Hi all, Le ven. 13 mars 2020 à 11:50, Richard Brown a écrit :

On Fri, 2020-03-13 at 11:10 +0100, Pierre Böckmann wrote:

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P.S. Though a few details have become known, we don't know all of the in- depth details. Therefore I want to assure that this mail is not intended to be disrespectful towards the board and/or its members as well as each individuals work in favor of the openSUSE project and the openSUSE community. Nonetheless we can not and should not ignore what has happened in the last few weeks and the unacceptable nature and disrespect towards the community elections outcome, rules and principles. Additionally I am well aware that not everyone will be happy or be agreeable to my proposal of a full re-election of the openSUSE board. Be assured, I took the time and thoroughly thought out this step and that I think that this proposal is in the best interest of openSUSE as a project and a community.

Dear Pierre,

I do hate quoting myself, but as I started in a previous email [1] I think that the most likely outcome of following through with this threat to recall the Board is the destruction of the Board.

Given there hasn't been a single volunteer for the current open position on the Board, do you really think you'll be able to find 5-10 masochists who will be willing to step up if your vote is successful?

Without the Board, this Project's future will be solely the decision of SUSE, and to be frank, I would understand at that point if they thought it was best to end the project as a community run affair and only continue it in a way where they had absolute control.

For the continued future of this Project, I respectfully request that you revoke your call for a no-confidence vote immediately.

If it continues, the community needs to be under no illusion, supporting this motion puts the future of the openSUSE Project as you know it today at mortal risk.

[1] https://lwn.net/ml/opensuse-project/BEAF6273-552C-4A04-952C-038342843016@sus...

I totally second Richard's request to revoke this call and I invite to stop raising the dust about this topic. What has happened is unfortunate, mistakes on different sides have probably been made but, please Pierre, keep in mind (as you stated yourself) that we do not know every details (for good reasons in my opinion) of this affair. Don't you think calling for a total reset of the Board (with the consequences that Richard mentionned) is an appropriate answer to a problem that you don't know everything about ? Your call will only create persistent mistrust toward this board and maybe also future boards. If such vote takes place, it will put to sleep for several weeks/months important topics the board has been working on for several months (I am thinking of the openSUSE Foundation here). The overall image of openSUSE will suffer from it. I really cannot see how (quoting your email) "this proposal [can ever be] in the best interest of openSUSE as a project and a community". Regards, -- 'When there is no more room at school, the dumb will walk the Earth.' Sébastien 'sogal' Poher -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Fri, 2020-03-13 at 12:46 +0100, Pierre Böckmann wrote:

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Don't you think calling for a total reset of the Board (with the consequences that Richard mentionned) is an appropriate answer to a problem that you don't know everything about ?

You don't, obviously, but I do. A community elected member was rejected from becoming a board member because of ominous reasons, unjustified and got humiliated in the process - all backed by the rest of the board.

Both departing Board members left the Board in a manner clearly intended to minimise the possibility of any humiliation. You just need to read the announcements to see that was it obvious the Board intended that those impacted by the Board's decision to enforce our Code of Conduct could save face. This was true both for the subject of the Code of Conduct breach and the dissenting Board member who resigned in protest. In both cases, the departing Board members would appear to have made public statements (either here or via other public forums) that undermined the shield of privacy which the Board had allowed and encoraged to be wrapped around their departures. This then led to rampant nonsense on the mailinglists and the Board needing the clarify as much as they can in such an obviously sensitive situation. Remember, Code of Conduct violations can rarely/never be handled publically, there are always multiple parties, the accused, the accusers, the aggrieved, and all of them deserve the right for their incident to be handled discreetly and privately. Else there is no point having a Board to handle such sensitive disputes and we can just have a project led wholly by endless arguments on the mailinglists. Given the public statements made by the departing Board members and the direct causal relationship they have to the subsequent mailinglist flames and reluctant Board clarifications, I can't help but feel that any 'humilation' felt by the departing Board members is their own fault. They had a clear opportunity to leave in a way that saved them face and maintained a good position in the community, I think it's unfortunate they chose not to make the most of it. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Let me add some data points and address a number of incorrect assumptions/conclusions. On Fri 2020-03-13, Pierre Böckmann wrote:

Throughout the weeks before the election and throughout the election weeks Sarah’s application and its wording and expressed opinion had at no point been ruled as violation of Guidelines or the Code of Conduct.

Neither Sarah's application/platform nor anything on this list was the trigger for the steps the majority of the board took.

breaches of the guiding principles and the Code of Conduct of which there has never been any evidence or indication and has never been considered and discussed throughout the weeks before the election and the election weeks itself.

That it did not happen in public for the majority of members to see does not mean there is no evidence nor indication. It just explains the absence of public discussion.

I could have requested the removal of only those board member(s) who obviously thought that their accusation of a violation of the Code of Conduct by Sarah which in their opinion rendered her being inappropriate as a board member was a legal justification for yelling at her and intimidating her and therefore breaching the Code of Conduct themselves.

Nobody ever yelled at anyone in my presence on any openSUSE meeting, board or otherwise. There were emotions on one call and I realize that was not an easy situation for Sarah and have taken responsibility (as Christian can confirm) for not moderating effectively. And nobody who I have served with has ever justified yelling or intimidation in my presence.

Nonetheless we can not and should not ignore what has happened in the last few weeks and the unacceptable nature and disrespect towards the community elections outcome, rules and principles. : I fully understand your points, but let's discuss this matter openly, objective, fact-bound and well reasoned.

Here is one question I am struggling with: How can members on the current board defend themselves without painting a complete picture of the overall story, including further aspects that have remained confidential so far?

Additionally I question whether they really did enforce the Code of Conduct or only their own personal opinions.

No accusation meant here, but as I already pointed out:

"No accusation meant" preceded by a leading question and followed by a big "but". :-(

As I already pointed out multiple times: It's exactly what has been questioned; did it really enforce the Code of Conduct or misuse it in their interests? Again, no accusation meant here, but that's an impression that was raised by what and how it has happened.

Again the question: How can this be put out for public deliberation without sharing personal aspects (incl. those of 3rd parties)?

And if those violations are handled, why don't we see that someone on the board who is obviously breaching this very same Code of Conduct - in my eyes - in an unacceptable manner is held responsible for it and has to resign?

That is easily answered: Who you seem to be referring to is not on the board and hence cannot resign from said board. (I am stating this with their consent; see a recent mail here.)

My call does not create mistrust in the board in general, but only expresses the community wide mistrust in the board in its current state.

"Community wide" is a very strong statement. I hope this is not the case. How can we mend the current situation in the best way? I am not convinced a motion of no confidence is the answer, regardless of the outcome. Gerald

I do hate quoting myself, but as I started in a previous email [1] I think that the most likely outcome of following through with this threat to recall the Board is the destruction of the Board.

I could have requested the removal of only those board member(s) who obviously thought that their accusation of a violation of the Code of Conduct by Sarah which in their opinion rendered her being inappropriate as a board member was a legal justification for yelling at her and intimidating her and therefore breaching the Code of Conduct themselves. Sure. But on the one hand side that would have lead to possible humiliation of that person and on the other hand that persons actions were nonetheless supported by almost all board members.

Given there hasn't been a single volunteer for the current open position on the Board, do you really think you'll be able to find 5-10 masochists who will be willing to step up if your vote is successful?

I can not be absolutely certain about that and you can't either. Except you own a Crystal Ball and know how to draw the secrets of the future from it.

Without the Board, this Project's future will be solely the decision of SUSE, and to be frank, I would understand at that point if they thought it was best to end the project as a community run affair and only continue it in a way where they had absolute control.

I do hate to quote myself, too. But:

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Nonetheless we can not and should not ignore what has happened in the last few weeks and the unacceptable nature and disrespect towards the community elections outcome, rules and principles.

So, if you ask me, some concerns about the possibility of too less candidates for a re-election should not be enough to justify and tolerate what has happened. But that is only my humble opinion. Therefore that's the reason why I wrote my email and brought the re-election up for discussion. Still the community has to decide whether at least 20% are willing to risk a re-election or not. I fully understand your points, but let's discuss this matter openly, objective, fact-bound and well reasoned.

For the continued future of this Project, I respectfully request that you revoke your call for a no-confidence vote immediately.

To be clear, I brought this topic up for discussion exactly for that reason: for the continued future of the project, but according to the rules we all confirmed to follow - no exception for the board or whomsoever.

If it continues, the community needs to be under no illusion, supporting this motion puts the future of the openSUSE Project as you know it today at mortal risk.

I value highly that you point out the risks. We all love the openSUSE project and that's the exact reason we need to talk about what happened. "mortal risk" in my eyes is a bit exaggerated and puts at risk the chances for a healthy discussion about what has happened and how to deal with it. It's surely not without any risk, but still - do we want a healthy community where respect and our Code of Conduct are valued or not? If we want that, we should have a chance for a reasonable and rational discussion about it all between grown-ups who love openSUSE. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

You call a vote of no confidence in the Board because they _did_their_job_ in enforcing our Code of Conduct..then say that you want a healthy community where our Code of Conduct is valued?

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Throughout the weeks before the election and throughout the election weeks Sarah’s application and its wording and expressed opinion had at no

The question is not only what they did but how they did it. Additionally I question whether they really did enforce the Code of Conduct or only their own personal opinions. No accusation meant here, but as I already pointed out: point been ruled as violation of Guidelines or the Code of Conduct. There has even never been any discussion about it. If there would have been any evidence or indication of a violation those points should have been a topic and should have lead to ruling Sarah out of candidacy. But unfortunately that has never happened. It might be possible that it already has been discussed in private and behind the scenes, but was never communitcated and the timing afterwards was bad. Nonetheless, the impression it made is what I pointed out and that was a topic for other members of the community, too, so I am not alone with that. Not to mention that Christian left the board exactly for what happened in that process of removing Sarah and the very way it was done.

I see that as undefensible hypocracy.

If your call for a vote is supported, I will see it as nothing other but a vote *against* the Board's enforcement of our Code of Conduct.

I don't think so.

And in such a situation, yes, not only do I never see anyone volunteering for the Board again, I can absolutely seeing SUSE restricting how openSUSE continues in the future.

If that's the case and what happens, well, then we do even have worse problems in general than only what happened within the board in the last weeks.

In the current social climate, as the company owning the openSUSE trademarks, could you really see SUSE allowing the continued use of the openSUSE trademarks to a community that just kicked out the Board that enforced it's Code of Conduct?

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Throughout the weeks before the election and throughout the election weeks Sarah’s application and its wording and expressed opinion had at no

As I already pointed out multiple times: It's exactly what has been questioned; did it really enforce the Code of Conduct or misuse it in their interests? Again, no accusation meant here, but that's an impression that was raised by what and how it has happened. Maybe enforcing the Code of Conduct should happen more like enforcing the law, dividing power into a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary. But the board acted in the name of all three without any discussion upfront. Again, my quote of myself from above: point been ruled as violation of Guidelines or the Code of Conduct. There has even never been any discussion about it. If there would have been any evidence or indication of a violation those points should have been a topic and should have lead to ruling Sarah out of candidacy.

There is no debate to be had here..the idea of destroying the Board needs to die or else we need to be prepared that openSUSE dies with it.

This call is about re-election not destruction. Whole nations survived re- elections. We as the openSUSE community should be no exception. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Snipping most of your reply because I refuse to allow this thread to decend into yet another nonsense flame by rebutting your endless counter rebuttals - consider my previous points to stand reinforced in disagreement with you.

All I wish to point out is..what on earth gives you any idea that "Sarah's application and its wording and expressed opinion" had anything to do with the Code of Conduct violation?

It's the impression gained from what the board and other members made public on the mailing list.

Speaking from my own experience as a previous Board member, the vast majority of Code of Conduct violations we had to mediate in my time occured within non-public discussions between individual contributors or groups of contributors. Given the Board's clarifications for their decision did not point to any public record, I would absolutely expect that their decision was based on incidents between contibutors outside such public records as Sarah's application.

If that would be the point the board could have clarified that point and could have specified in which situation and under which circumstances that violation of the Code of Conduct occurred. But the board left if fully to speculation and reading between the lines - and I am convinced that has good reasons and does not work to the boards advantage. Otherwise the board could have done so without disclosing anything confidential or private.

Is your entire Call for No-Confidence based on the likely flawed premise that the Board sanctioned someone because of something they said on the lists?

Likely flawed? That's very vague. But the Call is not in first place about sanctioning but about having a fresh start and leaving the unfortunate events behind. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Fri, 2020-03-13 at 13:16 +0100, Michal Kubecek wrote:

On Friday, 13 March 2020 12:38 Richard Brown wrote:

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You call a vote of no confidence in the Board because they _did_their_job_ in enforcing our Code of Conduct..then say that you want a healthy community where our Code of Conduct is valued?

I see that as undefensible hypocracy.

First, it's "hypocrisy".

Second, if there is a hypocrisy, it's telling the public that someone (reportedly) violated the CoC (which puts them into a really bad light) and putting embargo on any details of that violation - so that public cannot make their own mind about it - while pretending it's "to protect them".

It's often to protect everybody. You wouldn't expect a company to send an all-staff email explaining why every employee ever got fired for disciplinary reasons, would you? Speaking from my past experience, as someone who has 'passed judgement' in Code of Conduct violations, even in the most egregious cases, where the acts of the accused were potentially criminal, I always felt sympathy for them, in addition to their victims of course. We're a community of volunteers, and that still commands respect, even when individuals drift out of line of our Guiding Principles. No one deserves their name being dragged through the mud. I respect the current Board for clearly doing their best to avoid that in the recent cases. I think we should be a project where even severe breaches of our Guiding Principles can be handled in a way that preserve as much of a place as possible in the Project for everyone involved. And such delicate cases mean things like resignations to save face rather than public shaming should be the norm.

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

Am Freitag, 13. März 2020, 13:57:59 CET schrieb Michal Kubecek:

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No one deserves their name being dragged through the mud. I respect the current Board for clearly doing their best to avoid that in the recent cases.

