[opensuse-project] The openSUSE Foundation Proposal - First Discussion Draft
Hi All, During this years face to face board meeting, the board started more serious work / discussions in relation to an openSUSE Foundation, to most people reading this list including our meeting minutes or who were at the openSUSE conference this comes as little surprise. The during the meetings the board put together a "Discussion Document" that outlines a proposed framework of what the board considers would be the best way to form an openSUSE foundation, what would change, what would stay the same and what we would require from our biggest partner SUSE. While the board is yet to formally present and start discussing a version of this document with SUSE management (we will do so in the coming days), we have discussed the content face to face with high levels of SUSE's management and at this stage have general in principle support to move forward in this direction. So the board would be very surprised if we were told to go back to the drawing board and start again. Having said that much of the detail is still up for discussion and will be worked through over the coming months so the board welcomes any feedback from the community. **Foundation Proposal First Discussion Draft** *Introduction* The Board has spent most of it's annual F2F meeting with the continuation of the ongoing discussion about openSUSE's lack of having/being a legal entity ot it's own. This topic has been out there almost as long as openSUSE exists, but has returned on the board's table after the sale of SUSE, and some incidents where not having a legal entity appeared to be an issue. SUSE and openSUSE share common roots, history and values. Our current working relationship is a mutually beneficial "win-win" which we wish to preserve while simultaneously extending openSUSE's ability to take more actions on it's own. There is no desire for any increased distance between SUSE & openSUSE, but to add more capabilities to the openSUSE Project in addition to the status quo. Of particular interest is enabling openSUSE to be able to receive and provide sponsorships (in terms of money, hardware, or contracted services). Currently such agreements can only be handled by SUSE, which can discourage and complicate arranging such sponsorships with other organisations. The primary purpose of the Foundation is to enable and support the openSUSE membership and community efforts in all activities of the openSUSE Project *Motivations* - Partnering with organisations outside of SUSE -Receiving donations - Being able to spend money on behalf of openSUSE - Being able to sign contracts with venues, service providers, or other partners *Proposed Charter* - openSUSE Foundation is a legal entity having been founded on the date of xxxxxxx with the following identity: yyyyyyyyy. The Foundation, in terms of an entity, should be considered to be distinct from the software development projects and the promotional activities that it supports, steers and sustains. The openSUSE Foundation is a not for profit organisation that believes in empowering its Contributors so that the user community can benefit from the best, most-sustainable and most-innovative open source software. To achieve this, most of the daily work is performed by the Foundation's Contributors. Nonetheless, certain bodies or committees will be in charge of work when the decision-taking requires extraordinary decisions, litigation, conflict resolution, funding, treasury, strategic technical decisions, strategic technical guidance, and general guidance on orientations. In principle, the processes, discussions and decisions of openSUSE Foundation, of its Committees, of its Board and of its Officers are public, and decisions are taken in a rational and transparent manner. *Proposal Summary* - The Board request that SUSE provide capital stock and help to setup the foundation - The Board request that SUSE provide 1 or 2 FTE staffing to handle the admin work of the foundation alongside the existing work it does managing the TSP etc - The Board is open to any discussion regarding bylaws or statues to codify and guarantee the ongoing productive relationship between SUSE & openSUSE - The openSUSE Foundation board will take over the role of the current openSUSE Board - The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules - The rules for membership of the openSUSE Foundation will remain the same as the rules for existing openSUSE members with the exception that members are required to be over 16 as per legal requirements. Existing openSUSE Members will be invited to become members of the new openSUSE Foundation - trademark / intellectual property usage guarantee in case SUSE ever drops doing Linux distributions (like KDE / Qt) - Ideally/eventually transfer of openSUSE trademarks into Foundation *Details for Further Discussion* - Charter of Foundation needs to be detailed - learning from other free software foundations like TDF Lawyer advise needed - What IT infrastracture and data should remain under the ownership of SUSE and what should be transfered to the openSUSE Foundation? - Should the openSUSE foundation become the responsible body for openSUSE's data and therefore it's GDPR compliance? - should the openSUSE trademarks and interlectual property be transferred to Foundation? *Other Considered Options* - e. V. (association) - too easy to "take over" and change purpose - Structure too inflexible (the board would not be able to continue to function in its current makeup) - umbrella