Hello Richard, somehow I had a feeling that you are going to ask something.... ;-) Am Montag, 30. November 2020, 16:17:18 CET schrieb Richard Brown:

On Mon, 2020-11-30 at 16:04 +0100, Axel Braun wrote:

<snip>

...

https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_2020_platform_DocB

Thanks for posting your platform. I've reviewed it as a possible voter I have the following questions/comments:

Your platform states you would like to improve links with policy and decision makers, other projects, and the press. This all sounds like activities you could do even if you are not elected to the Board.

True

Do you intend to carry out those activities even if you are not elected?

I haven't asked myself this question. Spontaneus answer: I will continue

If so, then what benefit do you feel you'll gain in that task by being elected?

Of course one can do contributions as an individual. Even better is you come with the trust of the community as an elected board member when dealing with policy makers or discussing on CxO level. It does not give me a personal boost, if this may be the direction of your question, but one needs to think about answers or statements more carefully if it is with the openSUSE community in the back or as an individual contribution ('opinions are my own').

If not, do you think it is a problem that as a project people do not feel empowered enough to do such tasks?

In my view, such advocacy and networking should not be exclusive to Board members and any willing contributor should feel empowered and able to spread the good word about openSUSE or improve the attention we deserve.

I agree with you, and we have seen already a lot of individual contributions in that direction. Every member who wishes should make use of his connections to improve the visibility of the openSUSE project. I clearly support this, and no, it is not limited to board members.

Regarding the legal structure, I think the Board is the only body we have right now in a position of sufficient trust and formal links with SUSE to be able to bootstrap such efforts.

That said, you posted meeting minutes in August that suggested the Board wished other people to take the lead in such efforts [1]

How do you explain the discrepency between your running for re-election on the premise that you'll push forward the formation of an openSUSE legal structure, and the statements from the Board you currently serve on that the Board shouldn't be the ones pushing that forward?

Following the mentioned meeting minutes there was a call to the community [2] to broaden the group of people working on foundation. There was little discussion afterwards, and mostly silence from then on. This can lead to 2 conclusions - there is not sufficient interest in the community on a foundation in general and/or not enough interest to spend time work on this (given the difficulties we had finding a treasurer a very valid point) - self organization of this task does not work Just today [3] there is a reaction that point one may not be valid (much appreciated Syds!). That leaves point 2, that it needs some more steering. Here the loops closes with my intend to drive this a bit more. Regarding the discussions with SUSE, you as an employee are probably better than I as 'just community member' aware that there are some larger organizational changes ongoing. So we (the board) determined on our call on last Tuesday that currently is not a good time to approach SUSE with this - the dust needs to settle. I trust the judgement of the chairperson about the right timing.

Thanks in advance for your answers,

Welcome, let me know if you have additional questions. Axel

[1] https://lists.opensuse.org/archives/list/project@lists.opensuse.org/message/ FYWMOARCYSN6PYOIQRVY7HB6WSRACFOH/

[2] https://lists.opensuse.org/archives/list/project@lists.opensuse.org/ thread/QYJ6VVYWK7VU5WOKF5SMCA6NJ3SHX57H/ [3] https://lists.opensuse.org/archives/list/project@lists.opensuse.org/ thread/2OPQYPB5F3LK3TJD5N2O6B43EPXWMVQO/

On Mon, 2020-11-30 at 21:32 +0100, Axel Braun wrote:

Hello Richard,

somehow I had a feeling that you are going to ask something.... ;-)

;-) Think of it like a tradition.

...

Regarding the legal structure, I think the Board is the only body we have right now in a position of sufficient trust and formal links with SUSE to be able to bootstrap such efforts.

That said, you posted meeting minutes in August that suggested the Board wished other people to take the lead in such efforts [1]

How do you explain the discrepency between your running for re- election on the premise that you'll push forward the formation of an openSUSE legal structure, and the statements from the Board you currently serve on that the Board shouldn't be the ones pushing that forward?