In my eyes, this is exactly where the (remaining) board failed miserably.

You have to keep the timeline correctly there: 1. Board members resigned 2. Community started to ask questions 3a. Former Board member refuses to answer 3b. Former Board member answered questions partly 4. Community raised pressure on former board members and current board 5. Board gives statement to fulfill both need for transparency and to protect former board members at best possibly.

And I can't blame either of the two board ex-members for changing their mind eventually and starting to defend themselves.

You're linking their defending to a statement of the board that happened *after* the former board members started defending themselves. So, again, please keep the events in order. Cheers, vinz. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Am Freitag, 13. März 2020, 15:31:07 CET schrieb Pierre Böckmann:

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5. Board gives statement to fulfill both need for transparency and to protect former board members at best possibly.

If that was the real intention behind the board statement then you guys failed miserably. Making accusations of bad and multiple violations of the Code of Conduct and Guiding Principles by Sarah without giving any context or details is the absolute opposite of protecting the former and resigned board members.

See below.

The statement hardly protected anyone else but the misbehaving board members who violated the Code of Conduct in the process of the events mentioned. This is and never was about protecting the Code of Conduct or the former board members, if you ask me. And as we can see I am not alone with that point of view.

Again, below.

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And I can't blame either of the two board ex-members for changing their mind eventually and starting to defend themselves.

You're linking their defending to a statement of the board that happened *after* the former board members started defending themselves. So, again, please keep the events in order.

I can't see where the order of events has any relevance for Michal's argument. If so it rather supports Michals point than your as it is obvious that parts of the statement decided the former members to start defending themselves instead of staying silent or at least vague.

It indeed is *very* important because: The board didn't state anything until the former board members started to comment questions by the community. I can only speculate about their motives but my impression is that the former board members only uncovered some details because the community (or better: some people on this mailing list) were not able to respect the ex-board member's wish for no questions. Cheers, vinz. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Am 13. März 2020 16:36:14 schrieb Pierre Böckmann :

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It indeed is *very* important because: The board didn't state anything until the former board members started to comment questions by the community.

Yes, but only after the statement the former members saw the need to defend themselves and disclose at least some details about what had happened.

No. They did (with variations of detail amount) before the board's statement that followed later on due to the pressure on the former members.

And I think this community would have failed if it had not asked question when a board member steps down because of events within the board that are in conflict with his moral and principles.

And I think some people in this community failed as they did not respect the clearly stated wish of both former members not to tell the details. And that despite the repetition of this wish. Asking once is understandable, anything more than that is disrespectful and unnecessary.

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I can only speculate about their motives but my impression is that the former board members only uncovered some details because the community (or better: some people on this mailing list) were not able to respect the ex-board member's wish for no questions.

As long as those do not further explain their motives we can only speculate but with it you, too, are acting against the ex board member's request not to speculate or ask for details they don't want to talk about to protect others.

Please read my last email carefully: I don't speculate about the reasons of their step down. I said that I can only speculate about their motives to uncover details in the ongoing crossfire of questions afterwards. Cheers, vinz. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Am Freitag, 13. März 2020, 19:38:13 CET schrieb Sarah Julia Kriesch:

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No. They did (with variations of detail amount) before the board's statement that followed later on due to the pressure on the former members.

No. That is wrong! I did not say any confidentional information on the mailing list. I said only that our resignations were in a relationship. Nothing else. Marina has published most content via the email by the openSUSE Board and has pushed the discussion then.

Please read my email carefully: I did not say that you (or Christian) did say something confidential. That aside, stating that your resignations were related was not necessary and sparked the discussion (unnecessarily, imho) and indeed happened before the board's statement. But of course I understand that this is debatable.

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And I think this community would have failed if it had not asked question when a board member steps down because of events within the board that are in conflict with his moral and principles.

And I think some people in this community failed as they did not respect the clearly stated wish of both former members not to tell the details. And that despite the repetition of this wish.

And that was Marina with the email by the Board!

Again, please read carefully what I wrote: How did the board's email did not respect your wish to not be asked questions? I can't see any question there towards you or about your motives to resign. It just contains an on-surface explanation of what happened. ("[…] significantly breached the guiding principles and how she chose to deal with this situation led to 2/3rds of board members […]") [1] In addition to that the board even tried to calm down the discussions several emails before seeing the necessity to publish an official statement. [2] Cheers, vinz. [1] https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2020-02/msg00095.html [2] https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2020-02/msg00052.html -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Hi, Am Freitag, 13. März 2020, 23:15:31 CET schrieb Christian Boltz:

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Again, please read carefully what I wrote:

How did the board's email did not respect your wish to not be asked questions?

Wrong question ;-) Maybe read your own previous mail again, especially this part: (copied from above and somewhat shortened)

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... some people ... did not respect the clearly stated wish of both former members not to tell the details.

I could easily argue that "some people == the remaining board members".

Maybe. But that's not what I meant. I was referring to the questions which started way before the board's statement. And the remaining board members weren't the ones poking you and Sarah with questions - and therefore not respecting your wish.

The board statement Marina sent out matches exactly what you wrote - it contained some things [1] the board had promised to keep confidential.

...after Sarah herself made some bits public here and even more already on February 11th on the public Telegram group. Both put fuel to the fire of questions. To phrase it more abstract and exaggerated: The person to be protected damages her own protection twice and the group held accountable for protection is getting flak. As you know I wasn't involved in the whole story until that statement [1] and therefore would consider myself unbiased. Additionally I don't know in detail what happened. Yet I could only see three options to handle that situation: 1) Go full public 2) Let go and leave the community with their open questions 3) The board's chosen midway All of them are shitty somehow, just the amount of shittyness varies imho. So I'm curious with all seriousness: Which one would you have picked? Cheers, vinz. [1] https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2020-02/msg00095.html -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Hi, Am Samstag, 14. März 2020, 23:39:59 CET schrieb Christian Boltz:

I agree that none of these options is perfect.

See, that's what I meant. Welcome to my (and the board's) situation for at least two weeks now. It's "pick your poison" somehow. :-/

Option 1 is what you call "doing the laundry". It should be more than obvious that I don't want to do this in public - in the best interest of _everybody_ involved. (Some recent mails probably include hints what "everybody" includes.) (As a sidenote - popcorn dealers probably disagree with avoiding option 1, but making them happy is not the job of the board or the openSUSE community.)

If you re-read my resignation mail, it should be clear that I'd probably pick option 2 or (also not perfect) 3.2) send out a mail that contains only publicly known facts, and ask the community not to ask further questions - basically repeating what I wrote in my resignation mail. I know this didn't work 100% [1] and never expected not to get any questions, but I'm quite sure it would have worked with a few reminders.

Oh, and I wouldn't call option 3 the "midway" - the board mail was closer to option 1 than to option 2, and contained more details than really needed.

To keep it with your chicken game example one could say you were the first one pointing away from the chicken. Don't get me wrong: I understand you position in that whole story. But you didn't chose option 2. You went with something near to 3 as well by stating "[…] some things happened in the board that are completely against my principles and beliefs." [1] Again, I'm not accusing you for your decision. It's just not correct that you remained silent. Resigning "for personal reasons" or similar would be more like that.

Maybe the board would have looked a bit bad by refusing to publish details, but OTOH, I doubt if it looks better by publishing things they had promised to keep confidential [2].

[2] For comparison: I remember some cases when the board heard about "technical" (in a very wide meaning) plans that were not meant for the public yet. In _all_ these cases, everything the board heard was kept confidential.

But I assume there weren't any related statements or even board resignations to handle back then where people indirectly pointed at those confidential plans. Cheers, vinz. [1] https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2020-02/msg00042.html -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

my greatest concern is the idea that not voting is the same as a no vote. I can't recall another instance in history where abstaining from voting was equated to a no vote (although it may have the same impact). This would imply that every single member was aware of the vote. While I am certain they would all receive an email or message with a call to vote - we couldn't then guarantee that they actually received or even read that call. While we could suggest that this is their problem, again - at the risk of repeating myself - I cannot see how a vote can equate a missing vote as a no vote. Chase Crum | Sr. Architect a: SUSE | Professional Services | Consulting e: chase.crum@suse.com | w: suse.com/consulting   m: (918) 568-2808 #ChangeStartsRightHere #DareToBeDifferent 0250 A137 772C B90F 79C4 5D53 1611 DE08 CDE2 B49A On 3/16/20 3:15 PM, Christian Boltz wrote:

Hello,

Am Sonntag, 15. März 2020, 23:35:25 CET schrieb Vinzenz Vietzke:

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Am Samstag, 14. März 2020, 23:39:59 CET schrieb Christian Boltz:

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I agree that none of these options is perfect. See, that's what I meant. Welcome to my (and the board's) situation for at least two weeks now. It's "pick your poison" somehow. :-/ No worries, I'm fully aware that it isn't an easy situation.

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Oh, and I wouldn't call option 3 the "midway" - the board mail was closer to option 1 than to option 2, and contained more details than really needed. To keep it with your chicken game example one could say you were the first one pointing away from the chicken. That means I improved the chances of winning the chicken game ;-)

(Not sure if you really meant it that way ;-)

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Don't get me wrong: I understand you position in that whole story. But you didn't chose option 2. You went with something near to 3 as well by stating "[…] some things happened in the board that are completely against my principles and beliefs." [1]

Again, I'm not accusing you for your decision. It's just not correct that you remained silent. Resigning "for personal reasons" or similar would be more like that. First of all - no offence taken. I'll explain some bits nevertheless ;-)

If you look at it from a purely "technical" point of view - yes, in theory I could have written "for personal reasons".

In practise, my principles stopped me from doing that. I would have lied to myself (bad, but possibly doable in rare cases if there are very good reasons) and to the community (much worse, and clearly not an option) if I'd have written "for personal reasons".

My resignation mail was as softened and vague as my principles allowed.

I think "as silent as possible" describes it quite well, and IMHO it was closer to "staying silent" than you might think - but obviously that is my personal opinion, and you are free to have a different opinion. (Besides that - we discussed the board statement yesterday, not my resignation mail. I won't complain that you silently switched the topic, but also won't leave it unnoticed ;-)

It shouldn't surprise anybody that I used "slightly" different words in the board meeting after Sarah got kicked out - but even in that situation, I didn't use any "bad" words. Why? My own principles stopped me from that, and at this time it was a case of "damn principles!"

As a sidenote - I even coordinated the wording of my resignation mail with the board. The other board members agreed with my draft or proposed only a few minor changes that didn't change the meaning. Actually the "chicken game" (my request not to ask questions) was the part we discussed most because it was unclear to everybody if it would cause or prevent questions.

For completeness, I should probably mention that one board member replied that I should delete the draft instead of sending it out. Well, nice try ;-)

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[2] For comparison: I remember some cases when the board heard about "technical" (in a very wide meaning) plans that were not meant for the public yet. In _all_ these cases, everything the board heard was kept confidential. But I assume there weren't any related statements or even board resignations to handle back then where people indirectly pointed at those confidential plans. The good thing with all the "technical" (again: in a very wide meaning) things the board had to keep confidential is that we usually (with very few exceptions) agreed on them or easily found a compromise that made everybody happy. Of course, nobody ever resigned because he/she agreed with everything ;-)

When it comes to handling humans, keeping things confidential should be taken even more serious because - opposed to computers - those humans have feelings.

Regards,

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

On Fri, 15 May 2020 18:46:16 +0200, Knurpht-openSUSE wrote:

This technically is not a vote, it's a petition.

Agree, though it's explicitly a petition and not a vote. I think it's a sensible approach, and meets the ultimate goal of determining if 20% of the membership wants to recall the board. Those who want to, sign the petition. Those who don't, just ignore it. Simple. No need for bikeshedding on it. -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Dne pátek 15. května 2020 17:24:24 CEST, Chase Crum napsal(a):

my greatest concern is the idea that not voting is the same as a no vote. I can't recall another instance in history where abstaining from voting was equated to a no vote (although it may have the same impact). This would imply that every single member was aware of the vote. While I am certain they would all receive an email or message with a call to vote - we couldn't then guarantee that they actually received or even read that call. While we could suggest that this is their problem, again - at the risk of repeating myself - I cannot see how a vote can equate a missing vote as a no vote.

I'd politely disagree. In many countries general referenda requirement says that over 50% of citizens (not voters) must vote for something to take effect. In such cases "no" and " I don't care" are basically same. Do You care? Vote! If not, no change. Regarding the problem of receiving the info... If You care about development of the project, You should follow common communication channels, so I'm completely fine with the approach taken. -- Vojtěch Zeisek https://trapa.cz/ Komunita openSUSE GNU/Linuxu Community of the openSUSE GNU/Linux https://www.opensuse.org/

Op vrijdag 13 maart 2020 19:38:13 CET schreef Sarah Julia Kriesch:

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Gesendet: Freitag, 13. März 2020 um 18:11 Uhr Von: "Vinzenz Vietzke" An: opensuse-project@opensuse.org Betreff: Re: [opensuse-project] Call for a No-Confidence Vote - Re-Election of the openSUSE board> Am 13. März 2020 16:36:14 schrieb Pierre Böckmann :

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It indeed is *very* important because: The board didn't state anything until the former board members started to comment questions by the community.

Yes, but only after the statement the former members saw the need to defend themselves and disclose at least some details about what had happened.

No. They did (with variations of detail amount) before the board's statement that followed later on due to the pressure on the former members.

No. That is wrong! I did not say any confidentional information on the mailing list.

Not on this list. Your first breach of confidentiality was on Telegram-de, where you disclosed the choice you were given, the very same day And Telegram-de is as public as this list. Subscribe and you're in.

I said only that our resignations were in a relationship. Nothing else. Marina has published most content via the email by the openSUSE Board and has pushed the discussion then.

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And I think this community would have failed if it had not asked question when a board member steps down because of events within the board that are in conflict with his moral and principles.

And I think some people in this community failed as they did not respect the clearly stated wish of both former members not to tell the details. And that despite the repetition of this wish.

