[opensuse-project] Working on Foundation & Governance
Hi all, as you can see in the minutes [1] for the last board meeting on 2020-08-04 we once again talked about the long standing topic of an openSUSE foundation. This came up in the light of the past months and the recent thread on this mailing list where governance structures were discussed. [2] Quoting the minutes "We need to broaden the group of people working on foundation" this is where we want to give the topic a push here on project ML. To give everyone an overview of what is done until now I condensed documents floating around in the wiki at "Current state". [3] *The why* The openSUSE community has the reputation of being progressive and thriving in terms of technical aspects. This is where the "do-ocracy" works impressively. Yet our organizational structure sometimes lacks behind, which is why we need to talk. There are good reasons for an independent openSUSE legal entity that have been already been discussed extensively before. Yet this comes with governance structures being not only necessary but also obligate. Having had structural challenging times recently and an obvious need from the community for progressive discussions makes the picture complete somehow. So throwing both topics together is just a logical consequence there. *To do* So I hereby invite everyone interested to chime in. Please get to know what's already been done on the first hand. And then give input, constructive criticism and ideas on both parts of the story - Foundation and Governance. *A few thoughts on the practical side* To add comments on the existing stuff it might be good to copy text to some etherpad for collaborative work. If desired we also can set up a conference call or even revive the pre-existing mailing list. [4] [5] Looking forward to healthy and interesting discussions! vinz. [1] https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2020-08/msg00064.html [2] https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2020-07/msg00085.html ff. [3] https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Foundation [4] https://etherpad.opensuse.org [5] https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-foundation/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 20:22, Vinzenz Vietzke
*A few thoughts on the practical side* To add comments on the existing stuff it might be good to copy text to some etherpad for collaborative work. If desired we also can set up a conference call or even revive the pre-existing mailing list. [4] [5]
+1 on the call and/or some kind of in real time meeting (be it irc, matrix, discord, telegram, whatever) LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am Freitag, 7. August 2020, 20:22:47 CEST schrieb Vinzenz Vietzke:
*To do* So I hereby invite everyone interested to chime in. Please get to know what's already been done on the first hand. And then give input, constructive criticism and ideas on both parts of the story - Foundation and Governance.
As a follow-up to the above I'd like to remind everyone on this topic. Hopefully the low recent outcome is just because of other things or due to vacation time? vinz. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi Vinz, Hi all, Le vendredi 07 août 2020 à 20:22 +0200, Vinzenz Vietzke a écrit :
Hi all,
as you can see in the minutes [1] for the last board meeting on 2020- 08-04 we once again talked about the long standing topic of an openSUSE foundation. This came up in the light of the past months and the recent thread on this mailing list where governance structures were discussed. [2]
Quoting the minutes "We need to broaden the group of people working on foundation" this is where we want to give the topic a push here on project ML. To give everyone an overview of what is done until now I condensed documents floating around in the wiki at "Current state". [3]
*The why* The openSUSE community has the reputation of being progressive and thriving in terms of technical aspects. This is where the "do-ocracy" works impressively. Yet our organizational structure sometimes lacks behind, which is why we need to talk.
There are good reasons for an independent openSUSE legal entity that have been already been discussed extensively before. Yet this comes with governance structures being not only necessary but also obligate. Having had structural challenging times recently and an obvious need from the community for progressive discussions makes the picture complete somehow. So throwing both topics together is just a logical consequence there.
I think that working on both subjects at the same time is not necessarily a good thing. On the one hand because there is little chance that these subjects will attract a lot of people, on the other hand because the mode of governance will be closely linked to the final form of the Foundation, in particular as regards the nature of its links with SUSE. In my opinion, it is wiser to wait until we have made progress on the subject of the Foundation before considering its mode of governance. This does not preclude collecting ideas from the community, but it would be better not having to start working on this topic then change a lot of things because the solutions found won't fit in the final Foundation bylaws.
*To do* So I hereby invite everyone interested to chime in. Please get to know what's already been done on the first hand. And then give input, constructive criticism and ideas on both parts of the story - Foundation and Governance.
It's a subject that interests me, I'm also currently working on the issue of governance at my work (in a cooperative society). The recent and unfortunate discussions have shown that this is an important subject which the community cannot ignore and which cannot simply rest on the shoulders of the Council. The content of the wiki [3] is a good starting point which I think needs to be refined. I started an Etherpad [6] by rereading the original topic [7] (over a year ago already!) and noting some points in order to summarize past discussions. I also tried to look for resources (in English) on the subject (German Stiftung) in order to see more clearly concerning the legal aspects. [8] [9].
