An update from the board
Dear fellow geekos, last week has seen various interactions on this list and elsewhere that went against the words and the spirit of our guiding principles (cf. https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Guiding_principles ). What I saw was disappointing, discouraging and damaging to our project and community. At the same time I was very encouraged to see some of you step in and moderate themselves and others. Thank you! As a board we received several complaints, and working through those and our own observations in our meeting yesterday we have - issued a warning to some members; - put some members under mailing list moderation for three months; - agreed to share a general reminder to stay a bit more on topic per the respective list chartas (cf. https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Mailing_lists_subscription ) and that moderation of individuals will be considered if necessary. We have not taken these steps lightheartedly and will continue to work on any open issues. I am looking forward to many more respectful, constructive and open conversations around the forthcoming elections and otherwise. And please never hesitate to reach out! Thank you, Gerald -- Dr. Gerald Pfeifer <gp@suse.com>, CTO @SUSE + chair @openSUSE
Not taking sides, but from a 10'000 foot view are the following statements true? 1. As of now there is no written Rule anywhere in the "normative" body of openSUSE that says what Board folks or former Board folks can say about a candidate on public platforms during an electoral period. Both groups are treated like normal folks even though they are incommensurably more influential than any single individual who doesn't belong to this categories. 2. Usually it's good to provide rules like that. This makes electoral period fairer to all parties involved, and fosters candidates <-> members communication. 3. If such a rule had been there, probably Mark's resignation would have been prevented, and usually things won't be so messy with oS governance. Speaking of messy, I've flipped through both the Election Rules and the Board Rules and honesty I think they could use a serious revamp. Not in their contents, but in their wording. For example it's not straightforward to deduce the exact number of seats at stakes in the upcoming election from just the February 2020 election results in conjunction with the Rules. (I can explain why if you're interested).
I'd like to qualify my use of the word "messy". I am using that word to mean what it means in: "This git commit is messy: there are format edits mixed with refactoring mixed with hot fixes". And not to mean what it means in "You are coming home only now? And you're drunk! How messy can you get".
Adrien Glauser, Thank you for sending this reply as I was composing almost the same email. From the outside looking in, I too would suggest that the rules be updated giving the ability for a cleaner(less messy) election process. We use https://aragon.org/ which might be overkill for this group but it works really well for another group that needs consensus and complete transparency for our elections. James On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 8:13 AM Adrien Glauser <adrien.glauser@gmail.com> wrote:
Not taking sides, but from a 10'000 foot view are the following statements true? 1. As of now there is no written Rule anywhere in the "normative" body of openSUSE that says what Board folks or former Board folks can say about a candidate on public platforms during an electoral period. Both groups are treated like normal folks even though they are incommensurably more influential than any single individual who doesn't belong to this categories. 2. Usually it's good to provide rules like that. This makes electoral period fairer to all parties involved, and fosters candidates <-> members communication. 3. If such a rule had been there, probably Mark's resignation would have been prevented, and usually things won't be so messy with oS governance.
Speaking of messy, I've flipped through both the Election Rules and the Board Rules and honesty I think they could use a serious revamp. Not in their contents, but in their wording. For example it's not straightforward to deduce the exact number of seats at stakes in the upcoming election from just the February 2020 election results in conjunction with the Rules. (I can explain why if you're interested). _______________________________________________ openSUSE Project mailing list -- project@lists.opensuse.org To unsubscribe, email project-leave@lists.opensuse.org List Netiquette: https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Mailing_list_netiquette List Archives: https://lists.opensuse.org/archives/list/project@lists.opensuse.org
-- Thank you for your time. James F. Ruffer III Encryption options below https://flowcrypt.com/pub/jruffer@gmail.com
Hi On 12/10/20 12:02 AM, James Ruffer wrote:
Adrien Glauser,
Thank you for sending this reply as I was composing almost the same email. From the outside looking in, I too would suggest that the rules be updated giving the ability for a cleaner(less messy) election process. We use https://aragon.org/ <https://aragon.org/> which might be overkill for this group but it works really well for another group that needs consensus and complete transparency for our elections.