And that was Marina with the email by the Board!

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Asking once is understandable, anything more than that is disrespectful and unnecessary.

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I can only speculate about their motives but my impression is that the former board members only uncovered some details because the community (or better: some people on this mailing list) were not able to respect the ex-board member's wish for no questions.

As long as those do not further explain their motives we can only speculate but with it you, too, are acting against the ex board member's request not to speculate or ask for details they don't want to talk about to protect others.> Please read my last email carefully: I don't speculate about the reasons of their step down. I said that I can only speculate about their motives to uncover details in the ongoing crossfire of questions afterwards.

Cheers, vinz.

-- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Forums Team -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Gesendet: Samstag, 14. März 2020 um 01:22 Uhr Von: "Knurpht-openSUSE" An: opensuse-project@opensuse.org Betreff: Re: [opensuse-project] Call for a No-Confidence Vote - Re-Election of the openSUSE board

Op vrijdag 13 maart 2020 19:38:13 CET schreef Sarah Julia Kriesch:

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Gesendet: Freitag, 13. März 2020 um 18:11 Uhr Von: "Vinzenz Vietzke" An: opensuse-project@opensuse.org Betreff: Re: [opensuse-project] Call for a No-Confidence Vote - Re-Election of the openSUSE board> Am 13. März 2020 16:36:14 schrieb Pierre Böckmann :

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It indeed is *very* important because: The board didn't state anything until the former board members started to comment questions by the community.

Yes, but only after the statement the former members saw the need to defend themselves and disclose at least some details about what had happened.

No. They did (with variations of detail amount) before the board's statement that followed later on due to the pressure on the former members.

No. That is wrong! I did not say any confidentional information on the mailing list. I said only that our resignations were in a relationship. Nothing else. Marina has published most content via the email by the openSUSE Board and has pushed the discussion then.

Stop making Marina your target. She was only the messenger. And you know that. You were on the board and know very well that this kind of messages do not go out without mutual consent of the other board members.

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And I think this community would have failed if it had not asked question when a board member steps down because of events within the board that are in conflict with his moral and principles.

And I think some people in this community failed as they did not respect the clearly stated wish of both former members not to tell the details. And that despite the repetition of this wish.

And that was Marina with the email by the Board!

Don't blame Marina, you know very well who you're really blaming. I'm here. If you want to make this personal, use my name. I am and was the one you're looking for. No. You were only the initiator. The decision was made without you. Pierre has

I don't make Marina as my target. I wrote "email by the openSUSE Board". She sent the email. figured out correctly the former Board Member because of the same conduct on our mailing lists as before [0] and why I have written my email to the openSUSE Board: "I can't help myself here but to say honestly and with all due respect: In the light of the words of Christians comment about the boards official announcement those last words from you are quite cynical, disrespectful, maybe even rude and disgusting. Sorry, that I have to say that in those clear words." This guy has represented himself (with the company signature!) on the same way during the application period with speaking bad about the openSUSE Heroes Team [1], myself and others. He had interacted on the same way in the openSUSE Board in the past and is doing so on our mailing lists continuously. Does that match our Code of Conduct or do we have special rules for such people? Additionally, I did not say anything confidentional on Telegram, too. I said only that I had to resign. There is a difference between Telegram and archived mailing lists. The openSUSE Board did that alone and has stood for a worst-case management there. That is really vague without good arguments. Did you have a look into our Board list after the resignation of 2 Board Members? That is no surprise for the interrelated protection. In my point of view that is more difficult to find new Board Member candidates who want to work together with the existing Board than a re-election of all Board Members. Best regards, Sarah

-- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Forums Team

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[0] https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2020-03/msg00102.html [1] https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2020-01/msg00033.html -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Gesendet: Samstag, 14. März 2020 um 21:15 Uhr Von: "Stasiek Michalski" An: "Sarah Julia Kriesch" Cc: Knurpht-openSUSE , opensuse-project@opensuse.org Betreff: Re: [opensuse-project] Call for a No-Confidence Vote - Re-Election of the openSUSE board

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This guy has represented himself (with the company signature!) on the same way during the application period with speaking bad about the openSUSE Heroes Team [1], myself and others. He had interacted on the same way in the openSUSE Board in the past and is doing so on our mailing lists continuously. Does that match our Code of Conduct or do we have special rules for such people?

This is simply a critique of status quo, not the effort of the contributors. Richard even goes as far as to point out: "(...)it's not the Board's job to tell our infrastructure volunteers or sponsors how to do their job."

I fail to understand how you can see this statement as disrespectful. It recognizes Heroes as trying their best.

I meant the bigger part: "To re-iterate my points in my original email - It is an objective fact that issues in both Provo and Nuremberg take too long to fix - There is no evidence that Provo issues take any longer than Nuremberg issues, therefore there is no evidence that moving openSUSE infra from Provo to Nuremberg is a good solution - Even if there was, I do not think is it appropriate for Board members to demand the course of action that sponsors or other volunteers will have to take out. And because you were insulting enough to suggest I want a broken infrastructure, I will re-iterate here, of course I do not want a broken infrastructure[...]" Additionally, I have asked the Heroes Team for their wishes and my suggestions were exactly what they need. So in my point of view I have spoken as a Board Member candidate with "(...)it's not the Board's job to tell our infrastructure volunteers or sponsors how to do their job." in the best interest for the community and Richard against their wishes/ the Team.

LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world

[1] https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2020-02/msg00025.html

Best regards, Sarah

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Gesendet: Samstag, 14. März 2020 um 22:05 Uhr Von: "Stasiek Michalski" An: "Sarah Julia Kriesch" Cc: Knurpht-openSUSE , opensuse-project@opensuse.org Betreff: Re: [opensuse-project] Call for a No-Confidence Vote - Re-Election of the openSUSE board

On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 21:40, Sarah Julia Kriesch wrote:

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Gesendet: Samstag, 14. März 2020 um 21:15 Uhr Von: "Stasiek Michalski" An: "Sarah Julia Kriesch" Cc: Knurpht-openSUSE , opensuse-project@opensuse.org Betreff: Re: [opensuse-project] Call for a No-Confidence Vote - Re-Election of the openSUSE board

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This guy has represented himself (with the company signature!) on the same way during the application period with speaking bad about the openSUSE Heroes Team [1], myself and others. He had interacted on the same way in the openSUSE Board in the past and is doing so on our mailing lists continuously. Does that match our Code of Conduct or do we have special rules for such people?

This is simply a critique of status quo, not the effort of the contributors. Richard even goes as far as to point out: "(...)it's not the Board's job to tell our infrastructure volunteers or sponsors how to do their job."

I fail to understand how you can see this statement as disrespectful. It recognizes Heroes as trying their best.

I meant the bigger part: "To re-iterate my points in my original email - It is an objective fact that issues in both Provo and Nuremberg take too long to fix - There is no evidence that Provo issues take any longer than Nuremberg issues, therefore there is no evidence that moving openSUSE infra from Provo to Nuremberg is a good solution - Even if there was, I do not think is it appropriate for Board members to demand the course of action that sponsors or other volunteers will have to take out.

And because you were insulting enough to suggest I want a broken infrastructure, I will re-iterate here, of course I do not want a broken infrastructure[...]"

I am confused now, because none of this is in any way disrespectful...

If you are reading only one of these emails that can sound not disrespectfully. I would not escalate that because of 1 or 2 emails with such aggressive chant. I have an abudance of patience and try to turn that into positive in such a case. I am one Founder of the Heroes Team and know their feeling with MF-IT in the background. Do you mean that is no Board Member job to speak for them that they can transfer improved processes with a better infrastructure? Therefore, if you know the situation such a comment is disrespectful:

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- There is no evidence that Provo issues take any longer than Nuremberg issues, therefore there is no evidence that moving openSUSE infra from Provo to Nuremberg is a good solution

Additionally, that is not only in one email. That is drawing a continuous line through the whole thread with the goal to damage my campaign.

...

Additionally, I have asked the Heroes Team for their wishes and my suggestions were exactly what they need. So in my point of view I have spoken as a Board Member candidate with "(...)it's not the Board's job to tell our infrastructure volunteers or sponsors how to do their job." in the best interest for the community and Richard against their wishes/ the Team.

Where is he against anything? He just stated he was dissatisfied with the admin@o.o's response time regardless of the location, and for all I know, this might have been the case for him. Denying somebody's experience and citing your own as if it was the whole truth is disrespectful. As a matter of fact, in this context, those exact experiences would have been an excellent opportunity to boost your platform in the vote by citing as concretely as he did. I just see this as a wasted opportunity.

Every time you bring up Richard you treat him like he is against you for some reason though, can't we all be friends instead?

I want to have peace in the community, too. That is not possible with disturbers. I don't treat anybody because of unique wrong actions. But sadly Richard has done similar things with other former Board Members (a long "mostly non-public" history), too. That does not have any end and continues on public mailing lists. You can watch that on opensuse-factory in the last weeks [0]. I would like speaking well about Richard and having a frienship as with everybody else in the community. But I am sorry so say that - that is not possible with such flouts and aggro from the other side. Best regards, Sarah

LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world

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[0] https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2020-02/msg00252.html -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Having known all of you folks as long as I've been actively involved in the openSUSE community this go-around (which is five years now!), I have never known Richard to be anyone but a joyful, enthusiastic supporter of the openSUSE community. It was Richard that introduced me to other great members of the openSUSE community, including Stasiek, and when we met in-person at Flock in 2018, we had a fantastic conversation of project governance (I've been a member of the Mageia Council for a couple of years now). While Richard can easily bait people with the rest of them, he largely reserves that for presentations, where he professes his love for openSUSE and its wonderful community.

I've extremely confused about the acrimony you have with Richard, especially even now as he isn't even a member of the Board or the Chairman anymore. I also don't get what *any* of this matters with the issues at hand, since again 1) Richard is not the Chairman nor on the Board, and 2) you stepped down of your own volition and *then* disclosed all this. The best I can gather is that *you* have a problem with the openSUSE community. And I don't think *that's* right either.

I think a lot of people here don't understand the nuances of project governance that well. It's important to note that the openSUSE Board *does nothing* most of the time. The Board's major purpose is to arbitrate disputes and to handle sponsorships of the openSUSE Project, including being the bridge between SUSE and openSUSE. If we as a community want the openSUSE Board to do more things, then that's a completely separate conversation. But as it stands, you are asking for the Board to do things it does not have the ability to do. The things it does now are mostly matters that cannot be disclosed to the public without permission from *everyone*, legally speaking. So that makes transparency on board matters a little difficult.

As Richard has said many times, openSUSE is a "do-ocracy". It is mostly self-organized and self-governing within individual groups that wish to do governance. That has its pluses and minuses, but it has enabled folks like myself and Stasiek to make huge impacts in the openSUSE Linux distribution as well as other aspects of the Project.

So, in the end, I'd like to just ask... Can you please just let it go? It's in the past, dredging it up isn't going to help anybody now. It's not like Gerald is going to be able to do anything about what happened 2+ years ago unless SUSE has a TARDIS hidden somewhere in the Nuremberg office. Having visited the SUSE office there, I'd be impressed if they managed to hide one anywhere (most rooms are not big enough to hide such a thing!).

-- 真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth! I fully concur with Neal here. And more: Over the years I was on the board I've seen Richard trying and doing his utmost to protect you, to help you and

Op zondag 15 maart 2020 14:03:40 CET schreef Neal Gompa: the heroes. To be honest, Sarah and Christian, this is beginning to look like a public lynch party. IMNSHO too low for words. -- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Forums Team -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Wed, 18 Mar 2020 13:18:33 +0100, Pierre Böckmann wrote:

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I fully concur with Neal here. And more: Over the years I was on the board I've seen Richard trying and doing his utmost to protect you, to help you and the heroes. To be honest, Sarah and Christian, this is beginning to look like a public lynch party. IMNSHO too low for words.

I think a lynch party is as exaggerated as Richards apocalyptic prophecies for the case that the no-confidence vote happens, not to speak about the prophecies for when it succeeds.

The way Christian and Sarah express their opinions is - as far as I am concerned - still in line with all rules. We can not expect everyone to be friends with one another and as long as criticism is backed by clear and true facts I don't think that you'd call that a lynch party.

What you might bring up here without exaggerating is, that Richard is not part of the board anymore and only part of the history of the events taken place in the board the last weeks and therefore maybe should not be such a big topic in this thread.

Well said, Pierre. I've been silent on this thread, but have been following along - have been hesitant to comment because I know some see me as an instigator because I asked questions about what happened as a result of being concerned that two members of the board departed the board in quick succession. I honestly don't know if I'd vote for removal of the board, but the question on my mind is this: If we have a process whereby the board could be removed by the membership (as we do), but some predict the demise of the project over the potential use of that option - then why did we put the option in place? I think the vote itself is a useful tool to measure the temperature of the membership and understand where their heads are at in this situation. I do admit that I find it troubling that being a member, in some peoples' minds, isn't sufficient to raise questions - that you have to be willing to "do more" - to sit on the board, in particular - in order to be "qualified" to be able to expect some accountability. Not everyone seems to think this is necessary, but some apparently do. I understand that this project (and OSS in general) is a "do-ocracy" - that those who want things do them. I have been asked in the past to run for the board - I have never felt that I could contribute the time to do the job justice. I've spent about 10 years as a member of the forums staff (most of that time as one of three non-technical admins), and have been focused on our Facebook group and page presence as well. But somehow, in some peoples' minds, that's not enough to be "qualified" to ask critical questions about the project governance. Recognizing that one cannot commit the time to be directly involved in that governance would seem to me to be a valuable recognition. (I further recognize that were I to offer to step up now, as divisive as some people seem to think I am - well, that would be bad for the project as a whole - so I emphatically would *not* stand for a board position, nor would I take it if someone nominated me - I don't think it would be healthy for the project, and I fully expect some might even look to undermine my involvement *because* they see my involvement as a bad thing). Just a few things to think about. -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

The option was put there by an optimist, who believed that in the future the project would grow into something that people would want to help with. Clearly that hasn't been the case and I believe before we decide to kick out the existing board, we need to focus on fixing that. By electing the next board into the same set of rules, we would be asking to repeat this exact thing some of us think we are preventing with it, if we even got as far as having the next board.

