Hi Lubos - Thanks for your kind words and thoughtful questions. I'll do my best to answer them clearly. In the interest of full disclosure to those who may not be aware, Lubos, Simon Lees, and Doug Demaio are all members of teams who ultimately report to me. Your concerns aren't just hypotheticals. The TL;DR is that I view being an employee of SUSE and a member of the openSUSE community as separate but complementary. I'm throwing my hat in the ring because there is a need for people to serve. I'd encourage anyone in (or outside of) my reporting line at SUSE to run for an open board seat. Competition is good! If it turns out that the community chooses other candidates over me, I won't have any hard feelings and the project will benefit. While I suppose I could use my position to influence employees to take a stance on a board issue or to "get out of the way", it would be pretty heavy handed and against my own values. Unless the role being assumed is also a professional duty (i.e. board seats at various foundations that SUSE is a member of), service of this kind is independent of our roles as employees of SUSE. Like everyone, of course, I do have opinions of my own and those can sometimes conflict with the opinions of other openSUSE members or board members. I try to make it clear that when I'm discussing topics in the community, I'm doing it as a peer community member without any undue influence over any other community member and not in my role as a SUSE leader. I don’t expect that to change. HTH, -Jeff On 12/3/24 07:28, Lubos Kocman wrote:

Hi Jeff,

Many thanks for stepping up!

Aside from your personal contribution, I see a big benefit in having somebody with control over resources within BCL (Business Critical Linux at SUSE) on board. I believe you would contribute to what I believe the board needs which is more executive rights in decision-making, given numerous long-lasting topics.

If I'm not mistaken Shawn is the only member who remains on the board who is not from SUSE. I believe this will also be one of the factors for this election. Please see the 40% *Company affiliation rule.

The voting committee would have to look into how to handle the situation in case we do not have additional candidates from outside of SUSE.

Anyway, part of the remaining board members from SUSE would be down your chain. And in case there is another candidate from SUSE (even in future elections), it will be very likely somebody down the BCL chain.

My question combines both of these aspects:

What is your opinion on board independence with existing members and candidates as well as the ensuring same weight of opinions with subordinate x supervisor "clash of opinions" in the openSUSE Board?

Thank you very much in advance

Lubos

[0] https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules#Company_affiliation:_2 Lubos

On Mon, Dec 2, 2024 at 5:50 PM Jeff Mahoney <jeffm@suse.com> wrote:

...

Hi folks -

I saw the message today about there being no nominations for the open Board seats and am announcing my candidacy for one of the seats.

I've been a member of the openSUSE project since the beginning and a SUSE/openSUSE user since the late 90s. I've been a SUSE employee for the past 24 years, starting as a kernel file system developer, and after a few title changes, now serve as VP of Engineering for Linux Systems.

At the openSUSE Conference in Nuernberg this summer, we had some lively discussions across a number of topics, including renaming, process, and governance. I have some interest in improving the governance process without re-inventing the wheel as a lever to drive community/user base growth.

Thanks for your consideration. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

-Jeff

-- Jeff Mahoney VP Engineering, Linux Systems

--

Best regards

Luboš Kocman openSUSE Leap Release Manager

-- Jeff Mahoney VP Engineering, Linux Systems

On 2024-12-03 14:21, Henne Vogelsang wrote:

Hey Jeff,

On 12/2/24 5:50 PM, Jeff Mahoney wrote:

...

At the openSUSE Conference in Nuernberg this summer, we had some lively discussions across a number of topics, including renaming, process, and governance. I have some interest in improving the governance process without re-inventing the wheel as a lever to drive community/user base growth.

Cool! Can you elaborate please? What are you interested in particularly? Sounds like you have some ideas.

Oh an I would also like understand why you think a board candidacy would put you in a better position to implement those improvements?

Henne

That would be my main interest also. The Board's documented role is as a conflict resolution and communication facilitation body. [1] I think many Board members past and present (myself included) have tripped up thinking the role gave additional empowerment to steer or direct our community of volunteers, which is not a power the Board is chartered with, nor one I think it's been very effective at when it's tried anyway. I think some, if not all of the ideas you might have Jeff don't require you to be a Board member to help drive..in fact I think being a member of that body may actually be a hindrance; Changes to names, process, governance are likely to be contentious, leading to conflict, which then leaves one unable to do their duty as a Board member resolving conflict when it's the Board that's caused it... Been there, done that, got that T-shirt, would hope you don't follow in those footsteps. [1] https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board -- Richard Brown