That does look interesting, especially if we reach the point of having a foundation. Currently the Heroes team maintain an instance of the Helios Voting Software [1] that we have use for board elections and other topics where we require community consensus such as the Name change vote. It does an excellent job of providing privacy and transparency for our elections. 1. https://heliosvoting.org/ -- 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, On Thu, Dec 10, 2020 at 5:23 AM Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de> wrote:
Hi
On 12/10/20 12:02 AM, James Ruffer wrote:
Adrien Glauser,
Thank you for sending this reply as I was composing almost the same email. From the outside looking in, I too would suggest that the rules be updated giving the ability for a cleaner(less messy) election process. We use https://aragon.org/ <https://aragon.org/> which might be overkill for this group but it works really well for another group that needs consensus and complete transparency for our elections.
I was wondering (playing with the idea in my head only, tbh) if there were ways to gamify / tokenize the openSUSE community contribution and then use DAO like structures with ZK snarks (to preserve privacy with strong security guarantees) for the governance part, we are exploring that for one new project also, it is quite fun. You can combine fungible and non-fungible tokens, but it is currently a research project in very early stages. By the end of next year there will be many DAO-like structures out there for all kinds of community based things.
That does look interesting, especially if we reach the point of having a foundation. Currently the Heroes team maintain an instance of the Helios Voting Software [1] that we have use for board elections and other topics where we require community consensus such as the Name change vote. It does an excellent job of providing privacy and transparency for our elections.
And I hope we stay for Helios for a little longer, because that is the argument I use about "snake-oil salesmen" who say that elections need "blockchain" :-) that it can be 90% accomplished without the used of an blockchain and you need blockchain mostly only for elections where you are afraid of vote censorship, our application of it saved my but in few debates. But the progress in zero-knowledge cryptography over the past decade is truly remarkable!
-- 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
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I think that as far as communities of passionate people are concerned, trust and fulfilment should naturally flow from healthy human interactions. Trying to reconstruct them on the back of more abstractions and automated mechanisms can at most, as I as it, treat symptoms. All for better Rules, though. I'll come back with a concrete proposal later this week.
On Thu, 2020-12-10 at 08:26 +0000, Adrien Glauser wrote:
I think that as far as communities of passionate people are concerned, trust and fulfilment should naturally flow from healthy human interactions. Trying to reconstruct them on the back of more abstractions and automated mechanisms can at most, as I as it, treat symptoms.
All for better Rules, though. I'll come back with a concrete proposal later this week.
I'd like to echo Simon's concerns. I'd also be concerned regarding any rule that seeks to limit the freedom of any contributor to speak about any concerns they have for the Project on any platform - especially any platform the Project doesn't control. If other issues outweigh that concern however and the community wants to go in that direction, I'd also question the health of applying such a restriction to only ex Board members. After all, I certainly would have wanted to consider such long term implications before volunteering to be a Board member all those years ago. I probably would have never volunteered for any governance role that would censor my ability to comment on Project governance in perpetuity. Plus, we have lots of influential contributors who have gained that influence by other means than Board membership. I do not think we should make a situation where the majority of the Project have unfettered freedom to engage during the election period but former Board members (who actually know how the Project currently works) can not.