This is a special situation. As far as I am aware we never had a no-confidence vote being considered yet. A serious series of events has taken place that in the end made me think and then go for it and bring it up for discussion. That does not mean that we aren't grown-ups that know that such a rule should only be used in serious cases and not be misused as an instrument to force re- elections just for fun or for minor things or because anyone things other were more suitable for a board position than those in place. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

No, you would use no-confidence exactly in the situation when somebody else would be more suitable to be on board than the current board members. I don't think that's the case here, the current board acted according to the rules. If you want to approach it from the side that actually will change things, please ask the community for a rule change instead of a no-confidence.

I have to disagree here. Additionally I don't get why asking for a rule change might be more applicable than asking for a no-confidence vote. That would not in the least address the events that lead me to consider the no-confidence vote as the best option and reaction to what happened in the last few weeks. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Le 20/03/2020 à 10:35, Richard Brown a écrit :

Voting for new rules would be a progressive change that would bring the community forward and improve the status quo.

I agree. We need some procedural organization (arbitration?) to cope with conflicts *in* the board

Voting to remove the Board, is a regressive option.

yes, too much aggressive IMHO

Even if we do have 10+ Candidates waiting in the wings (with only a max of 2 working for the same employer), based on my personal experience and knowledge of the internal workings at SUSE, I would not be surprised at that point that the company takes action to preserve its business interests and we find the community-led openSUSE Project is terminated in its current form.

I think this kind if remark is what makes you so unpopular in some parts of the project, when your very valuable contributions should make you very popular :-). You can't state regularly than openSUSE is independent and at the same time say a vote can break our relations. If you are true, openSUSE have *no* independence from SUSE.

After all in this day and age, what business could risk having their name attached to a community project who voted out their Board for enforcing the projects Code of Conduct?

the problem is precisely who determines if the code of conduct have been broken? specially if the problem occurs privately? a public break is easy to discuss, but who say the openSUSE code of conduct have to be the rule even in private? it's precisely this that have to be made clear. IMHO, the board is perfectly fitted to decide on code of conduct problem coming *outside* of the board, not *inside the board. https://en.opensuse.org/Code_of_Conduct is a bit too vague, the board is only quoted as "Finally, the openSUSE Board can help resolve conflicts as a means of last resort" I don't find any rule of how to remove a board member: https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board harassment is probably not the best choice :-( Please, if you really think what you said at the beginning: "Voting for new rules would be a progressive change that would bring the community forward and improve the status quo", start proposing what this change can be, thanks sincerely yours jdd -- http://dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

We should at least agree that all members of the community should feel safe to contribute to the project without fear of abuse from other members of the community. With that in mind the code of conduct needs to apply in all ways that members can interact whether they be publicly or privately online or face to face at events etc.

Absolutely.

Currently it is the boards role to resolve all such complaints / matters with the amount of detail being shared being up to the boards discretion. If you feel this is not the best way to deal with such issues then you can suggest amendments to https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules (which will likely be used as the basis for any foundations constitution) and all members can then choose to vote on whether to adopt such changes during an upcoming election or earlier at the election officials discretion.

Maybe we should be oriented towards the common separation of powers and establish a council dedicated specifically to handling cases of Code of Conduct violations and alike - kind of an Ethical Review Committee. This way there we could at least avoid potential conflicts of interests in the board or reduce speculations that a majority of the board might misuse their power to remove unpleasant board members as they see fit or forcing them off the board because they have the power. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

First, commenting on something from Pierre

But in case there has something been said Richard is not ok with, I am convinced Richard can and will speak for himself or seek talks with those persons.

I feel this is a rather nieve view. Consider what has been disclosed publicly already (and consider that it's obviously not the full story). It is clear there was/is a dispute between myself and another contributor. In cases of interpersonal conflict, would you expect conflicted contributors to air all of their dirty laundry in public? I wouldn't, and I'd advise conflicting contributors to resolve such disputes privately if at all possible. Again, it's been publicly mentioned that this conflict included a previous warning given some years ago. Would it not be standard operating procedure of most sensible conflict resolution bodies (eg. the Board) to bind the parties involved to confidentiality? Yes, Pierre as outspoken & undiplomatic as I can be at times, it is wrong to assume that I can always speak for myself. And I'm quite alright with that, it's in the best interests in the Project and the wellbeing of _all_ involved. On Fri, 2020-03-20 at 10:59 +0100, jdd@dodin.org wrote:

I think this kind if remark is what makes you so unpopular in some parts of the project, when your very valuable contributions should make you very popular :-). You can't state regularly than openSUSE is independent and at the same time say a vote can break our relations. If you are true, openSUSE have *no* independence from SUSE.

As long as openSUSE remains a non-legal entity with SUSE as the sole trademark owner of the openSUSE Project, then any indepdenence that openSUSE enjoys is only at SUSE's pleasure. SUSE does after all have a veto on the activities of the openSUSE Project, vested in its Chairman. SUSE has delegated a lot of rights and responsibility to the openSUSE Project by delegating those powers to the openSUSE Board (see Trademark Policy, Travel Support Programme, etc). The Board is of course the main bridge between SUSE Management and the openSUSE Project, with the Board avocating for the communities interests. Without a Board, that bridge would be gone. It would be a matter of unavoidable fact that SUSE would become the sole controlling entity of the openSUSE Project and the community will, constitutionally, have no say in its own future as a SUSE sponsored project. If openSUSE had a Foundation it's legal and constitutional foundations would be far less fragile, but I would expect all efforts to even consider a Foundation are on hold as a result of Pierre's call for a No-Confidence Vote. So the risks are there. It might make me unpopular to mention them, it doesn't make the risks go away. Don't shoot the messenger, especially now I'm no longer Chairman and I only share the message because I still (somehow) care about this Project.

I don't find any rule of how to remove a board member:

https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board

harassment is probably not the best choice :-(

https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules#Removal has the rules in question. "In the event of repeated absence without contact, or other serious misconduct or negligence, a Board member may be subject to removal. Before any other process occurs, the Board member in question will be personally contacted by the chairperson to try to resolve the situation. If this contact does not successfully resolve the situation, the Board member in question may be removed by a vote of 2/3s of the other board members" I believe that recent events by the current Board were conducted under these rules, which I believe are sufficient for protecting the interests of the Project.

Please, if you really think what you said at the beginning: "Voting for new rules would be a progressive change that would bring the community forward and improve the status quo", start proposing what this change can be, thanks

No, because I do not think the rules need to be changed. I fully believing the current Board is doing an exceptional job in terrible circumstances and I am wholly dissapointed in the lack of trust demonstrated by a vocal minority of this community. But as dissapointed as I am, I respect those differing views. Therefore I advocate they suggest rule changes before putting at risk the future of the Project as we know it today. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Fri, 2020-03-20 at 12:02 +0100, jdd@dodin.org wrote:

Le 20/03/2020 à 11:34, Richard Brown a écrit :

...

Without a Board, that bridge would be gone.

of course, but I don't see why there should be no board. until now the candidates have always been sufficient

We have _barely_ had enough candidates for any election for the past 5 years, and those are elections where we need to fill 2 or 3 seats. And that is even with lots of existing contributors directly pushing people for running for positions. If the No Confidence vote passes, we need to elect a whole board, that means we will need to fill 5 seats. That means needing at least *double* the number of candidates for the election to be meaningful. Anything less than 10 candidates gives a 50% chance that someone will get a seat just for volunteering, making the election rather pointless. If the vote for no confidence passes, I would expect none of the existing Board members would ever want to run again - this experience has been traumatic for them. The recently resigned Board members would also be uneligable for running according to our rules https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules#Resignation "Any person who has resigned from the Board or has been removed from the Board is not eligible for nomination or appointment for or during the next Board election period. " So, just look at the maths. Lets assume previously failed Board candidates would like to take this opportunity for another stab at the role. If you took every Board election candidate who didn't get elected since 2015 and they ALL ran to fill this new Board, you'd have a grand total of 9 people. When you consider deaths and depatures from the project that number becomes more like 4, maybe 5 volunteers. So you'll need at least another 5, ideally 6, totally fresh, never- interested-in-the-Board before volunteers to step up to run as Candidates. And do you really think the Project is going to find that many volunteers when everyone can read this mailinglist to see how much sh*t the Project gave it's current Board? Imagining a world where I might be interested in such a role, you couldn't pay me to make me volunteer to run for the Board after recent events. We need to be doing everything we can to cheer up, support, and help the volunteers we have in that critical job for the Project. Continuing the idea of this vote of no confidence with an assumption we'd ever have enough candidates to replace the current Board is foolish in my view. And I don't care if expressing that view makes me unpopular - you wont be seeing me running for election. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

There seem to be a number of issues in play at the same time here: What to do (or not do) with the board? Who did what, and were they in the wrong (seemingly, least important at the moment)? How do we move this forward towards resolution? And last, but not least: there aren't enough volunteers for whatever decision we make - so let's not make a hasty decision. To the last of those, there are plenty of volunteers. I'm one of them. There are people, like me, who care deeply about this community and the brand as a whole. It's true, we haven't volunteered in the past (myself included). To be honest - we assumed that things were in good hands and that they had all the help they needed. Perhaps this was an incorrect assumption, I can't really tell just yet. If you need volunteers - count me in. I know others who would be equally interested. That should be the least of the reasons not to resolve the other remaining issues. -Chase Chase Crum | Sr. Architect SUSE | Professional Services | Consulting e: chase.crum@suse.com | w: suse.com/consulting m: (918) 568-2808 #ChangeStartsRightHere #DareToBeDifferent 0250 A137 772C B90F 79C4 5D53 1611 DE08 CDE2 B49A -----Original Message----- From: Richard Brown To: opensuse-project@opensuse.org Subject: Re: [opensuse-project] Re: Call for a No-Confidence Vote - Re- Election of the openSUSE board Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2020 12:31:01 +0100 On Fri, 2020-03-20 at 12:02 +0100, jdd@dodin.org wrote:

Le 20/03/2020 à 11:34, Richard Brown a écrit :

...

Without a Board, that bridge would be gone.

of course, but I don't see why there should be no board. until now the candidates have always been sufficient

We have _barely_ had enough candidates for any election for the past 5 years, and those are elections where we need to fill 2 or 3 seats. And that is even with lots of existing contributors directly pushing people for running for positions. If the No Confidence vote passes, we need to elect a whole board, that means we will need to fill 5 seats. That means needing at least *double* the number of candidates for the election to be meaningful. Anything less than 10 candidates gives a 50% chance that someone will get a seat just for volunteering, making the election rather pointless. If the vote for no confidence passes, I would expect none of the existing Board members would ever want to run again - this experience has been traumatic for them. The recently resigned Board members would also be uneligable for running according to our rules https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules#Resignation "Any person who has resigned from the Board or has been removed from the Board is not eligible for nomination or appointment for or during the next Board election period. " So, just look at the maths. Lets assume previously failed Board candidates would like to take this opportunity for another stab at the role. If you took every Board election candidate who didn't get elected since 2015 and they ALL ran to fill this new Board, you'd have a grand total of 9 people. When you consider deaths and depatures from the project that number becomes more like 4, maybe 5 volunteers. So you'll need at least another 5, ideally 6, totally fresh, never- interested-in-the-Board before volunteers to step up to run as Candidates. And do you really think the Project is going to find that many volunteers when everyone can read this mailinglist to see how much sh*t the Project gave it's current Board? Imagining a world where I might be interested in such a role, you couldn't pay me to make me volunteer to run for the Board after recent events. We need to be doing everything we can to cheer up, support, and help the volunteers we have in that critical job for the Project. Continuing the idea of this vote of no confidence with an assumption we'd ever have enough candidates to replace the current Board is foolish in my view. And I don't care if expressing that view makes me unpopular - you wont be seeing me running for election. -- Chase Crum | Sr. Architect SUSE | Professional Services | Consulting e: chase.crum@suse.com | w: suse.com/consulting m: (918) 568-2808 #ChangeStartsRightHere #DareToBeDifferent 0250 A137 772C B90F 79C4 5D53 1611 DE08 CDE2 B49A -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 3/20/20 9:32 PM, jdd@dodin.org wrote:

Le 20/03/2020 à 11:34, Richard Brown a écrit :

...

Without a Board, that bridge would be gone.

of course, but I don't see why there should be no board. until now the candidates have always been sufficient

...

consider a Foundation are on hold as a result of Pierre's call for a No-Confidence Vote.

I guess a no-confidence vote have to be a new board vote...

...

https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules#Removal has the rules in question.

very odd place, removal have nothing to do with elections :-(

Yep at some point the plan was to add the rules around what makes an openSUSE member here and just rename it as the project constitution but for now were waiting to see where the foundation goes to do that, but you can really think of it as the projects constitution minus what defines a member.

...

"other serious misconduct or negligence, a Board member may be subject to removal (...)

no mention here of "code of conduct". did the removed board member stole something or so?

One could argue that a repeated breach of the "guiding principles" / "code of conduct" could be classed as "Serious Misconduct" such an interpretation is consistent with employment law in many parts of the world for what its worth. -- 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

Le 20/03/2020 à 17:00, sogal a écrit :

I do not think that we need more rules. The rules in place worked perfectly fine.

obviously not :-(

Board members are community members, the rules apply to them in the same way.

one can't be judge and part of the case, period. jdd -- http://dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Voting for new rules would be a progressive change that would bring the community forward and improve the status quo.

A status quo that actually has to be in question as of the events from the last few weeks. Improving it is enforcing behavior that lead to a member of the board to resign in protest. I can't see anything progressive or positive here.

Voting to remove the Board, is a regressive option.

It is neither regressive nor progressive. It's simply a democratic process. If you think that is regressive, then there is something extremely wrong with your perception and interpretation of democratic principles.