*A few thoughts on the practical side* To add comments on the existing stuff it might be good to copy text to some etherpad for collaborative work. If desired we also can set up a conference call or even revive the pre-existing mailing list. [4] [5]
I support a mailing list which I find more open and easier to follow for those who wish to contribute. There is no need to be online all the time and it's easier to catch up on discussions
Looking forward to healthy and interesting discussions!
vinz.
[1] https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2020-08/msg00064.html [2] https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2020-07/msg00085.html ff. [3] https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Foundation [4] https://etherpad.opensuse.org [5] https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-foundation/
Have a nice day. [6] https://etherpad.opensuse.org/p/00-foundation-ml-abstract [7] https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2019-06/msg00233.html [8] https://www.cof.org/content/nonprofit-law-germany |9] https://www.stiftungen.org/en/home/german-foundations/establishing-a-foundat... -- Sébastien 'sogal' Poher
When there's no more room at school, the dumb will walk the Earth!
Hi, On 8/24/20 7:45 AM, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher wrote:
Hi Vinz, Hi all,
Le vendredi 07 août 2020 à 20:22 +0200, Vinzenz Vietzke a écrit :
Hi all,
as you can see in the minutes [1] for the last board meeting on 2020- 08-04 we once again talked about the long standing topic of an openSUSE foundation. This came up in the light of the past months and the recent thread on this mailing list where governance structures were discussed. [2]
Quoting the minutes "We need to broaden the group of people working on foundation" this is where we want to give the topic a push here on project ML. To give everyone an overview of what is done until now I condensed documents floating around in the wiki at "Current state". [3]
*The why* The openSUSE community has the reputation of being progressive and thriving in terms of technical aspects. This is where the "do-ocracy" works impressively. Yet our organizational structure sometimes lacks behind, which is why we need to talk.
There are good reasons for an independent openSUSE legal entity that have been already been discussed extensively before. Yet this comes with governance structures being not only necessary but also obligate. Having had structural challenging times recently and an obvious need from the community for progressive discussions makes the picture complete somehow. So throwing both topics together is just a logical consequence there.
I think that working on both subjects at the same time is not necessarily a good thing. On the one hand because there is little chance that these subjects will attract a lot of people, on the other hand because the mode of governance will be closely linked to the final form of the Foundation, in particular as regards the nature of its links with SUSE. In my opinion, it is wiser to wait until we have made progress on the subject of the Foundation before considering its mode of governance. This does not preclude collecting ideas from the community, but it would be better not having to start working on this topic then change a lot of things because the solutions found won't fit in the final Foundation bylaws.
One of the reasons for choosing a Stiftung over a E.V is that a Stiftung gives us a huge amount of flexibility in terms of governance models, some of the previous boards advice is that we should be able to take our existing "board election rules" and "membership rules" drop the fact that currently the chairman can veto board decisions and it should be possible to keep basically our current governance model. The previous boards proposals to both the community and SUSE were all around keeping the governance model around the same as what it currently is. I have some more "minor" amendments i'll propose when I have some time with the idea to have them discussed etc so that the community can make an informed vote on adopting them or some variation of them during the board elections at the end of the year. But if people in the community feel that we should look at significantly changing our governance structure by adding additional body's or changing the roles of the existing board then now is the right time for those discussions so that we can put it to the membership and SUSE at the same time.
*To do* So I hereby invite everyone interested to chime in. Please get to know what's already been done on the first hand. And then give input, constructive criticism and ideas on both parts of the story - Foundation and Governance.
It's a subject that interests me, I'm also currently working on the issue of governance at my work (in a cooperative society). The recent and unfortunate discussions have shown that this is an important subject which the community cannot ignore and which cannot simply rest on the shoulders of the Council.
The content of the wiki [3] is a good starting point which I think needs to be refined. I started an Etherpad [6] by rereading the original topic [7] (over a year ago already!) and noting some points in order to summarize past discussions. I also tried to look for resources (in English) on the subject (German Stiftung) in order to see more clearly concerning the legal aspects. [8] [9].