Hello Richard, I had something in mind that I think circumvent your worries, something that goes along the lines of (very roughly): ``` Restraint is expected from current and former Board members during elections. When talking about candidates in their capacity of member or former member, they should seek to prioritize means of communication that: - allow candidates to reply; - allow the community to follow and discuss claims and replies from both sides; - provide reliably records of all exchanges; - minimize the risk of harming the candidates' and the community's reputation. *Risk minimization* 1. At any rate, official platforms and channels acknowledged by the community should be preferred over alternatives, unless those platforms and channels cannot uphold the above. 2. When in doubt, the Election Committee can be solicited to help determine if a certain platform or channel is appropriate in view of the above. ``` Fascism-free, or not? Anyway, you and basically everyone will be able to comment and criticize at great leisure :) Best, Adrien
Hello Adrien, On Thu, 2020-12-10 at 12:28 +0000, Adrien Glauser wrote:
``` Restraint is expected from current and former Board members during elections. When talking about candidates in their capacity of member or former member, they should seek to prioritize means of communication that:
Why should current and former Board members be held to a different standard than any other contributor? Are we not meant to be a community of equals? One of the key points that comes up during every election is the reminder that Board members have no additional priviledge or power over the direction of this project, but only the responsibility to remove blockages to the community when they appear. It seems counter intutive to me to require restraint from current and former Board Members but not apply the same rules to the entire community. I can understand a version of these rules that apply to current Board members, as they may have to work with the elected individuals..honouring the will of the vote and all that. But I strongly feel former Board members have the same rights to a life of free contribution to the Project as any other contributor. I think we should avoid creating a situation which effectively says to ex-Board members "Thanks for all the hard work you've done in a very stressful and tricky role for the Project, but now you're a second class citizen compared to every other contributor". Assuming you can provide a justification for applying this rule to current & former Members, then I have a followup question. Do you feel it's fair to retroactively reply these rules to all past Board Members, even though they had no forewarning of these limitations before they decided to run for the position? I think that's an unfair imposition to hold dozens of contributors to a different standard than everyone else, when they had no forewarning about that standard before they offered to help the Project by running for the Board. Assuming you can't provide a justification, I can imagine these rules working Project wide, but such a constitutional change would almost certainly require a Membership vote to accept them, given they would be obligations for all contributors to the Project.
- allow candidates to reply; - allow the community to follow and discuss claims and replies from both sides; - provide reliably records of all exchanges; - minimize the risk of harming the candidates' and the community's reputation.
I feel the first 3 are valid criteria, I fear the last one is impossible. Someones reputation (and the communities) is based on what we all say. It doesn't matter where we say it, the only way of minimizing the risk to candidates and communities reptuation is preventing the candidates and community from saying anything.
On Thu, Dec 10, 2020 at 1:55 PM Richard Brown <rbrown@suse.de> wrote:
Hello Adrien,
On Thu, 2020-12-10 at 12:28 +0000, Adrien Glauser wrote:
``` Restraint is expected from current and former Board members during elections. When talking about candidates in their capacity of member or former member, they should seek to prioritize means of communication that:
Why should current and former Board members be held to a different standard than any other contributor? Are we not meant to be a community of equals?
Why should a former head of FDA not become a CEO of a BigPharma he just approved a controversial drug off of 3 years ago you meant? Or why former parliament members / ministers should not serve on the supervisor board of state-owned enterprises?
One of the key points that comes up during every election is the reminder that Board members have no additional priviledge or power over the direction of this project, but only the responsibility to remove blockages to the community when they appear.
It seems counter intutive to me to require restraint from current and former Board Members but not apply the same rules to the entire community.
No it doesn't then they are merely being petty, and clearly did not yet let go off what they in their own words describe as "very stressful and tricky role", perhaps, just perhaps you are not good at doing politics, guess what, governance bodies ARE politics, they make policy decisions, if they can approve them by themselves or need wider consensus does not change that fact.
I can understand a version of these rules that apply to current Board members, as they may have to work with the elected individuals..honouring the will of the vote and all that.
But I strongly feel former Board members have the same rights to a life of free contribution to the Project as any other contributor.
I think we should avoid creating a situation which effectively says to ex-Board members "Thanks for all the hard work you've done in a very stressful and tricky role for the Project, but now you're a second class citizen compared to every other contributor".
Not to every other contributor, you would be equal among your former and current board member peers. It is not uncommon in advanced democracies such as Switzerland to restrict former public servants from certain conduct or roles, for a good reason.