If the vote is successful, I expect that we will find ourselves without a governing body. This is based on every previous board election in the last 5 years have had difficulty finding candidates.

Even if we do have 10+ Candidates waiting in the wings (with only a max of 2 working for the same employer), based on my personal experience and knowledge of the internal workings at SUSE, I would not be surprised at that point that the company takes action to preserve its business interests and we find the community-led openSUSE Project is terminated in its current form.

After all in this day and age, what business could risk having their name attached to a community project who voted out their Board for enforcing the projects Code of Conduct?

As I already said, this is fearmongering trying to undermine the call for a no-confidence vote. The light you try to shed onto anybody here who participate in exercising their right is extremely harmful and unacceptable. I will not let you drag me or others who are acting in the very interest of the project and exercising their rights as community members through the mud! That's exactly the behavior that made you a major topic here already. You as a former chairman should maybe act more wisely and diplomatic in such a situation. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Well said, Pierre.

Thanks!

I've been silent on this thread, but have been following along - have been hesitant to comment because I know some see me as an instigator because I asked questions about what happened as a result of being concerned that two members of the board departed the board in quick succession.

And you have all the right to be concerned. If not I would not have called for no-confidence vote.

I honestly don't know if I'd vote for removal of the board, but the question on my mind is this: If we have a process whereby the board could be removed by the membership (as we do), but some predict the demise of the project over the potential use of that option - then why did we put the option in place?

I don't think it's been put in place "by an optimist" that made false assumptions about how the community will develop as was stated by Stasiek. Guessing here I'd say it was put in place because of good reasons and involved a lot of careful consideration beforehand. And some other thought: maybe it is even the wrong question. Maybe we should rather ask, why should such a rule lead to the demise of a whole. Is that claim really true or rather fearmongering to keep the community calm and make them refrain from executing their rights to protect the own position or the position of those that are making decision in favor of the own opinion. But, please keep in mind that is a lot of speculation and i would like to rather reduce speculations instead spreading even more of them. We should really focus on a solution and the process and less on blaming who has done something right or is responsible for the current situation as too much things are kept secret here. Don't get me wrong here, I am fine with protecting members and not dragging them through the mud. But in case it's true what I think, then the community has lost confidence in the current board as it stands and then we should take action.

I think the vote itself is a useful tool to measure the temperature of the membership and understand where their heads are at in this situation.

Good words. I second that thought!

I do admit that I find it troubling that being a member, in some peoples' minds, isn't sufficient to raise questions - that you have to be willing to "do more" - to sit on the board, in particular - in order to be "qualified" to be able to expect some accountability. Not everyone seems to think this is necessary, but some apparently do. I understand that this project (and OSS in general) is a "do-ocracy" - that those who want things do them.

This is something I have recognized outside openSUSE, too. Like in politics where politicians are making decisions not in the line with the voters interests and then defending those decisions with either "you as a voter don't know what I know and you have to believe me that I made the best decision in your interest" - what isn't true most of the time, I am sure. Or the defense strategy is "if you know better, don't intervene but take over and take responsibility only then you are able to interfere in the process" though there is a reason voters do have rights like suggesting no-confidence votes or other things. Free speech is a very important rule here and everywhere for a good reason as well as the right to use the rules to intervene in a reasonable manner and according to the rules if something is developing into the wrong direction. As I already pointed out: I am absolutely fine when - according to our rules - there are no 20% of the community backing my intentions of a re-election. In such case community confirms the board in office and that is almost as good as a re-election for me.

I have been asked in the past to run for the board - I have never felt that I could contribute the time to do the job justice. I've spent about 10 years as a member of the forums staff (most of that time as one of three non-technical admins), and have been focused on our Facebook group and page presence as well.

Those are contributions. I am perfectly fine with any contribution. Everyone who is a member has earned to be it and therefore owns the same rights as others.

But somehow, in some peoples' minds, that's not enough to be "qualified" to ask critical questions about the project governance. Recognizing that one cannot commit the time to be directly involved in that governance would seem to me to be a valuable recognition. (I further recognize that were I to offer to step up now, as divisive as some people seem to think I am - well, that would be bad for the project as a whole - so I emphatically would *not* stand for a board position, nor would I take it if someone nominated me - I don't think it would be healthy for the project, and I fully expect some might even look to undermine my involvement *because* they see my involvement as a bad thing).

The community is voting for the board positions. So I see it that way: If you are nominated, there is at least one other member seeing you as a member with the skill-set needed for that position. As soon as the community votes you into that position at least the needed majority of the members confirm that view.

Just a few things to think about.

Thanks for bringing them to the table. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Op donderdag 19 maart 2020 16:44:24 CET schreef Jim Henderson:

On Thu, 19 Mar 2020 12:34:35 +0100, Pierre Böckmann wrote:

...

...

I honestly don't know if I'd vote for removal of the board, but the question on my mind is this: If we have a process whereby the board could be removed by the membership (as we do), but some predict the demise of the project over the potential use of that option - then why did we put the option in place?

I don't think it's been put in place "by an optimist" that made false assumptions about how the community will develop as was stated by Stasiek. Guessing here I'd say it was put in place because of good reasons and involved a lot of careful consideration beforehand.

I think Stasiek's view is a valid one, but I also think that the inclusion of such a rule is more complex than just if someone was an optimist or a pessimist. It's a common practice to have a way to recall the board in the event there are concerns about the board making decisions that the membership thinks are questionable.

I am concerned about the idea "this is the only board we have, and with nobody else willing to step up, we should just stay the course". On the one hand, it makes logical sense; if there is nobody to fill in the board, what then?

On the other hand, it creates a situation where a board with specific bad intent (and I want to be absolutely clear that I do not think that this is the case here; I am speaking purely in hypothetical terms) could create a situation where their positions are assured by making sure that nobody *wants* to stand for the board.

That would be a very dangerous situation indeed.

...

And some other thought: maybe it is even the wrong question.

Maybe we should rather ask, why should such a rule lead to the demise of a whole. Is that claim really true or rather fearmongering to keep the community calm and make them refrain from executing their rights to protect the own position or the position of those that are making decision in favor of the own opinion.

I personally think the project is strong enough to survive a board recall. If it's not, things are far worse than they may seem to some.

One thing that I am extremely concerned with is, for all the talk about "respect" being one of our guiding principles, those of us who are raising concerns are not being given the courtesy of being asked (by some, not all - see the next paragraph for a specific example) why we think what we think. The presumption that those of us who have concerns are specifically trying to *destroy* the project and assumption of malicious intent is extremely disheartening to me. To have individuals contact me off-list with wild accusations rather than asking "so, we've known each other for a really long time - help me understand where you're coming from" really upset me, and is part of the reason I have been silent.

It's also the reason why I decided I had to say something here - I couldn't let that effort to silence my concerns be successful. (I am specifically not naming names because it's not useful or helpful in this case to do so, and I do still respect the individual in question in spite of that, and their private communication with me will remain private unless they decide to make a public issue out of it. I hope that they will not.)

I would, however, like to specifically thank Gerald publicly for demonstrating true leadership in reaching out to learn more, rather than making the assumption of bad intent and acting based on that assumption.

...

But, please keep in mind that is a lot of speculation and i would like to rather reduce speculations instead spreading even more of them. We should really focus on a solution and the process and less on blaming who has done something right or is responsible for the current situation as too much things are kept secret here. Don't get me wrong here, I am fine with protecting members and not dragging them through the mud. But in case it's true what I think, then the community has lost confidence in the current board as it stands and then we should take action.

I agree. And I think you and I both think it's not a simple question to answer, either. There's a balance that needs to be achieved - the goals of maintaining privacy for those involved in conflicts are laudable. It needs to be possible for *everyone* to take advantage of the board's role in conflict resolution, and to know that those matters will be handled appropriately.

But oversight and accountability are also important in any good governance model. As others have pointed out, when we elect a board, we need to be able to know that they're doing the things that they were elected to do. I'm not saying that we don't know anything that goes on - but finding the right balance is important, and I'm not sure that we're there yet.

...

As I already pointed out: I am absolutely fine when - according to our rules - there are no 20% of the community backing my intentions of a re-election. In such case community confirms the board in office and that is almost as good as a re-election for me.

Same here.

...

...

But somehow, in some peoples' minds, that's not enough to be "qualified" to ask critical questions about the project governance. Recognizing that one cannot commit the time to be directly involved in that governance would seem to me to be a valuable recognition. (I further recognize that were I to offer to step up now, as divisive as some people seem to think I am - well, that would be bad for the project as a whole - so I emphatically would *not* stand for a board position, nor would I take it if someone nominated me - I don't think it would be healthy for the project, and I fully expect some might even look to undermine my involvement *because* they see my involvement as a bad thing).

The community is voting for the board positions. So I see it that way: If you are nominated, there is at least one other member seeing you as a member with the skill-set needed for that position. As soon as the community votes you into that position at least the needed majority of the members confirm that view.

Sure, but the person making the nomination is making it based on their knowledge of the nominee's skills and ability to lead. It's (obviously) up to the nominee to decide if they can take on the additional responsibility. I know my workload during the day, and over the past few years, my ability to be involved in the areas I already volunteer in has been diminished due to other commitments.

And yes, a nomination isn't the same as being elected - but declining the nomination is the responsible thing to do if, should one be elected, it's known that time would be an issue. It's better to leave the spot open for someone who can commit the time and energy to that role.

My point was to highlight that there are reasons why people don't stand for the board that go beyond the current situation - and it's disrespectful to assume that nobody wants to stand because of the current situation. There are plenty of other reasons not to stand, and we need to respect that people know their own capabilities and availability, and if someone doesn't stand, their reasons are their own.

But that they don't stand doesn't mean their voices should be ignored, nor their concerns dismissed. And what if the board was 100% right in it's decision ? If Sarah is so sure she's right, why not ask the board to disclose the minutes from the handover meeting ? And, will all of you mistrusting the current board return here and apologize for their mistrust? I was there, and I still fully support the current board as a team and each individual member incl. the chairperson.

What I'm completely disgusted about is the outright attacks on Richard, current board on this thread. We don't have to like eachother, we don't have to be friends, but we can still be respectful. And, the same question iterated: are those that joined and judged returning here to apologize ? To be honest, a couple of the posts here have brought me on the brink of disclosing what happened. The only thing that kept me from it, is that this is a public list and some click-bait bloggers/vloggers would find some good stuff to gather their clicks. So please stop these posts as if the project/board is seriously sick. Please. -- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Forums Team -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

If we can't have a reasonable discussion about whether or not there's a problem, then I seriously fear for the health of the project. That's not hyperbole; that is a serious concern for me, and not one I express lightly.

Those who know me know that I never have an intent to cause harm, and if I have caused harm to anyone, than I *am* very deeply sorry for that. It's not in my nature to be malicious, but it is in my nature to want to understand things; when things *seem* to be going off the rails, I need to understand the reasons why to help calibrate my own view of where things are at.

It's *not* mistrust. It's a desire for us to do our very best, as a project, and as a team. We have to be willing to ask the hard questions and have those discussions.

I second that. I could not have expressed those points better! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 10:50, Pierre Böckmann wrote:

...

And what if the board was 100% right in it's decision ? If Sarah is so sure she's right, why not ask the board to disclose the minutes from the handover meeting ? And, will all of you mistrusting the current board return here and apologize for their mistrust? I was there, and I still fully support the current board as a team and each individual member incl. the chairperson.

Well, that is at least your point of view. And that's ok. But don't forget that Christian was there, too, and from his point of view, what happened there was enough to resign in protest. Parts of the meeting and the events that took place in it have been disclosed at least partly already and those paint quiet a picture. I am convinced that disclosing the full minutes will not be able to change at least those parts, maybe only put them maybe into a different light - but the light will not change the facts that have been disclosed.

But just in case those parts of the meeting minutes would change things completely, I am absolutely prepared to apologize.

I disagree, the board had the good intentions of actually saying what happened, and the person that declined the board from revealing the things that happened was Sarah. If Sarah believed that all was right, and that she was in the right, it would be her that proposed that, not the board. This is a very dangerous deadlock where the person that actually portrays herself as a victim hides all of the facts. LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 14:53, Christian Boltz wrote:

Let's assume for a moment that those minutes would get published. I'm very sure that some details would raise questions that need further explanation because of missing background information, and that would need to disclose more things. Basically it would be the start of an endless spiral that would possibly damage several people (I'm intentionally not mentioning names.)

This also means that it isn't as easy as "Sarah allows / doesn't allow to disclose the minutes" because more people are involved and would have to permit the disclosure. I'm sad that Axel and Gertjan gave the impression that it would be so simple (no, this clearly doesn't qualify as "good intentions"), and tried to push Sarah into a corner by doing so.

In the meantime, all the directly involved persons have agreed not to disclose further details (in the best interest of all), because they all have understood that this is the only way to prevent flamewars, mud wrestling and, worst of all, lots of damage to (probably) everybody involved. It's hard to predict who would "earn" the most damage, but it's very easy to predict that there will be no winner in such a fight.

I hope that you all understand this, and finally stop to ask more questions.

No can do, we are getting flamewars, mud wrestling and, worst of all, lots of damage even without having any info, I can't imagine it gets any better than that. There is nothing else to earn here anymore, it will continue being more pain every day until we know everything, and more pain when we know everything, that's just how things are now, I'm sorry. This has grown to be the tumour of the community, and it will continue growing if we do nothing about it, even if the board gets replaced. There is no getting closure without every single detail of what happened anymore, and the only reason is that everybody kept poking at it LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 19:49, Sarah Julia Kriesch wrote:

...

Gesendet: Freitag, 20. März 2020 um 17:11 Uhr Von: "Stasiek Michalski" An: "Christian Boltz" Cc: opensuse-project@opensuse.org Betreff: Re: [opensuse-project] Re: Call for a No-Confidence Vote - Re-Election of the openSUSE board

...