I have also struggled with this part and have mostly relied on German speaking board members and somewhat people from other foundations. Here is a basic summary of the key points as I remember them, I guess it should also go into the wiki somewhere. **The Charter** - This is a statement on the aims goals and mission of the foundation, once the foundation is incorporated this statement can't be changed, A well written charter will give the community and SUSE comfort that the board of the foundation can't go off and start doing something radically different. For example it could state that the foundation supports free and open software / (hardware?) projects and that all the code / designs must be publicly accessible. At the same time we need to be careful not to limit ourselves to certain technologies etc, because who knows if Linux for example will be the best kernel in 50 years. **50k Seed** - Unlike many other forms of foundation setting up a Stiftung requires 50k as a seed fund. This is something previous boards have also discussed with SUSE. **No predefined legal structure.** - Stiftung's don't have a predefined governance structure in terms of the board makeup and how they are appointed which gives us significant freedom in this area. However there are quite strict rules around keeping financial accounts and yearly reporting to the point where it is unreasonable to be able to expect volunteers to do this work. For reference a Stiftung is the same legal structure Libre Office uses so we can use them as legal precedence and gain alot of ideas from what they did. Cheers -- 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
Hi all, Le lundi 24 août 2020 à 15:54 +0930, Simon Lees a écrit :
Hi,
[...]
One of the reasons for choosing a Stiftung over a E.V is that a Stiftung gives us a huge amount of flexibility in terms of governance models, some of the previous boards advice is that we should be able to take our existing "board election rules" and "membership rules" drop the fact that currently the chairman can veto board decisions and it should be possible to keep basically our current governance model. The previous boards proposals to both the community and SUSE were all around keeping the governance model around the same as what it currently is.
I have some more "minor" amendments i'll propose when I have some time with the idea to have them discussed etc so that the community can make an informed vote on adopting them or some variation of them during the board elections at the end of the year.
But if people in the community feel that we should look at significantly changing our governance structure by adding additional body's or changing the roles of the existing board then now is the right time for those discussions so that we can put it to the membership and SUSE at the same time.
Apart from specifying the future role of the current representative (will the future SUSE ambassador necessarily be the representative of the Foundation board?), I do not see any particular need to radically change the mode of governance. *To do* So I hereby invite everyone interested to chime in. Please get to know what's already been done on the first hand. And then give input, constructive criticism and ideas on both parts of the story - Foundation and Governance. It's a subject that interests me, I'm also currently working on the issue of governance at my work (in a cooperative society). The recent and unfortunate discussions have shown that this is an important subject which the community cannot ignore and which cannot simply rest on the shoulders of the Council. The content of the wiki [3] is a good starting point which I think needs to be refined. I started an Etherpad [6] by rereading the original topic [7] (over a year ago already!) and noting some points in order to summarize past discussions. I also tried to look for resources (in English) on the subject (German Stiftung) in order to see more clearly concerning the legal aspects. [8] [9].
I have also struggled with this part and have mostly relied on German speaking board members and somewhat people from other foundations. Here is a basic summary of the key points as I remember them, I guess it should also go into the wiki somewhere.
I have created a "glossary" page [0] to gather and explain the Foundation terminology. **The Charter** - This is a statement on the aims goals and mission of the foundation, once the foundation is incorporated this statement can't be changed, A well written charter will give the community and SUSE comfort that the board of the foundation can't go off and start doing something radically different. For example it could state that the foundation supports free and open software / (hardware?) projects and that all the code / designs must be publicly accessible. At the same time we need to be careful not to limit ourselves to certain technologies etc, because who knows if Linux for example will be the best kernel in 50 years. **50k Seed** - Unlike many other forms of foundation setting up a Stiftung requires 50k as a seed fund. This is something previous boards have also discussed with SUSE. **No predefined legal structure.** - Stiftung's don't have a predefined governance structure in terms of the board makeup and how they are appointed which gives us significant freedom in this area. However there are quite strict rules around keeping financial accounts and yearly reporting to the point where it is unreasonable to be able to expect volunteers to do this work. For reference a Stiftung is the same legal structure Libre Office uses so we can use them as legal precedence and gain alot of ideas from what they did.
If you're still working on this topic, how does the group of community members Vinz wants to bring together can help in this task? [0] https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Foundation_glossary -- Sébastien Poher
On 8/25/20 4:28 AM, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher wrote:
Hi all,
Le lundi 24 août 2020 à 15:54 +0930, Simon Lees a écrit :
Hi,
[...]