organization (like linux foundation) - Takes ~10% of income, i..e. donations,sponsormoney, own donated hardware - openSUSE is too large an organisation for most umbrella organisations to handle unless openSUSE is only using an umbrella for a very limited set of features. - Keeping things the way they currently are - sometimes causes problems, for example accepting docations is hard - often unable to partner with other companies as there is no openSUSE entity that can sign contracts etc. References: https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Foundation https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/CommunityBylaws https://www.documentfoundation.org/foundation/statutes/ https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TDF/Next_Decade_Manifesto Sent on behalf of the openSUSE board. -- 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 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi, Obviously, you guys spent a lot of time and research into this so thank you. The only comment I have is about transparency. Since the Foundation's board will automatically have more power(control, donations, etc) there should be more transparency and it should be these "protocols" should be stated clearly to prevent future loopholes. If I remember correctly few times Richard(as a chairman nothing personal) declined revealing details because it will make boards members feel pressured and affect their judgment, I agree with that but moving to the new structure this is dangerous, it's no longer about feelings but responsibility and I can see how it could lead to a lot of problems. Bear in mind that I'm not a member and just wanted to point that out. Imad On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 4:25 PM Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de> wrote:
Hi All,
During this years face to face board meeting, the board started more serious work / discussions in relation to an openSUSE Foundation, to most people reading this list including our meeting minutes or who were at the openSUSE conference this comes as little surprise.
The during the meetings the board put together a "Discussion Document" that outlines a proposed framework of what the board considers would be the best way to form an openSUSE foundation, what would change, what would stay the same and what we would require from our biggest partner SUSE.
While the board is yet to formally present and start discussing a version of this document with SUSE management (we will do so in the coming days), we have discussed the content face to face with high levels of SUSE's management and at this stage have general in principle support to move forward in this direction. So the board would be very surprised if we were told to go back to the drawing board and start again. Having said that much of the detail is still up for discussion and will be worked through over the coming months so the board welcomes any feedback from the community.
**Foundation Proposal First Discussion Draft**
*Introduction* The Board has spent most of it's annual F2F meeting with the continuation of the ongoing discussion about openSUSE's lack of having/being a legal entity ot it's own. This topic has been out there almost as long as openSUSE exists, but has returned on the board's table after the sale of SUSE, and some incidents where not having a legal entity appeared to be an issue. SUSE and openSUSE share common roots, history and values. Our current working relationship is a mutually beneficial "win-win" which we wish to preserve while simultaneously extending openSUSE's ability to take more actions on it's own. There is no desire for any increased distance between SUSE & openSUSE, but to add more capabilities to the openSUSE Project in addition to the status quo. Of particular interest is enabling openSUSE to be able to receive and provide sponsorships (in terms of money, hardware, or contracted services). Currently such agreements can only be handled by SUSE, which can discourage and complicate arranging such sponsorships with other organisations. The primary purpose of the Foundation is to enable and support the openSUSE membership and community efforts in all activities of the openSUSE Project
*Motivations* - Partnering with organisations outside of SUSE -Receiving donations - Being able to spend money on behalf of openSUSE - Being able to sign contracts with venues, service providers, or other partners
*Proposed Charter* - openSUSE Foundation is a legal entity having been founded on the date of xxxxxxx with the following identity: yyyyyyyyy. The Foundation, in terms of an entity, should be considered to be distinct from the software development projects and the promotional activities that it supports, steers and sustains. The openSUSE Foundation is a not for profit organisation that believes in empowering its Contributors so that the user community can benefit from the best, most-sustainable and most-innovative open source software. To achieve this, most of the daily work is performed by the Foundation's Contributors. Nonetheless, certain bodies or committees will be in charge of work when the decision-taking requires extraordinary decisions, litigation, conflict resolution, funding, treasury, strategic technical decisions, strategic technical guidance, and general guidance on orientations. In principle, the processes, discussions and decisions of openSUSE Foundation, of its Committees, of its Board and of its Officers are public, and decisions are taken in a rational and transparent manner.