Let's assume for a moment that those minutes would get published. I'm very sure that some details would raise questions that need further explanation because of missing background information, and that would need to disclose more things. Basically it would be the start of an endless spiral that would possibly damage several people (I'm intentionally not mentioning names.)

This also means that it isn't as easy as "Sarah allows / doesn't allow to disclose the minutes" because more people are involved and would have to permit the disclosure. I'm sad that Axel and Gertjan gave the impression that it would be so simple (no, this clearly doesn't qualify as "good intentions"), and tried to push Sarah into a corner by doing so.

In the meantime, all the directly involved persons have agreed not to disclose further details (in the best interest of all), because

On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 14:53, Christian Boltz wrote: they

...

all have understood that this is the only way to prevent flamewars, mud wrestling and, worst of all, lots of damage to (probably) everybody involved. It's hard to predict who would "earn" the most damage, but it's very easy to predict that there will be no winner in such a fight.

I hope that you all understand this, and finally stop to ask more questions.

No can do, we are getting flamewars, mud wrestling and, worst of all, lots of damage even without having any info, I can't imagine it gets any better than that. There is nothing else to earn here anymore, it will continue being more pain every day until we know everything, and more pain when we know everything, that's just how things are now, I'm sorry.

Didn't you receive enough facts from my side? In my point of view, we have got enough flamewars now. That was the reason for the suggestion not to publish more about the whole history (as Christian said). If the want to publish all reasons, we would have to publish confidential Board internal information. That should not be done.

I do not care about the facts only from your perspective, you are blocking the board from releasing their perspective. Any coin has two sides Sarah, one sided coin is impossible. LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Sat, Mar 21, 2020 at 17:55, Christian Boltz wrote:

Am Freitag, 20. März 2020, 19:55:29 CET schrieb Stasiek Michalski:

...

you are blocking the board from releasing their perspective.

Stasiek, I hope you realize that your statement is purely based on speculations (and maybe a problematic and questionable statement by Axel and Gertjan - see my mail yesterday for details about that).

Maybe(!) it's Sarah who doesn't want to have the minutes disclosed.

Maybe(!) it's $other_person or $group_of_persons who doesn't/don't want to have specific information published. In this case, your statement hurts and damages Sarah a lot.

Maybe(!) it's a combination of the above, and multiple people don't want to have everything in public. Maybe because they realized that they would look bad, maybe they simply don't want the public mud wrestling, maybe both.

Whichever of the above is true (no, I won't tell you ;-) [1] in the best interest of _all_ the involved people) - please stop these damaging speculations, and especially stop writing them in a way that makes them sound like facts!

I already told you yesterday that the directly involved persons have agreed not to disclose further details [2]. Part of that is not to publish who allowed or declined disclosing the meeting minutes (and the history that explains them) because mentioning that would already imply that the other side wants to "hide something".

Besides that, publishing more information would again be "from one perspective", obviously depending on who publishes it.

If you don't like all this, feel free to write to the board - maybe(!) they'll tell you if you were right or if you have to apologize.

I will start with an apology then, I'm sorry, because clearly the information that was presented on the mailing list wasn't sufficient to make this judgment call earlier. This does clear up some things. I was presenting info that I understood to be facts, but clearly, I do not have the full picture.

...

Any coin has two sides Sarah, one sided coin is impossible.

Maybe(!) this coin has even more than two sides?

If I was a smartass I would say it has 3 sides, because they are very short cylinders. Those cool japanese coins have 4 sides, because they are cylinders with a cylinder cut out from the middle. However, ever since the board split into as many pieces as it did, we are all getting tired trying to count these sides ;) LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Dne pátek 20. března 2020 19:49:26 CET, Sarah Julia Kriesch napsal(a):

...

Gesendet: Freitag, 20. März 2020 um 17:11 Uhr Von: "Stasiek Michalski" An: "Christian Boltz" Cc: opensuse-project@opensuse.org Betreff: Re: [opensuse-project] Re: Call for a No-Confidence Vote - Re-Election of the openSUSE board On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 14:53, Christian Boltz wrote:

No can do, we are getting flamewars, mud wrestling and, worst of all, lots of damage even without having any info, I can't imagine it gets any better than that. There is nothing else to earn here anymore, it will continue being more pain every day until we know everything, and more pain when we know everything, that's just how things are now, I'm sorry.

Didn't you receive enough facts from my side? In my point of view, we have got enough flamewars now. That was the reason for the suggestion not to publish more about the whole history (as Christian said). If the want to publish all reasons, we would have to publish confidential Board internal information. That should not be done.

I'm sorry but as we didn't obviously get all the info (I don't think I'd need to read all the confidential dirty stuff), I don't see other way than finally close this crappy discussion with accepting Board's decision. Full stop. -- Vojtěch Zeisek https://trapa.cz/ Komunita openSUSE GNU/Linuxu Community of the openSUSE GNU/Linux https://www.opensuse.org/

Hello, Am Sonntag, 15. März 2020, 14:03:40 CET schrieb Neal Gompa:

On Sun, Mar 15, 2020 at 7:45 AM Sarah Julia Kriesch wrote:

...

I would like speaking well about Richard and having a frienship as with everybody else in the community. But I am sorry so say that - that is not possible with such flouts and aggro from the other side.

Having known all of you folks as long as I've been actively involved in the openSUSE community this go-around (which is five years now!), I have never known Richard to be anyone but a joyful, enthusiastic supporter of the openSUSE community. It was Richard that introduced me to other great members of the openSUSE community, including Stasiek, and when we met in-person at Flock in 2018, we had a fantastic conversation of project governance (I've been a member of the Mageia Council for a couple of years now). While Richard can easily bait people with the rest of them, he largely reserves that for presentations, where he professes his love for openSUSE and its wonderful community.

That's his public face, and I know and agree that he has done quite some good things for openSUSE. I also understand that your "outside view" picture looks exactly like you describe it. Sadly I have also seen some things that clearly don't fit into this positive picture :-( Most of them were in private or in board meetings (which also means I can't easily disclose them), therefore you'll have to trust me that your picture is totally incomplete. At least a few things went public - see for example the link in my non- random signature. I also know that Sarah isn't the only person who (diplomatically spoken) doesn't like Richard anymore.

I've extremely confused about the acrimony you have with Richard, especially even now as he isn't even a member of the Board or the Chairman anymore. I also don't get what *any* of this matters with the issues at hand, since again 1) Richard is not the Chairman nor on the Board, and 2) you stepped down of your own volition and *then* disclosed all this.

The strange thing is that a part of the reason why 2/3 of the board forced Sarah to step down was a _two year old_ (and IMHO questionable) warning. Since the board included this as part of the decision when forcing Sarah to resign, it shouldn't be a surprise that some of this history becomes part of the discussion now.

The best I can gather is that *you* have a problem with the openSUSE community. And I don't think *that's* right either.

I know Sarah longer (and better) than you, and I'm *very sure* that she doesn't have a problem with the openSUSE community. Quite the opposite. She is doing her best, helps in some areas (maybe not the most visible ones), and has suggested improvements to make our community life easier. Yes, there is an obvious exception when it comes to a specific person, but that's something that gets fueled by both sides - for example, it was Richard who started the long and malicious discussion on Sarah's board application, and it was also a (non-public) completely unfair action by Richard that started all this 3 years ago.

I think a lot of people here don't understand the nuances of project governance that well. It's important to note that the openSUSE Board *does nothing* most of the time.

Argh - did you really have to disclose this? ;-)

The Board's major purpose is to arbitrate disputes and to handle sponsorships of the openSUSE Project, including being the bridge between SUSE and openSUSE. If we as a community want the openSUSE Board to do more things, then that's a completely separate conversation. But as it stands, you are asking for the Board to do things it does not have the ability to do.

Assuming you talk about supporting the infrastructure migration from Provo to Nuremberg - there were several cases where the heroes _had to_ ask the board for support because requests to Provo were ignored for a long time. It kind of became a standard workflow to request something in Provo, send reminder mails for some weeks (without any response) and finally ask the board to escalate it :-/ Sadly, "does not have the ability to do" is closer to the truth than I'd like. As you've probably seen in my other mail, even for the board or its (current and previous) chairman, it was really hard to get something done in Provo - but at least it somehow, somewhen it worked after twisting several arms. More than once, I asked if SUSE would pay a flight to Provo so that I can visit the MF-IT guys and give them a live demo of my safety boots and/or a CAT5 o Nine Tails [1]. Of course I can't speak for everybody in the heroes team, but I'm quite sure that nobody who ever had to deal with MF-IT disagrees with Sarah's statement that the board should support the heroes when it comes to these things.

As Richard has said many times, openSUSE is a "do-ocracy". It is mostly self-organized and self-governing within individual groups that wish to do governance. That has its pluses and minuses, but it has enabled folks like myself and Stasiek to make huge impacts in the openSUSE Linux distribution as well as other aspects of the Project.

Right, and I'm really thankful for everything you and all the people in the openSUSE community do.

So, in the end, I'd like to just ask... Can you please just let it go? It's in the past, dredging it up isn't going to help anybody now.

Given all the (mostly non-public) history, I'm afraid that's very hard for Sarah - and IMHO it would at least require that Richard also stops doing silly things.

It's not like Gerald is going to be able to do anything about what happened 2+ years ago unless SUSE has a TARDIS hidden somewhere in the Nuremberg office. Having visited the SUSE office there, I'd be impressed if they managed to hide one anywhere (most rooms are not big enough to hide such a thing!).

I'd really like to comment on this, but I had to sign a NDA before being allowed to visit the non-public areas of the SUSE office last year ;-) Regards, Christian Boltz PS: non-random signature, as indicated above [1] https://www.getdigital.de/LART-Netzwerkpeitsche-CAT5-o-Nine-Tails.html -- The discussion meandered along a little further, wandering into important topics like potentially sponsoring a pony if a humane way could be found to brand it with the openSUSE logo — a brilliant opportunity that, for some unknown reason, was not pursued further. [from https://lwn.net/Articles/776324/] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Le dimanche 15 mars 2020 à 05:11:38, Stefan Seyfried a écrit :

Ok,

let's start with "sorry that I add another mail to this thread"

Am 15.03.20 um 16:12 schrieb Christian Boltz:

...

That's his public face, and I know and agree that he has done quite some good things for openSUSE. I also understand that your "outside view" picture looks exactly like you describe it.

Sadly I have also seen some things that clearly don't fit into this positive picture :-( Most of them were in private or in board meetings (which also means I can't easily disclose them), therefore you'll have to trust me that your picture is totally incomplete.

Unfortunately, I have reasons to totally believe you.

Even though I right now only remember a single incident (lucky me I'm forgetting such things quickly, partly preserving my sanity and health), toxic actions from Richard in the past made me repeatedly thinking about reconsidering my involvement with this community. This goes for a long time, probably back to when I was still employed by SUSE (pre-2010).

The thing I still remember vividly is the "Let's enforce the Group tag removal in all packages NOW" war that he started some months ago.

...

At least a few things went public - see for example the link in my non- random signature.

I also know that Sarah isn't the only person who (diplomatically spoken) doesn't like Richard anymore.

At least for Richard and me that goes both ways. There are one or two occurences in the factory mailing list, where we both were mildly suprised that we agreed on some topic. But probably not more than three ;-)

Now the fact that me and Richard cannot honestly described as "Friends" was actually the reason for me to not participate in this part of the discussion. But if it starts to look like "OK, Christian and Sarah have a Problem with Richard, but they are the only ones and thus it is obvously their fault", I have to speak up.

And now what ? What are we trying to accomplish in this thread ? Justice ? Provide a good image of the community in fully public list ? Motivate members to involve themselves in the Board ? Haha... (sad laugh) Mistakes have been made and I feel sorry for people that received an unfair treatment, this should have not happened. But draging other persons name in the mud won't do any good. We are not going anywhere here. -- 'When there is no more room at school, the dumb will walk the Earth.' Sébastien 'sogal' Poher

Dne neděle 15. března 2020 17:50:29 CET, Sarah Julia Kriesch napsal(a):

...

...

At least for Richard and me that goes both ways. There are one or two occurences in the factory mailing list, where we both were mildly suprised that we agreed on some topic. But probably not more than three ;-) Now the fact that me and Richard cannot honestly described as "Friends" was actually the reason for me to not participate in this part of the discussion.

One doesn't have to friend with someone to be able to work with him/her...

...

...

But if it starts to look like "OK, Christian and Sarah have a Problem with Richard, but they are the only ones and thus it is obvously their fault", I have to speak up.

And now what ? What are we trying to accomplish in this thread ? Justice ? Provide a good image of the community in fully public list ? Motivate members to involve themselves in the Board ?

The reason for our resignation is public now.

And? I don't know who is in right and who isn't. And I tempt to care less and less. IMHO personal statements about who did what (some years ago) is not helping anyone, but even slowly starts to be really ridiculous... As there is no way to change past and I don't see better solution for future, isn't it time for stopping personal discussion and move forward? (If there is that No- Confidence Vote, I vote against.)

...

Haha... (sad laugh) Mistakes have been made and I feel sorry for people that received an unfair treatment, this should have not happened. But draging other persons name in the mud won't do any good. We are not going anywhere here.

This unfair decision was made by the existing Board (excluded Vinz). We should look whether we would be able to find enough candidates for a whole new Board

Definitely not in current atmosphere.

or whether we want to fill only the position by Christian.

AFAIK there is no single candidate so far. <sarcasm>I wonder why.</sarcasm> -- Vojtěch Zeisek https://trapa.cz/ Komunita openSUSE GNU/Linuxu Community of the openSUSE GNU/Linux https://www.opensuse.org/

As far as I know, the application period has not started yet. Based on some reactions in this mailing list, I hope that the opposite may happen and that some persons that have been disappointed by the recent events will step up in order to contribute to the Board, instead of just criticizing and calling for blood.

I don't think that there was any call for blood. My hope is rather like what you wrote, members stepping up and contribute. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

So you are running for the upcoming board election?