<snip>

Regarding the discussions with SUSE, you as an employee are probably better than I as 'just community member' aware that there are some larger organizational changes ongoing. So we (the board) determined on our call on last Tuesday that currently is not a good time to approach SUSE with this - the dust needs to settle. I trust the judgement of the chairperson about the right timing.

Sure, as an employee I'm well aware ther are larger organisational changes ongoing at SUSE. But one can point out that is almost ALWAYS larger organisational changes ongoing at SUSE. Today there is Rancher, before that there was the MicroFocus IT carve out, before that there was the EQT buyout, before that the HPE acquisition, and so on and so forth. As a community member, I feel the Board's responsibility to "Communicate community interests to SUSE" does not decrease when SUSE are distracted by organisational changes. Infact I would like to see whoever is elected to the Board this year to commit to advocating for an *increase* in SUSE's attention to openSUSE. I do not accept that these current changes (or the next ones) are a valid reason for SUSE to not pay sufficient attention to openSUSE. And I hold that opinion strongly as both an employee of SUSE *and* a community member of openSUSE.

Op dinsdag 1 december 2020 16:50:11 CET schreef Richard Brown:

As a community member, I feel the Board's responsibility to "Communicate community interests to SUSE" does not decrease when SUSE are distracted by organisational changes.

Agreed basically, though there can be ( and have been ) situations where I could understand temporary postponing efforts in that direction.

Infact I would like to see whoever is elected to the Board this year to commit to advocating for an *increase* in SUSE's attention to openSUSE.

Agreed. One of the things I've been talking about for a couple of years is the position of the chair person. As you know the hours "given" by SUSE are by no means enough to do the job.

I do not accept that these current changes (or the next ones) are a valid reason for SUSE to not pay sufficient attention to openSUSE.

Neither do I. -- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Forums Team

On Tue 2020-12-01, Knurpht-openSUSE wrote:

Agreed. One of the things I've been talking about for a couple of years is the position of the chair person. As you know the hours "given" by SUSE are by no means enough to do the job.

As the current bearer of that role (or wearer of those shoes? ;-), I can confirm that I could fruitfully spend yet more time on openSUSE. This is, however, less a factor of the time assigned for that role - which is not a fixed number of hours in my case - but how both openSUSE and SUSE, in their own ways, have been making use of that capacity in terms of time and otherwise (or made me use that capacity, if you will). Growing the web of support structures and networks of connectivity within openSUSE and between SUSE and openSUSE will help; those are proving to materialize slower than I had hoped for, but it's happening. Gerald

On 12/2/20 2:20 AM, Richard Brown wrote:

On Mon, 2020-11-30 at 21:32 +0100, Axel Braun wrote:

...

Hello Richard,

somehow I had a feeling that you are going to ask something.... ;-)

;-) Think of it like a tradition.

...

...

Regarding the legal structure, I think the Board is the only body we have right now in a position of sufficient trust and formal links with SUSE to be able to bootstrap such efforts.

That said, you posted meeting minutes in August that suggested the Board wished other people to take the lead in such efforts [1]

How do you explain the discrepency between your running for re- election on the premise that you'll push forward the formation of an openSUSE legal structure, and the statements from the Board you currently serve on that the Board shouldn't be the ones pushing that forward?

<snip>

...

Regarding the discussions with SUSE, you as an employee are probably better than I as 'just community member' aware that there are some larger organizational changes ongoing. So we (the board) determined on our call on last Tuesday that currently is not a good time to approach SUSE with this - the dust needs to settle. I trust the judgement of the chairperson about the right timing.

Sure, as an employee I'm well aware ther are larger organisational changes ongoing at SUSE.

But one can point out that is almost ALWAYS larger organisational changes ongoing at SUSE. Today there is Rancher, before that there was the MicroFocus IT carve out, before that there was the EQT buyout, before that the HPE acquisition, and so on and so forth.

As a community member, I feel the Board's responsibility to "Communicate community interests to SUSE" does not decrease when SUSE are distracted by organisational changes.

As someone who's spent a lot of time on this topic id much rather wait and present a clear proposal to the people who will be making the decision once they have had a moment to get themselves settled. Doing anything else is wasting my time, there time and the broader communities time. -- 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