*Proposal Summary* - The Board request that SUSE provide capital stock and help to setup the foundation - The Board request that SUSE provide 1 or 2 FTE staffing to handle the admin work of the foundation alongside the existing work it does managing the TSP etc - The Board is open to any discussion regarding bylaws or statues to codify and guarantee the ongoing productive relationship between SUSE & openSUSE - The openSUSE Foundation board will take over the role of the current openSUSE Board - The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules - The rules for membership of the openSUSE Foundation will remain the same as the rules for existing openSUSE members with the exception that members are required to be over 16 as per legal requirements. Existing openSUSE Members will be invited to become members of the new openSUSE Foundation - trademark / intellectual property usage guarantee in case SUSE ever drops doing Linux distributions (like KDE / Qt) - Ideally/eventually transfer of openSUSE trademarks into Foundation
*Details for Further Discussion* - Charter of Foundation needs to be detailed - learning from other free software foundations like TDF Lawyer advise needed - What IT infrastracture and data should remain under the ownership of SUSE and what should be transfered to the openSUSE Foundation? - Should the openSUSE foundation become the responsible body for openSUSE's data and therefore it's GDPR compliance? - should the openSUSE trademarks and interlectual property be transferred to Foundation?
*Other Considered Options* - e. V. (association) - too easy to "take over" and change purpose - Structure too inflexible (the board would not be able to continue to function in its current makeup) - umbrella organization (like linux foundation) - Takes ~10% of income, i..e. donations,sponsormoney, own donated hardware - openSUSE is too large an organisation for most umbrella organisations to handle unless openSUSE is only using an umbrella for a very limited set of features. - Keeping things the way they currently are - sometimes causes problems, for example accepting docations is hard - often unable to partner with other companies as there is no openSUSE entity that can sign contracts etc.
References: https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Foundation https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/CommunityBylaws https://www.documentfoundation.org/foundation/statutes/ https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TDF/Next_Decade_Manifesto
Sent on behalf of the openSUSE board.
--
Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net
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Le 19/06/2019 à 15:51, Imad Aldoj a écrit :
Hi, Obviously, you guys spent a lot of time and research into this so thank you. The only comment I have is about transparency. Since the Foundation's board will automatically have more power(control, donations, etc) there should be more transparency and it should be these "protocols" should be stated clearly to prevent future loopholes.
some discussion with corporations can't be made public :-) jdd -- http://dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am 19. Juni 2019 16:01:28 MESZ schrieb "jdd@dodin.org" <jdd@dodin.org>:
Hi, Obviously, you guys spent a lot of time and research into this so
Le 19/06/2019 à 15:51, Imad Aldoj a écrit : thank you.
The only comment I have is about transparency. Since the Foundation's board will automatically have more power(control, donations, etc) there should be more transparency and it should be these "protocols" should be stated clearly to prevent future loopholes.
some discussion with corporations can't be made public :-)
jdd
Transparency does not mean being fully public per definition. If the whole process is made public afterwards, transparency is fulfilled. Regards, vinz. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Sorry if I wasn't clear enough but I never asked for everything to be public, I'm simply pointing a weakness in the proposal draft (that is the point of a draft) Since we're about to deal with corporations (just like you pointed) and hypothetically might face legal suits, "take my word" or even dissolving the foundation board when something goes wrong aren't viable solutions anymore, I'm talking about the need to be more clear/detailed in the manifesto about everything, including what the board is entitled to share and who takes the responsibility. I hope I don't get misinterpreted but I'm not attacking this board or even the board concept by any means, simply pointing something in the manifesto that could be abused in the future whether the chances are low, or whether it's an evil company or a guy did a mistake from inside the foundation board doesn't really matter, the manifesto has to handle as many scenarios as possible and has to be clear and up to legal game level. Imad On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 5:01 PM jdd@dodin.org <jdd@dodin.org> wrote:
Le 19/06/2019 à 15:51, Imad Aldoj a écrit :
Hi, Obviously, you guys spent a lot of time and research into this so thank you. The only comment I have is about transparency. Since the Foundation's board will automatically have more power(control, donations, etc) there should be more transparency and it should be these "protocols" should be stated clearly to prevent future loopholes.