I do not intent to. But you are free to nominate me. If not nominated by any other member I will not run for upcoming board elections. In my eyes that might have a negative connotation in the light of my call for a no-confidence vote. Though if someone nominates me I am willing to accept that nomination and run for board elections. I don't shy away from the responsibility. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Wed 2020-03-18, Pierre Böckmann wrote:

...

So you are running for the upcoming board election? I do not intent to. But you are free to nominate me.

If not nominated by any other member I will not run for upcoming board elections. In my eyes that might have a negative connotation in the light of my call for a no-confidence vote.

Though if someone nominates me I am willing to accept that nomination and run for board elections. I don't shy away from the responsibility.

Sooo (and I meant to write this days ago): I thus nominate you for the forthcoming board election. :-) I do acknowledge some may be scratching their heads ;-), yet I genuinely believe this can be a good match. Gerald

Le dimanche 15 mars 2020 à 05:50:29, Sarah Julia Kriesch a écrit :

...

...

At least for Richard and me that goes both ways. There are one or two occurences in the factory mailing list, where we both were mildly suprised that we agreed on some topic. But probably not more than three ;-)

Now the fact that me and Richard cannot honestly described as "Friends" was actually the reason for me to not participate in this part of the discussion. But if it starts to look like "OK, Christian and Sarah have a Problem with Richard, but they are the only ones and thus it is obvously their fault", I have to speak up.

And now what ? What are we trying to accomplish in this thread ? Justice ? Provide a good image of the community in fully public list ? Motivate members to involve themselves in the Board ?

The reason for our resignation is public now.

Was it necessary ? Is this community feels better and saner now ? You have my sincere sympathy and I felt bad for you after your name was exposed. This should not have happened, but after that all parties involved have made bad mistakes. Call it a draw.

...

Haha... (sad laugh)

Mistakes have been made and I feel sorry for people that received an unfair treatment, this should have not happened. But draging other persons name in the mud won't do any good. We are not going anywhere here.

This unfair decision was made by the existing Board (excluded Vinz). We should look whether we would be able to find enough candidates for a whole new Board or whether we want to fill only the position by Christian.

Best regards, Sarah

As Gerald stated [0], this proces is ongoing. Best regards, [0] https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2020-03/msg00121.html -- 'When there is no more room at school, the dumb will walk the Earth.' Sébastien 'sogal' Poher

On Sun, Mar 15, 2020 at 17:11, Stefan Seyfried wrote:

Am 15.03.20 um 16:12 schrieb Christian Boltz:

...

At least a few things went public - see for example the link in my non- random signature.

I also know that Sarah isn't the only person who (diplomatically spoken) doesn't like Richard anymore.

At least for Richard and me that goes both ways. There are one or two occurences in the factory mailing list, where we both were mildly suprised that we agreed on some topic. But probably not more than three ;-)

Now the fact that me and Richard cannot honestly described as "Friends" was actually the reason for me to not participate in this part of the discussion. But if it starts to look like "OK, Christian and Sarah have a Problem with Richard, but they are the only ones and thus it is obvously their fault", I have to speak up.

By no means is Richard perfect, but we might be onto something here. Let me baselessly speculate that we might have the reason as to why 3 of the board members left, not just 2 we thought of earlier. And the actual reason as to why Sarah was kicked out too. Wouldn't that be a funny coincidence for a twist like that to be revealed in a completely unrelated email chain. And if that's the case, what a bunch of shitty people we are... LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Sun, Mar 15, 2020 at 18:12, Knurpht-openSUSE wrote:

Op zondag 15 maart 2020 17:56:05 CET schreef Stasiek Michalski: There never was a third board member that resigned due to a conflict with Richard. Never. Only one board member stepped down during the last 4 years, so we know who we're referring too and this - I repeat - had nothing to do with conflicts inside or outside the board. Nothing. So, please stop this now.

This was about Richard and Sarah. As a reminder, Richard was a member of the board up until very recently. I didn't mean Ana, I know her reasons for stepping down were unrelated. LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

ENOUGH! STOP IT! NO MORE! Do none of you see what you are doing? Throughout the past several decades, I have watched many Volunteer Organizations self-destruct and their projects evaporate into the swirling winds of time, all with exactly what all of you are doing right now. Note that almost every single one of you taking part in this Project Destroying discussion are consistently breaking the Guiding Principles. And, most importantly, you are building the coffin for the entire openSUSE Project. So, STOP, NOW, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!! -- -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 Sun, Mar 15, 2020 at 13:49, Christian Boltz wrote:

Hello,

Am Samstag, 14. März 2020, 22:05:02 CET schrieb Stasiek Michalski: ...

...

...

Additionally, I have asked the Heroes Team for their wishes and my suggestions were exactly what they need. So in my point of view I have spoken as a Board Member candidate with "(...)it's not the Board's job to tell our infrastructure volunteers or sponsors how to do their job." in the best interest for the community and Richard against their wishes/ the Team.

Where is he against anything? He just stated he was dissatisfied with the admin@o.o's response time regardless of the location, and for all I know, this might have been the case for him.

Yes, maybe that this was the case for Richard - but I don't think that's a surprise when you see what he wrote about he heroes:

...

...

- There is no evidence that Provo issues take any longer than Nuremberg issues, therefore there is no evidence that moving openSUSE infra from Provo to Nuremberg is a good solution

For everybody who ever had the "fun" of trying to get something done in Provo, it's clear that this statement can only be a bad joke. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the heroes even took this as an offense.

Still waiting for lizards dump.

There were also some previous (IIRC non-public) events that, well, probably don't improve the response times for admin@ tickets from Richard.

I won't claim that the response time of the heroes is always perfect, but I'm _very_ sure the average response time is far better than what we get from Provo.

Of course, it was easy for Richard to look for some old open tickets and post the links to them to "show" that the response time isn't perfect for these tickets - but I could easily show lots of closed tickets that were handled within some hours to prove the opposite, or <sarcasm> could search bugzilla for old open bugs assigned to Richard </sarcasm>.

Knowing my own bugzilla list, I avoid some of that on purpose and wouldn't like to face any of that ;)

In his time as chairman, Richard had some "fun" with MF-IT (for example to get access to the wiki servers to enable the migration to Nuremberg) and should know that having a problem in Provo is a serious issue, and that getting it fixed needs lots of time, nerves and often escalations.

Sadly this didn't improve, as you have for example seen with all the delays while we tried to get the forums database dump. There are some non-public details, but it's probably enough to say that Gerald (and some other people) had quite some "fun" with various people to finally get the database dump.

I am already taking over a year on one of the tickets, and I just joined. For some of the tickets, I am waiting for SUSE IT before proceeding, and I cannot call that quick either. Heroes actually respond quickly, yes, but if the matters go into something they cannot answer, you will be waiting for a while. That includes SUSE IT, MF IT and community (which coincidentally includes Richard with his kubic.o.o setup). A quick reminder that SUSE IT is as a matter of fact in NBG too.

Also, you probably remember the fun of trying to get a database dump for news.o.o ;-) Luckily you found out that the export from the wordpress backend was good enough to do the migration.

The news.o.o RSS feed (before you migrated news.o.o to jekyll and to Nuremberg) is another example - it broke with every wordpress update. The fix was boring and easy - a well-known one-line addition to one file which takes a minute to apply. Nevertheless, it typically took weeks or even months (and several reminder mails) to get it fixed.

If we get such simple requests to admin@, they often get handled instantly because the actual fix takes less time than having to read the ticket a second time ;-)

Back to news.o.o - luckily you solved this with the migration to jekyll. Thanks again for all your hard work on this and the other things you do in the heroes!

I only have myself to blame for my negligence and stupidity when initially handling this situation :D LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Sun, Mar 15, 2020 at 16:07, Stefan Seyfried wrote:

Am 15.03.20 um 15:53 schrieb Stasiek Michalski:

...

A quick reminder that SUSE IT is as a matter of fact in NBG too.

Yes. But as I understand it, the problem is, that in Provo, everything (small config or code changes for example) needs to be requested from IT, while in the NBG datacenter, the Heroes get OS level access to "their" machines and have to reach out only if things like Network cabling changes or maybe remote console access are needed. That's certainly a lot more that can be handled by the Heroes team if the service is running out of NBG.

If I misunderstood that, please excuse the noise.

That's correct, we do have much better access to that infra. I obviously really appreciate that, because it means heroes actually can exist as they do right now. The problem with SUSE IT is mostly the problem of communication. LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Op zaterdag 14 maart 2020 22:20:13 CET schreef Knurpht-openSUSE:

Op zaterdag 14 maart 2020 20:12:10 CET schreef Sarah Julia Kriesch:

...

Did you have a look into our Board list after the resignation of 2 Board Members? That is no surprise for the interrelated protection.

Sorry, but I fail to understand what you're writing here. Please elaborate.

Guess I have to reply to you and myself her. No, I haven't had access: The day before the handover meeting, i.e. the monday after the publication of the election results, Christian forcibly unsubscribed me from the board@o.o . Yet, I still need some explanation for the last sentence of the quote of your post. -- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Forums Team -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Hello, Am Sonntag, 15. März 2020, 15:42:36 CET schrieb Knurpht-openSUSE:

Op zaterdag 14 maart 2020 22:20:13 CET schreef Knurpht-openSUSE:

...

Op zaterdag 14 maart 2020 20:12:10 CET schreef Sarah Julia Kriesch:

...

Did you have a look into our Board list after the resignation of 2 Board Members? That is no surprise for the interrelated protection.> Sorry, but I fail to understand what you're writing here. Please elaborate. Guess I have to reply to you and myself her. No, I haven't had access:

The day before the handover meeting, i.e. the monday after the publication of the election results, Christian forcibly unsubscribed me from the board@o.o .

Not really ;-) I rarely touch the lists.o.o server, and never unsubscribed someone [1]. IIRC Gerald asked me to unsubscribe you (and to subscribe Sarah), and I forwarded his request to Per who manages lists.o.o. There were no bad intententions included, it's just the normal process when someone joins or leaves the board. Regards, Christian Boltz [1] Well, except a chown on a specific file so that I could unsubscribe myself from board@ - but that was some weeks later. -- I am not a Dictator, I can think of no example where I've ordered anyone to do anything. And I would expect people to stare at me funny and tell me 'no', if I tried. [Richard Brown in opensuse-project] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Gesendet: Freitag, 13. März 2020 um 13:57 Uhr Von: "Michal Kubecek" An: opensuse-project@opensuse.org Betreff: Re: [opensuse-project] Call for a No-Confidence Vote - Re-Election of the openSUSE board

Well, apparently I'm not the only one who feels that all this effort to make things as silent as possible was a way to allow the rest of the board to save _their_ faces. And I can't blame either of the two board ex-members for changing their mind eventually and starting to defend themselves.

I don't use any names because (as Christian said that, too) that would bring somebody in a bad light. But I can say that the hottest topic was the "substantially unequal treatment" of us and the exclusion of our opinions (or ignoring). The decision was made without us and I was not allowed to stand up for myself. I had only those two options mentioned by Marina. The third option by Axel was only a joke after the resignation. I have to repeat that I have asked all Board Members (who would work with me together) in the last year whether they want to see me in the openSUSE Board again. I would not have applied if I had received a rejection. That has happened after my application period. As Christian said the process on opensuse-project was the starting point for the turnaround. I am using facts and quote what was written by others, too. The openSUSE Board has approved these facts with their email. Best regards, Sarah

Michal Kubecek

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

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On 13.03.20 at 11:49 Richard Brown wrote:

For the continued future of this Project, I respectfully request that you revoke your call for a no-confidence vote immediately.

If it continues, the community needs to be under no illusion, supporting this motion puts the future of the openSUSE Project as you know it today at mortal risk.

If the community agrees, less than 20% will vote for this proposal. That is what votes are for. Of course, I hope that most of the community will step up and actively vote (whether pro or contra does not matter, but please speak your voice). Johannes -- Johannes Kastl Linux Consultant & Trainer Tel.: +49 (0) 151 2372 5802 Mail: kastl@b1-systems.de B1 Systems GmbH Osterfeldstraße 7 / 85088 Vohburg http://www.b1-systems.de GF: Ralph Dehner Unternehmenssitz: Vohburg / AG: Ingolstadt,HRB 3537

Maurizio Galli (MauG) composed on 2020-03-13 22:19 (UTC+0800):

All due respect but this is a massive waste of people's time when we could simply move on on things that are more important. But if I really have to vote, let it e on record that it is NAY, I will not support this motion. I have full confidence in the work of the current board.

+++ -- Evolution as taught in public schools is religion, not science. Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

hi, i'm not an openSUSE member, but am a new user/community member. I'm using openSUSE for current projects, with plans for the future, so i care what happens and am a little concerned with all of this. I think most of the problems demonstrated by recent events, could be reduced by better adherence to the Guiding Principles. from the guiding principles:

... openness as in open collaboration, open communication, open development, open distribution, open source code, and open mind. and

... transparency of the decision making processes, transparency of communication and transparency of work and collaboration processes. That includes openly answering questions, providing all relevant information, and actively keeping all involved parties informed. We are convinced that a transparent culture whose inner workings can be understood by everybody provides the most efficient and rewarding environment to reach our goals.

Considering the above, I would think that all board meetings and other official business should have recorded video, audio or auto-generated transcripts (as tech allows and at the board's preference) made publicly available (or available to members behind login) on a consistent basis. I've seen other software projects do this, and it seems this would inspire confidence in the project, and promote participation, courtesy, professionalism, fairness and accountability. The current meeting summaries are a good start, but not enough, IMHO. Maybe good enough for the completely public (non-member) account of events, if the project chose to have two tiers. How are members supposed to be informed voters if they are not allowed to actually get to know the board members' past/current openSUSE legislative, executive, judicial, and behavioral/human interaction record (if you will)? Also, look at what has happened by trying to keep the recent events private. I doubt very seriously, that having the interactions public or member-accessible from the beginning, wouldn't have been better for the project. Just the fact that it would be public, might have changed how things manifested in the first place. Maybe not, idk what happened... (i don't think the fact that the discord channel could have been joined by anyone is relevant in this context. Participants likely felt it was somewhat private. I'm talking about the difference between how things are handled now, and publishing all official business in full, in a prominent place every time, so people can start consuming it at their leisure, and participants know this will happen, in advance.) I've never been on any board, so if there are people who think there are good reasons to not make official openSUSE business available to members (seemingly per the Guiding Principles), then an example scenario might be helpful. "Trust us, it's better this way" could be true, but doesn't alleviate concerns very well. All this being said, i'm not advocating that the current situation gets exacerbated with a No Confidence vote, or retroactively enforce more complete transparency. I'm just suggesting that things might could be clarified and improved going forward, so that this occurrence didn't happen in vain, and might can be avoided in the future. thanks ITwrx -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Hi,

Disclaimer, I am on the board, this email is my opinion not that of the board in general. I'm also intentionally choosing to comment only in general rather then on anything specific.