Assuming you can provide a justification for applying this rule to current & former Members, then I have a followup question. Do you feel it's fair to retroactively reply these rules to all past Board Members, even though they had no forewarning of these limitations before they decided to run for the position?
Humans have survived this long for their ability to adapt to changing circumstances, they sadly did not survive because of their strong ability to foresee the future.
I think that's an unfair imposition to hold dozens of contributors to a different standard than everyone else, when they had no forewarning about that standard before they offered to help the Project by running for the Board.
Victimizing yourself much? In the end, I assume no-one pointed a gun at your head and told you, you know be The Chairman or die.
Assuming you can't provide a justification, I can imagine these rules working Project wide, but such a constitutional change would almost certainly require a Membership vote to accept them, given they would be obligations for all contributors to the Project.
So project wide vote would be made, does not mean, we can't define a quorum and acceptance rate, we may e.q. require no participation rate, but require 75%+ approval rate.
- allow candidates to reply; - allow the community to follow and discuss claims and replies from both sides; - provide reliably records of all exchanges; - minimize the risk of harming the candidates' and the community's reputation.
I feel the first 3 are valid criteria, I fear the last one is impossible.
Someones reputation (and the communities) is based on what we all say. It doesn't matter where we say it,
Yes it does, it does matter when, where and how you say things, we call it context and there is an entire department at your company called the PR department that thinks about what to say,when to say it, where to say it, and how to say it. Some companies go beyond that and have also internal comms departments for communication of information within the organization effectively as opposed to externally focused PR departments.
the only way of minimizing the risk to candidates and communities reptuation is preventing the candidates and community from saying anything.
That is simply false, there is plenty of ways to mitigate risks of harm, you confuse minimize / mitigate with prevent / eliminate.
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Richard, Mark, your impressive stock of energy will be a key asset in providing feedback to the text. Let's just wait till it's done. Have a peaceful afternoon, Adrien
On Thu 2020-12-10, Mark Stopka wrote:
Why should current and former Board members be held to a different standard than any other contributor? Why should a former head of FDA not become a CEO of a BigPharma he just approved a controversial drug off of 3 years ago you meant? Or why former parliament members / ministers should not serve on the supervisor board of state-owned enterprises?
I believe there's a bit of a difference in that there's potentially huge monetary and other benefits in the cases you describe (which are very real). Serving on the openSUSE Board is a privilege in a way, but first and foremost a service, and generally not very thankful at that. If there are perks of the job (or for former members) I have yet to see them. ;-)
Yes it does, it does matter when, where and how you say things, we call it context and there is an entire department at your company called the PR department that thinks about what to say,when to say it, where to say it, and how to say it.
Let's keep our employers out of the conversation here, please. We all contribute to openSUSE as individuals, exclusively or to a good extent in our spare time. In case you are curious, all communications of mine around openSUSE and on social media are mine, and mine alone. PR is involved when I officially represent SUSE towards the press, yet even then how I say things and what I say is not prescribed by anyone. Beyond that I agree with you *and* Richard (the way I understand the core of what you are saying ;-). Gerald
Hi Gerald, On Fri, Dec 11, 2020 at 1:05 AM Gerald Pfeifer <gp@suse.com> wrote:
On Thu 2020-12-10, Mark Stopka wrote:
Why should current and former Board members be held to a different standard than any other contributor? Why should a former head of FDA not become a CEO of a BigPharma he just approved a controversial drug off of 3 years ago you meant? Or why former parliament members / ministers should not serve on the supervisor board of state-owned enterprises?
I believe there's a bit of a difference in that there's potentially huge monetary and other benefits in the cases you describe (which are very real).
I think we both know it was sort of a hyperbole, just to demonstrate that former function in many cases may / and sadly in case of my country only *should* restrict those who held positions of power from holding some other positions of power that may represent a conflict of interest. Person A was kind enough to be generic enough, I have used that genericity to provide obvious enough counter-examples where / when such restrictions do make A LOT of sense, reductio ad absurdum... :-)
Serving on the openSUSE Board is a privilege in a way, but first and foremost a service, and generally not very thankful at that. If there are perks of the job (or for former members) I have yet to see them. ;-)
Yes it does, it does matter when, where and how you say things, we call it context and there is an entire department at your company called the PR department that thinks about what to say,when to say it, where to say it, and how to say it.
