accept this (or any other thing), is it in his goals? like I understand, at some moment a group of self designated users have to take responsibility of summarize this discussion and ask for a members vote. or maybe, if most of the people accept it (like I do), it will simply be the new way of work. for me it don't looks like a big deal :-) jdd -- https://artdagio.fr
The board serves at the pleasure of the community, and if the community wants to change the way the board works, or what the board is called, or what it’s responsible for, or even eliminate the board, that’s something the community ultimately has the power to do. It’s not the boards decision to make. Sent from my iPhone
On Jul 22, 2024, at 10:41, jdd@dodin.org wrote:
Le 22/07/2024 à 16:09, Knurpht-openSUSE a écrit :
Op maandag 22 juli 2024 15:49:44 CEST schreef Richard Brown:
Thank you Henne, I agree wholeheartedly Likewise
This is a message I feel the current Board have to wholly accept. May I express my doubts that that will happen? not sure if the board have to accept this (or any other thing), is it in his goals?
like I understand, at some moment a group of self designated users have to take responsibility of summarize this discussion and ask for a members vote.
or maybe, if most of the people accept it (like I do), it will simply be the new way of work.
for me it don't looks like a big deal :-)
jdd -- https://artdagio.fr
On 7/17/24 13:39, Henne Vogelsang wrote:
Proposal! ---------
We rename the group of people that is now called the openSUSE Board to openSUSE Mediators. We change the "Governance" paragraph of the openSUSE Guiding Principles to read:
Because I prodded you publicly, I want to publicly say loudly, thank you! Seeing a proposal with discussion and, if/when finalized, follow-through, will make me and other potential new contributors want to stay and help.
The "Governance" paragraph of the openSUSE Guiding Principles is changed and the openSUSE Board gets a different name that does not invoke the comparison to the concept of a "board of directors".
I do agree that a mediator team is a good idea. However, dividing the tasks of the board into several teams. For example, "speaking with one voice" could go the marketing team (there may be better ideas). After that exercise, a team of "overall project" coordinators (or perhaps facilitators is a better name). That is, I am advocating the board serve as facilitators and single-point-of-contact between the outside and the various teams, the foundation, SUSE, and legal, etc.
The *stupid* in-fighting about expectations to the board *and* control over it hopefully stop if people realize what the openSUSE Board actually is.
I understand your perspective and, as I have said elsewhere, bickering without proposals, discussion, and FOLLOW-THROUGH is off-putting for people like me. However, I will say that PRODUCTIVE debate, even angry or emotional, that helps push change when needed is useful. In that respect, I disagree with using the word stupid. I don't agree with everyone, but those I disagree with are entitled to their perspective/feelings and deserve to be heard. To the project elders, please help all of us be civil and moving forward. -- Tony Walker <tony.walker.opensource@gmail.com> PGP Key @ https://tonywalker1.github.io/pgp 9F46 D66D FF6C 182D A5AC 11E1 8559 98D1 7543 319C
participants (9)
-
Henne Vogelsang -
jdd＠dodin.org -
Knurpht-openSUSE -
Lubos Kocman -
Richard Brown -
Shawn W Dunn -
Simon Lees -
Stefan Seyfried -
Tony Walker