...

hi,

i'm not an openSUSE member, but am a new user/community member. I'm using openSUSE for current projects, with plans for the future, so i care what happens and am a little concerned with all of this. I think most of the problems demonstrated by recent events, could be reduced by better adherence to the Guiding Principles.

from the guiding principles:

...

... openness as in open collaboration, open communication, open development, open distribution, open source code, and open mind. and

...

... transparency of the decision making processes, transparency of communication and transparency of work and collaboration processes. That includes openly answering questions, providing all relevant information, and actively keeping all involved parties informed. We are convinced that a transparent culture whose inner workings can be understood by everybody provides the most efficient and rewarding environment to reach our goals.

Considering the above, I would think that all board meetings and other official business should have recorded video, audio or auto-generated transcripts (as tech allows and at the board's preference) made publicly available (or available to members behind login) on a consistent basis. I've seen other software projects do this, and it seems this would inspire confidence in the project, and promote participation, courtesy, professionalism, fairness and accountability. The current meeting summaries are a good start, but not enough, IMHO. Maybe good enough for the completely public (non-member) account of events, if the project chose to have two tiers.

How are members supposed to be informed voters if they are not allowed to actually get to know the board members' past/current openSUSE legislative, executive, judicial, and behavioral/human interaction record (if you will)? Also, look at what has happened by trying to keep the recent events private. I doubt very seriously, that having the interactions public or member-accessible from the beginning, wouldn't have been better for the project. Just the fact that it would be public, might have changed how things manifested in the first place. Maybe not, idk what happened...

(i don't think the fact that the discord channel could have been joined by anyone is relevant in this context. Participants likely felt it was somewhat private. I'm talking about the difference between how things are handled now, and publishing all official business in full, in a prominent place every time, so people can start consuming it at their leisure, and participants know this will happen, in advance.)

I've never been on any board, so if there are people who think there are good reasons to not make official openSUSE business available to members (seemingly per the Guiding Principles), then an example scenario might be helpful. "Trust us, it's better this way" could be true, but doesn't alleviate concerns very well.

All this being said, i'm not advocating that the current situation gets exacerbated with a No Confidence vote, or retroactively enforce more complete transparency. I'm just suggesting that things might could be clarified and improved going forward, so that this occurrence didn't happen in vain, and might can be avoided in the future. Due to the nature of what we mostly deal with as the board it isn't always possible to make everything public, the board is often presented with ideas or proposals from companies etc that are still under NDA or in many cases most of there employees don't even know. They do this because they value our feedback and input, having to publicly disclose all parts of all meetings would mean the board would no longer be in a

On 3/15/20 2:51 AM, ITwrx wrote: position to provide input on such things and in some cases would lead to the loss of some opportunities for the openSUSE project. I would think these meetings or sections of meetings could be redacted from the record. Perhaps, as long as promises/final decisions weren't being made in private meetings.

The second thing is the majority of the project has decided that its best for everyone involved if conflicts between maintainers remain as private as possible at least in most cases which is why the board tends to keep these matters private. This is what i don't understand/disagree with, in the sense that, how/why are these interactions private to begin with? How is this not openSUSE business and taking place on official, public/members-only communication channels to begin with? (if maintainers: openSUSE bug

On 3/15/20 1:07 AM, Simon Lees wrote: tracker, git repos, etc)  How is the current stance not contrary to the Guiding Principles? If openSUSE business were (mostly) public/members-only, then interactions would tend to be more professional and members would all know when something got out of hand, and all the info would be there for the decision making processes without all of the "cloak and dagger", secret confidentiality agreements that may not hold up under questioning, agonizing over what to *release* (i thought it was open?), possible community fallout, and bad PR for the project. Private/personal stuff would actually be private/personal (should never be brought into openSUSE business by third parties, unless maybe there were a protocol for egregious private occurrences), and not actual openSUSE stuff that is being kept from the public/members.

Beyond that we try to document as much as possible publicly in our minutes, i'll get back to polishing up the minutes from the last meeting (they got delayed due to holidays, other personal reasons and the board dealing with other things). Thanks for your work, but this is another benefit of just recording the meetings and publishing. Less liability too, as you could always be accused of the minutes being polished a little too well. :)

At least for the last number of years generally the successful board candidates have been people who are generally pretty active in other parts of the project so while you may not be able to judge a board member on absolutely every decision they make, hopefully you can generally see enough of peoples actions in the general community to decide if you think they would make a good board candidate worth voting for.

Cheers

Fair enough, but that requires more effort to research, where as a member could just watch/listen/read a few meetings, and get a good idea with whom they agree/like. --------------------- Thanks for your detailed response above. ITwrx -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 3/15/20 6:39 PM, Simon Lees wrote:

On 3/16/20 1:51 AM, ITwrx wrote:

...

On 3/15/20 1:07 AM, Simon Lees wrote:

...

Hi,

Disclaimer, I am on the board, this email is my opinion not that of the board in general. I'm also intentionally choosing to comment only in general rather then on anything specific.

...

hi,

i'm not an openSUSE member, but am a new user/community member. I'm using openSUSE for current projects, with plans for the future, so i care what happens and am a little concerned with all of this. I think most of the problems demonstrated by recent events, could be reduced by better adherence to the Guiding Principles.

from the guiding principles:

...

... openness as in open collaboration, open communication, open development, open distribution, open source code, and open mind. and

...

... transparency of the decision making processes, transparency of communication and transparency of work and collaboration processes. That includes openly answering questions, providing all relevant information, and actively keeping all involved parties informed. We are convinced that a transparent culture whose inner workings can be understood by everybody provides the most efficient and rewarding environment to reach our goals.

Considering the above, I would think that all board meetings and other official business should have recorded video, audio or auto-generated transcripts (as tech allows and at the board's preference) made publicly available (or available to members behind login) on a consistent basis. I've seen other software projects do this, and it seems this would inspire confidence in the project, and promote participation, courtesy, professionalism, fairness and accountability. The current meeting summaries are a good start, but not enough, IMHO. Maybe good enough for the completely public (non-member) account of events, if the project chose to have two tiers.

How are members supposed to be informed voters if they are not allowed to actually get to know the board members' past/current openSUSE legislative, executive, judicial, and behavioral/human interaction record (if you will)? Also, look at what has happened by trying to keep the recent events private. I doubt very seriously, that having the interactions public or member-accessible from the beginning, wouldn't have been better for the project. Just the fact that it would be public, might have changed how things manifested in the first place. Maybe not, idk what happened...

(i don't think the fact that the discord channel could have been joined by anyone is relevant in this context. Participants likely felt it was somewhat private. I'm talking about the difference between how things are handled now, and publishing all official business in full, in a prominent place every time, so people can start consuming it at their leisure, and participants know this will happen, in advance.)

I've never been on any board, so if there are people who think there are good reasons to not make official openSUSE business available to members (seemingly per the Guiding Principles), then an example scenario might be helpful. "Trust us, it's better this way" could be true, but doesn't alleviate concerns very well.

All this being said, i'm not advocating that the current situation gets exacerbated with a No Confidence vote, or retroactively enforce more complete transparency. I'm just suggesting that things might could be clarified and improved going forward, so that this occurrence didn't happen in vain, and might can be avoided in the future. Due to the nature of what we mostly deal with as the board it isn't always possible to make everything public, the board is often presented with ideas or proposals from companies etc that are still under NDA or in many cases most of there employees don't even know. They do this because they value our feedback and input, having to publicly disclose all parts of all meetings would mean the board would no longer be in a

On 3/15/20 2:51 AM, ITwrx wrote: position to provide input on such things and in some cases would lead to the loss of some opportunities for the openSUSE project. I would think these meetings or sections of meetings could be redacted from the record. Perhaps, as long as promises/final decisions weren't being made in private meetings. This is basically the way this currently works.

...

...

The second thing is the majority of the project has decided that its best for everyone involved if conflicts between maintainers remain as private as possible at least in most cases which is why the board tends to keep these matters private. This is what i don't understand/disagree with, in the sense that, how/why are these interactions private to begin with? How is this not openSUSE business and taking place on official, public/members-only communication channels to begin with? (if maintainers: openSUSE bug tracker, git repos, etc)  How is the current stance not contrary to the Guiding Principles?

If openSUSE business were (mostly) public/members-only, then interactions would tend to be more professional and members would all know when something got out of hand, and all the info would be there for the decision making processes without all of the "cloak and dagger", secret confidentiality agreements that may not hold up under questioning, agonizing over what to *release* (i thought it was open?), possible community fallout, and bad PR for the project. Generally all the people working on openSUSE are pretty good at this and act in a professional manner, ocassionally two or more members might be in disagrement about how to implement a certain feature for example, in these cases its far more efficient for the board to mediate and help the two parties find a solution that hopefully both parties can be happy with. This often works better then posting to a public mailing list and asking every man and his dog for an opinion which has a tendency to descend into flamewars etc, generally if we reach a compromise that both parties accept we tend to move on and not include the issue in detail in our minutes to avoid unnecessary discussions around the topic when a solution has already be found.

...

Private/personal stuff would actually be private/personal (should never be brought into openSUSE business by third parties, unless maybe there were a protocol for egregious private occurrences), and not actual openSUSE stuff that is being kept from the public/members. What i'm referring to here in this case is more examples where people are not acting professionally within openSUSE communication channels including things like violating the the code of conduct / guiding principles. When this occurs in openSUSE communication channels it is the boards responsibility to address these issues so that other members of the community feel that they can contribute safely. Generally the last thing that someone who has been attacked / abused needs is for this fact to be broadcast to the greater community which is why the board generally doesn't publish all the info in these cases.

...

...

Beyond that we try to document as much as possible publicly in our minutes, i'll get back to polishing up the minutes from the last meeting (they got delayed due to holidays, other personal reasons and the board dealing with other things). Thanks for your work, but this is another benefit of just recording the meetings and publishing. Less liability too, as you could always be accused of the minutes being polished a little too well. :) Yep that may be the case sometimes, the current board has decided that it prefers to be able to discuss a large number of options / solutions to problems in private possibly with some of them being quite controversial then ending up in at a point where we have agreement on one solution, while we will always publish the decision and whether it was unanimous or not we sometimes choose not to include every single thing we discussed to reach that point. (Other boards have decided to do slightly different in the past). People have also run for the board in the past saying that they want more transparency and to make everything public then once elected have quickly realised there are some cases were publishing everything isn't the best idea.

...

...

At least for the last number of years generally the successful board candidates have been people who are generally pretty active in other parts of the project so while you may not be able to judge a board member on absolutely every decision they make, hopefully you can generally see enough of peoples actions in the general community to decide if you think they would make a good board candidate worth voting for.

Cheers

Fair enough, but that requires more effort to research, where as a member could just watch/listen/read a few meetings, and get a good idea with whom they agree/like. This might be true, but the maximum term for someone on the board is 4 years at a time and people are only reelected every second year which means that generally most of the time the majority of candidates running have not sat on the board before. So to do reasonable research members will always have to look in other places to do research anyway. Although as I said previously most successful candidates are generally pretty involved in the project to start with so many members already have a reasonable idea who they are and whether they would be suitable.

...

Thanks for your detailed response above.

No problems

...

ITwrx

Thanks for your responses and letting me say my piece. I leave it to the members and board members to decide how things are. I just felt like i would regret it if i didn't say anything and things went down hill over time. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Am Sonntag, 15. März 2020, 22:27:19 CET schrieb Carl Symons:

Would someone with the requisite authority please take steps to reconstitute the Board according to bylaws and get openSUSE beyond this?

That already happened two days ago. [1] Answer by election officials is yet open but we're all volunteers here with some sort of off-openSUSE life, right? Or do you mean something different? Cheers, vinz. [1] https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2020-03/msg00121.html -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Le 15/03/2020 à 22:27, Carl Symons a écrit :

Please stop.

With over 60 messages in this thread, there is little sign of resolution. Lots of emotion; not much progress.

Would someone with the requisite authority please take steps to reconstitute the Board according to bylaws and get openSUSE beyond this?

I support this. two people on the board couldn't live together, OK, too bad. But neither one nor the other are anymore board members, so can we stop confusing people and see how we can fix the real problem: have a full board? thanks jdd -- http://dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Le ven. 20 mars 2020 à 21:06, jdd@dodin.org a écrit :

Le 20/03/2020 à 17:41, Ish Sookun a écrit :

...

Dear community members,

The election officials are currently discussing how to proceed with the raised matter. Sincere apologies for the slow reaction. We will share our conclusion soon.

Regards,

Ish Sookun

On behalf of the Election Committee

yes, this comity could be a good third party arbiter

jdd

Well, I am not sure that "arbitrating" is the Election Committee's job. I might be mistaking but I think its job is just to organize the elections when they must take place (this includes elections required by more thant 20% of the membership as per the rules) and enforce the elections rules, make sure that candidates campaigns are correctly done... As far as I read, only Pierre has called for a no-confidence vote, he was joined by only 2 or 3 others that agreed more or less. I am not good at math but so this seems for from 20% so in my opinion there was no need to disturb the Election officials for that. -- 'When there is no more room at school, the dumb will walk the Earth.' Sébastien 'sogal' Poher -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org