Let's keep our employers out of the conversation here, please. We all contribute to openSUSE as individuals, exclusively or to a good extent in our spare time.
I could as well use *any sufficiently large company that does a lot of communications with the ouside*, but you can see 13 words against 1 more relatable example, you can replace that with any organization of a reasonable size really... The point was communication is a tricky business, and it does influence views of projects / people / organizations in the eyes of both the internal and external stakeholders. I admit, that *certain company* established internal comms department between *certain company* Business Services - Global Infrastructure Services and rest of the company after I have during *program name* transition & transformation have communicated some changes in the structure of company data storage infrastructure to the rest of the company that were considered too bold without the proper softeners, for some. Example: I would communicate to Local IT and the L-team of a specific local subsidiary that as part of the transformation we would be migrating their IT assets to a different location, as part of a streamlining effort (we were going from 90+ DCs to about 50), but I have omitted those in my eyes at the time unimportant details like "there will likely be no changes to the structure of human resources associated with this on-going and important effort that strengthens our company leading position in our industry". I hope that does provide some clarity on what I meant by that.
In case you are curious, all communications of mine around openSUSE and on social media are mine, and mine alone. PR is involved when I officially represent SUSE towards the press, yet even then how I say things and what I say is not prescribed by anyone.
Beyond that I agree with you *and* Richard (the way I understand the core of what you are saying ;-).
Gerald _______________________________________________ openSUSE Project mailing list -- project@lists.opensuse.org To unsubscribe, email project-leave@lists.opensuse.org List Netiquette: https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Mailing_list_netiquette List Archives: https://lists.opensuse.org/archives/list/project@lists.opensuse.org
-- Best regards / S pozdravem, BSc. Mark Stopka, BBA Managing Partner @ PERLUR Group mobile: +420 704 373 561 website: www.perlur.cloud
On 12/10/20 4:55 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
Hello Adrien,
On Thu, 2020-12-10 at 12:28 +0000, Adrien Glauser wrote:
``` Restraint is expected from current and former Board members during elections. When talking about candidates in their capacity of member or former member, they should seek to prioritize means of communication that:
Why should current and former Board members be held to a different standard than any other contributor? Are we not meant to be a community of equals?
I thoroughly agree with Richard on this point. I do not see any reason at all why current and former Board members should be muzzled, as long as they follow the Guiding Principles, which also apply to all others. -- -Gerry Makaro openSUSE Member Fraser-Bell on Github
On Thu, 10 Dec 2020 12:20:32 -0800, Fraser_Bell wrote:
On 12/10/20 4:55 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
Hello Adrien,
On Thu, 2020-12-10 at 12:28 +0000, Adrien Glauser wrote:
``` Restraint is expected from current and former Board members during elections. When talking about candidates in their capacity of member or former member, they should seek to prioritize means of communication that:
Why should current and former Board members be held to a different standard than any other contributor? Are we not meant to be a community of equals?
I thoroughly agree with Richard on this point. I do not see any reason at all why current and former Board members should be muzzled, as long as they follow the Guiding Principles, which also apply to all others.
I also find this fairly odd. It seems like it would be useful to know if prospective members of the board can work well with the current board, or if there are potential "bad" conflicts. (Not all conflict is "bad" by any means). -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits
On Thu 2020-12-10, Fraser_Bell wrote:
I do not see any reason at all why current and former Board members should be muzzled, as long as they follow the Guiding Principles, which also apply to all others.