But if people in the community feel that we should look at significantly changing our governance structure by adding additional body's or changing the roles of the existing board then now is the right time for those discussions so that we can put it to the membership and SUSE at the same time.
Apart from specifying the future role of the current representative (will the future SUSE ambassador necessarily be the representative of the Foundation board?), I do not see any particular need to radically change the mode of governance.
The previous board that wrote the initial proposal came to pretty much the same proposal, we believed it made sense for SUSE Management to appoint someone to act as the communication channel between SUSE and the community and the most effective way for them to do that would be still having a position on the board. Our question was more around whether or not it should be a voting member. At the time we decided to leave that for discussion with the community.
*To do* So I hereby invite everyone interested to chime in. Please get to know what's already been done on the first hand. And then give input, constructive criticism and ideas on both parts of the story - Foundation and Governance.
It's a subject that interests me, I'm also currently working on the issue of governance at my work (in a cooperative society). The recent and unfortunate discussions have shown that this is an important subject which the community cannot ignore and which cannot simply rest on the shoulders of the Council.
The content of the wiki [3] is a good starting point which I think needs to be refined. I started an Etherpad [6] by rereading the original topic [7] (over a year ago already!) and noting some points in order to summarize past discussions. I also tried to look for resources (in English) on the subject (German Stiftung) in order to see more clearly concerning the legal aspects. [8] [9].
I have also struggled with this part and have mostly relied on German speaking board members and somewhat people from other foundations. Here is a basic summary of the key points as I remember them, I guess it should also go into the wiki somewhere.
I have created a "glossary" page [0] to gather and explain the Foundation terminology.
**The Charter** - This is a statement on the aims goals and mission of the foundation, once the foundation is incorporated this statement can't be changed, A well written charter will give the community and SUSE comfort that the board of the foundation can't go off and start doing something radically different. For example it could state that the foundation supports free and open software / (hardware?) projects and that all the code / designs must be publicly accessible. At the same time we need to be careful not to limit ourselves to certain technologies etc, because who knows if Linux for example will be the best kernel in 50 years.
**50k Seed** - Unlike many other forms of foundation setting up a Stiftung requires 50k as a seed fund. This is something previous boards have also discussed with SUSE.
**No predefined legal structure.** - Stiftung's don't have a predefined governance structure in terms of the board makeup and how they are appointed which gives us significant freedom in this area. However there are quite strict rules around keeping financial accounts and yearly reporting to the point where it is unreasonable to be able to expect volunteers to do this work.
For reference a Stiftung is the same legal structure Libre Office uses so we can use them as legal precedence and gain alot of ideas from what they did.
If you're still working on this topic, how does the group of community members Vinz wants to bring together can help in this task?
I have spent a considerable amount of time in the last 3 years looking at the topic of an openSUSE Foundation which is where I have gained most of this knowledge, A previous board got to the point of having an initial discussion draft available and started some community discussion, we are now at a point where we need to continue to move forward and to do that we would like to have as broad a range of community opinions and views as possible, hence rather then continuing to just do this work from inside the board we are now opening it up to any interested members of the community to help push the foundation forward so discussions and work will be done by the group of community members interested in the foundation which will likely include some board members (as some of us are community members interested in the foundation) and non board members. If that makes sense. Cheers -- 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 25/08/2020 à 14:27, Simon Lees a écrit :
discussion, we are now at a point where we need to continue to move forward and to do that we would like to have as broad a range of community opinions and views as possible, hence rather then continuing
not to bother people uninterested by this subject, may be we could revive foundation list :-) https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-foundation/ jdd -- http://dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am Dienstag, 25. August 2020, 17:23:37 CEST schrieb jdd@dodin.org:
discussion, we are now at a point where we need to continue to move forward and to do that we would like to have as broad a range of community opinions and views as possible, hence rather then continuing
not to bother people uninterested by this subject, may be we could revive foundation list
Yes, we discussed this already as an option if the traffic about foundation gets too high on this list. Which is IMO not the case yet.... Cheers Axel -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
participants (6)
-
Axel Braun -
jdd＠dodin.org -
Simon Lees -
Stasiek Michalski -
Sébastien 'sogal' Poher -
Vinzenz Vietzke