some discussion with corporations can't be made public :-)
jdd
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Le 19/06/2019 à 17:39, Imad Aldoj a écrit :
Sorry if I wasn't clear enough but I never asked for everything to be public,
I'm sure you didn't, but it's better to be clear for anybody :-) the foundation bylaws will probably be several pages long :-( jdd -- http://dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi On 19/06/2019 23:21, Imad Aldoj wrote:
Hi, Obviously, you guys spent a lot of time and research into this so thank you. The only comment I have is about transparency. Since the Foundation's board will automatically have more power(control, donations, etc) there should be more transparency and it should be these "protocols" should be stated clearly to prevent future loopholes. If I remember correctly few times Richard(as a chairman nothing personal) declined revealing details because it will make boards members feel pressured and affect their judgment, I agree with that but moving to the new structure this is dangerous, it's no longer about feelings but responsibility and I can see how it could lead to a lot of problems.
Bear in mind that I'm not a member and just wanted to point that out.
Imad
Certainly for anything financial the laws around not for profit organisations require a significant amount of transparency, however other laws such as if we employ people we can not disclose how much they earn due to employment law. In general the board wants to be as transparent as possible hence mentioning it in the charter.
On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 4:25 PM Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de> wrote:
Hi All,
*Proposed Charter* - openSUSE Foundation is a legal entity having been founded on the date of xxxxxxx with the following identity: yyyyyyyyy. The Foundation, in terms of an entity, should be considered to be distinct from the software development projects and the promotional activities that it supports, steers and sustains. The openSUSE Foundation is a not for profit organisation that believes in empowering its Contributors so that the user community can benefit from the best, most-sustainable and most-innovative open source software. To achieve this, most of the daily work is performed by the Foundation's Contributors. Nonetheless, certain bodies or committees will be in charge of work when the decision-taking requires extraordinary decisions, litigation, conflict resolution, funding, treasury, strategic technical decisions, strategic technical guidance, and general guidance on orientations. In principle, the processes, discussions and decisions of openSUSE Foundation, of its Committees, of its Board and of its Officers are public, and decisions are taken in a rational and transparent manner.
-- 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 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Simon Lees wrote:
- The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules
Maybe we ought to consider electing a chairman. For us to seek a greater degree of independence seems to clash with SUSE appointing a chairman.
- The rules for membership of the openSUSE Foundation will remain the same as the rules for existing openSUSE members with the exception that members are required to be over 16 as per legal requirements. Existing openSUSE Members will be invited to become members of the new openSUSE Foundation
Hmm, normally a Foundation (Stiftung) does not have members, except the founders. An assocation (Verein) has members though. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (30.4°C) http://www.dns24.ch/ - your free DNS host, made in Switzerland. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On śro, cze 19, 2019 at 5:24 PM, Per Jessen <per@computer.org> wrote:
Simon Lees wrote:
- The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules
Maybe we ought to consider electing a chairman. For us to seek a greater degree of independence seems to clash with SUSE appointing a chairman.
The documentation for 2010 foundation outright removed the chairman role (I guess back then chairmen elected up to that point weren't very popular with the community). 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 20/06/2019 00:54, Per Jessen wrote:
Simon Lees wrote:
- The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules
Maybe we ought to consider electing a chairman. For us to seek a greater degree of independence seems to clash with SUSE appointing a chairman.