Yes, everyone should/shall be held to the same standard. And let's be careful not to overregulate things, creating something that frankly looks like a Lex Richard. We have good Guiding Principles, which we "simply" need to honor and embrace (and enforce). Such enforcement is part of the role of the board, but equally it's on all of us to stand up and speak up. Gerald
Sort of -- but not quite -- off-topic: I looked in on the mail lists today and saw healthy, respectful, and interesting conversations about the Project and guidance. Much more like it, and much more Constructive for the openSUSE Project and Community to move into the future with. Thanks to all here. -- -Gerry Makaro openSUSE Member Fraser-Bell on Github
Op donderdag 10 december 2020 13:55:38 CET schreef Richard Brown:
Why should current and former Board members be held to a different standard than any other contributor? For no good reason Are we not meant to be a community of equals? Yes we are. And that should be untouched.
-- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Forums Team
Am 10.12.20 um 13:55 schrieb Richard Brown:
Restraint is expected from current and former Board members during elections. When talking about candidates in their capacity of member or former member, they should seek to prioritize means of communication that: Why should current and former Board members be held to a different standard than any other contributor? Are we not meant to be a community of equals?
For former Board members I agree but not for current ones. I think we should avoid the impression of current members trying to keep candidate(s) out of the Board. Of course everyone can ask questions, that's not prohibited by such a rule. It's just expected restraint which I personally would follow. I understand such a rule as some kind of "you can do it, but think about if you really have to". vinz.
OK. I'll bite. On 10.12.20 13:55, Richard Brown wrote:
It seems counter intutive to me to require restraint from current and former Board Members but not apply the same rules to the entire community. I would have looked at that tweet with disdain no matter which community member would have sent it.
Telling people "do not vote for this guy!" is just not good style in my book. Describing your concerns, ok. But nobody has to tell me whom to vote for, sorry. Best regards, -- Stefan Seyfried "What Paul says about Peter tells us more about Paul than about Peter." -- Baruch de Spinoza
On 11.12.20 17:06, Stefan Seyfried wrote:
OK. I'll bite.
On 10.12.20 13:55, Richard Brown wrote:
It seems counter intutive to me to require restraint from current and former Board Members but not apply the same rules to the entire community. I would have looked at that tweet with disdain no matter which community member would have sent it.
I have just gotten a response which hinted that "disdain" is not the correct word for what I wanted to say. Sorry for that. "I would have strongly disagreed with that tweet no matter which community member would have sent it" is probably a better expression for what I want to say.
Telling people "do not vote for this guy!" is just not good style in my book. Describing your concerns, ok. But nobody has to tell me whom to vote for, sorry.
Best regards, -- Stefan Seyfried
"What Paul says about Peter tells us more about Paul than about Peter." -- Baruch de Spinoza
On Fri, Dec 11, 2020 at 9:06 AM Stefan Seyfried <stefan.seyfried@googlemail.com> wrote:
OK. I'll bite.
On 10.12.20 13:55, Richard Brown wrote:
It seems counter intutive to me to require restraint from current and former Board Members but not apply the same rules to the entire community. I would have looked at that tweet with disdain no matter which community member would have sent it.
Since apparently this thread is going to include feedback from everybody, I guess it's my turn. The statement from Richard makes sense to me, so yours about disdain (even ignoring the fact this is not a tweet) doesn't. Updated per you: "I would have strongly disagreed with that tweet no matter which community member would have sent it" is probably a better expression for what I want to say. Edit of mine: you clarified "disdain" and my own inability to learn how to reply to all is making this all out of order. Argh! I'm too unintelligent to handle simple e-mail. Anyway, thanks for the clarification; the rest still basically applies. What I think Richard is saying (meaning how I read it when it first appeared) is about general behavior, general comments, general stuff, and in that regard those should be applied generally, with no additional restraint on people who probably know more about the inner workings than those of us who have never served in a particular capacity. What I think others may have meant about board members having additional restraint (meaning how I read it when it first appeared) is about the confidential things board members do in their capacity as board members, and in that case I think some restraint there applies, but that's hardly interesting to me. If a board member deals with an issue related to a community member, and it's resolved, and ten (10) years later that member runs for the board, should the board member bring that up? After five (5) years? Ever? If it's resolved, probably not worth it, and probably irrelevant anyway, so let the issues be as they are described in the present. Richard may (I have not asked) have taken "restrictions on the board" (paraphrased by me) to mean something less obvious, like, "The current and former board members should not contribute as much as general members because they are already board members." and that does not make sense to me either. Like Gerald, I agree with both parties, as I have described my understanding of them above.
Telling people "do not vote for this guy!" is just not good style in my book. Describing your concerns, ok. But nobody has to tell me whom to vote for, sorry.
Good, I agree with some of that too, though while I have read Richard's posts when he wrote things like, "I will not vote for you, and I will discourage others too." it has not at all been the first post in response to person X's candidacy, or the second post either, but rather it has been after a dozen e-mails asking questions, reading responses, asking more questions, reading more responses, pointing out differences of opinion, and so on. If the whole thread is not read by somebody, the summary might be incorrectly presented as, "A former board member is prejudiced against somebody for no good reason." but I have, in the threads I have followed, always seen it as, "A community member (and former board member) has picked the brain of various candidates, disagreed with some, and then done what we all do in deciding to vote based on our intelligence guided by our experience." I suppose it might not be a very "soft touch" to tell somebody, after talking about their candidacy in the open for a few days with expressed disagreements, to explicitly tell them what is obvious, and that may rub many the wrong way despite being honet, and maybe even garner some sympathy (e.g. yours) for the person lacking one person's vote., and maybe that's even enough reason for people to vote FOR the candidate. If that is enough to persuade somebody to vote, then so be it, but my understanding of your representation of Richard's comments is that it is overly summarized, possibly leading readers to believe it is without reason, and lots of it, as evidenced by the history of posts in this list. If Richard, myself, or anybody else in the whole community, responds to anybody's candidacy with, "I won't vote for you." without justification, I expect many would respond publicly with, "Why?" and that would either lead to a discussion, or expose the prejudice as being unfounded, overly personal, or (in some other way) invalid. Aaron Burgemeister Identity / Security / Linux Consultant
I would just like to add support for Adrien's feedback. She is typing a lot of the exact replies I was going to so instead just going to say i am here to help her achieve these same goals. James On Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 03:26 Adrien Glauser <adrien.glauser@gmail.com> wrote:
I think that as far as communities of passionate people are concerned, trust and fulfilment should naturally flow from healthy human interactions. Trying to reconstruct them on the back of more abstractions and automated mechanisms can at most, as I as it, treat symptoms.
All for better Rules, though. I'll come back with a concrete proposal later this week. _______________________________________________ openSUSE Project mailing list -- project@lists.opensuse.org To unsubscribe, email project-leave@lists.opensuse.org List Netiquette: https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Mailing_list_netiquette List Archives: https://lists.opensuse.org/archives/list/project@lists.opensuse.org
On 12/9/20 11:43 PM, Adrien Glauser wrote:
Not taking sides, but from a 10'000 foot view are the following statements true? 1. As of now there is no written Rule anywhere in the "normative" body of openSUSE that says what Board folks or former Board folks can say about a candidate on public platforms during an electoral period. Both groups are treated like normal folks even though they are incommensurably more influential than any single individual who doesn't belong to this categories. 2. Usually it's good to provide rules like that. This makes electoral period fairer to all parties involved, and fosters candidates <-> members communication. 3. If such a rule had been there, probably Mark's resignation would have been prevented, and usually things won't be so messy with oS governance.
I'd welcome a draft for such a rule, however as someone who is on the board but not running in this election I have found it valuable to ask questions of all candidates around foundations to help clarify there responses and have found there answers very valuable. Last year when I was a candidate I intentionally chose not to ask other candidates questions because I didn't think it was appropriate. Past board members are the only people with actual experience being on the board which I think can leave them in a valuable place for asking questions.
Speaking of messy, I've flipped through both the Election Rules and the Board Rules and honesty I think they could use a serious revamp. Not in their contents, but in their wording. For example it's not straightforward to deduce the exact number of seats at stakes in the upcoming election from just the February 2020 election results in conjunction with the Rules. (I can explain why if you're interested).
This is understandable, Following the Board Election Rules Vinz should have only had a 1 year term as he was appointed, however given he was the clear next candidate and was being appointed right after the election the board decided to use our 2/3rds power to temporarily amend the election rules and give Vinz a 2 year term. More broadly the first plan we have is to merge all our governance rules into one "Constitution" document. From there it will be easier to propose changes, at the moment we have been working with if the change just better clarifies the existing rules and doesn't change there function the board will probably use there 2/3rds majority to make such a change, if the change is functional then it will require a membership vote, hence me proposing one around the 20% rule. Again if you have suggestions here please put them forward. -- 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
Hello, Am Mittwoch, 9. Dezember 2020, 14:13:12 CET schrieb Adrien Glauser:
Not taking sides, but from a 10'000 foot view are the following statements true? 1. As of now there is no written Rule anywhere in the "normative" body of openSUSE that says what Board folks or former Board folks can say about a candidate on public platforms during an electoral period. Both groups are treated like normal folks even though they are incommensurably more influential than any single individual who doesn't belong to this categories. 2. Usually it's good to provide rules like that. This makes electoral period fairer to all parties involved, and fosters candidates <-> members communication. 3. If such a rule had been there, probably Mark's resignation would have been prevented, and usually things won't be so messy with oS governance.
I fully agree with your goal. However I'm not sure if we need to invent a rule for that, or if applying existing rules would be the better way to reach the goal. I also think that Simon has a fair point - current and past board members might be able to ask good questions that others can't think of. As long as these questions are asked - in a fair way - to multiple or all candidates (obviously, exceptions might apply if the question is based on a statement of a board candidate) - without putting too much own opinion into the question and - can be answered without needing "insider knownledge", especially if some of the candidates already have board experience I don't see a serious problem with current or former board members asking questions. Heck, what I just described can be summed up as "common sense", and should apply to everybody. Looking at what happened during this and the last two elections, I can see that _a single person_ (directly or indirectly) caused all the mess we have seen. So let me try to come up with a rule proposal (intentionally slightly simplified, see [1]) Current and former board members should only ask sane questions. Wait, does that allow the reverse argument that other people are allowed to ask insane questions? Let's fix that: People should only ask sane questions. Much better, that helps to prevent insane questions. But then, isn't that something that is a very obvious statement? Yes, it is, and we even have a written rule for that: https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Guiding_principles We value... [...] ... respect for other persons and their contributions, for other opinions and beliefs. We listen to arguments and address problems in a constructive and open way. We believe that a diverse community based on mutual respect is the base for a creative and productive environment enabling the project to be truly successful. We don't tolerate discrimination and aim at creating an environment where people feel accepted and safe from offense. IMHO what that single person who caused all this mess did clearly violates the guiding principles, and we already have rules that the board can for example ban someone from the mailinglists for breaking the guiding principles. Which leads to my final question: Is there something left that we need a rule for, or is it enough to apply the existing rules? Regards, Christian Boltz [1] Note that "questions" is meant in a very broad sense. It's meant to also include comments etc. The reason I only use "questions" in my proposed rules is to keep them simple and easy to read. Besides that - when reaching the final proposal, this detail doesn't matter anyway ;-) -- Das wird mit TCPA alles vorbei sein. Nicht, dass Windows dann stabiler läuft, aber auch die Abstürze sind zertifiziert. [Matthias Houdek in linux-liste]
participants (13)
-
Aaron Burgemeister -
Adrien Glauser -
Christian Boltz -
Fraser_Bell -
Gerald Pfeifer -
James Ruffer -
Jim Henderson -
Knurpht-openSUSE -
Mark Stopka -
Richard Brown -
Simon Lees -
Stefan Seyfried -
Vinzenz Vietzke