This foundation proposal is not really about being more independent from SUSE, we will continue to be just as dependent on SUSE and in some ways we will be more dependent atleast initially, what this proposal allows though is openSUSE to partner with other organizations as well, currently the openSUSE project cannot receive donations or conference sponsorship etc without it going through SUSE, the main thing the foundation means is that openSUSE can start to do these things on our own. There are several offers from other parties and a bunch of conference sponsorship openSUSE has not been able to receive or take part in due to the lack of a legal entity. Our proposal is mostly initially aimed at fixing these issues. In the future if our relationship did happen to deteriorate with SUSE due to a change in ownership / management it is true that already having a foundation setup will make it much easier to become independent of SUSE but that's not our primary motivation or focus, but it is something we have considered in the design to make sure it would be possible. As for the chairman position the board feels that while SUSE is the primary sponsor and is managing / maintaining all of SUSE's infrastructure etc having the chairman position as someone who can work between openSUSE and the community / board is a very valuable role, in addition to the current things that SUSE provides it is likely a foundation would need 1 to 2 people to deal with the admin / paperwork of running the foundation, rather then the foundation employing these people directly it would be far easier if SUSE were to employ such people on behalf of the foundation as they already have HR / payroll people etc which is another reason why keeping a strong link between SUSE and the board makes sense. A interesting question however, is whether the chairperson should keep there veto on behalf of SUSE, if they didn't have that they would then just be the same as any other board member you could also change there name to "representative" or something and potentially remove there voting rights but atleast personally I am less in favor of those later things as hopefully SUSE would be appointing a chairperson who has a highly likely chance of being elected to the board by its members were they to run anyway. If the chairperson role was to go then you could potentially have no chairperson or the members could elect the board then the board could vote for who they'd like to be the chairperson out of the board members who have served for atleast a year, i'd prefer both of these approaches to trying to get the community to elect the chairperson. But regardless of the way we setup the board now a key thing is that the rules governing the way the board operates aren't set in stone and can be changed by 2/3rds of the members. So should we eventually end up at a point where SUSE is no longer the major sponsor of the foundation the members could decide to remove the position of chairperson. In summary there is a lot of things we could change in this area but the board feels that the current format is working really well and as such at this initial stage have decided to just propose keeping the status quo.
- The rules for membership of the openSUSE Foundation will remain the same as the rules for existing openSUSE members with the exception that members are required to be over 16 as per legal requirements. Existing openSUSE Members will be invited to become members of the new openSUSE Foundation
Hmm, normally a Foundation (Stiftung) does not have members, except the founders. An assocation (Verein) has members though.
This is true, however The Document Foundation (libre office) have paved the way here and have a Stiftung where the board is elected by members which means that it is possible. 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 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Simon Lees wrote:
On 20/06/2019 00:54, Per Jessen wrote:
Simon Lees wrote:
- The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules
Maybe we ought to consider electing a chairman. For us to seek a greater degree of independence seems to clash with SUSE appointing a chairman.
This foundation proposal is not really about being more independent from SUSE, we will continue to be just as dependent on SUSE and in some ways we will be more dependent at least initially,
Looking at your initial post, under "Motivations", it seems quite clear it is primarily about becoming more independent.
As for the chairman position the board feels that while SUSE is the primary sponsor and is managing / maintaining all of SUSE's infrastructure etc having the chairman position as someone who can work between openSUSE and the community / board is a very valuable role, in addition to the current things that SUSE provides it is likely a foundation would need 1 to 2 people to deal with the admin / paperwork of running the foundation, rather then the foundation employing these people directly it would be far easier if SUSE were to employ such people on behalf of the foundation as they already have HR / payroll people etc which is another reason why keeping a strong link between SUSE and the board makes sense.
Certainly - I only suggested we elect such a person, instead of having her or him appointed. Not having a chairman at all is also an option - not uncommon in Foundations (I believe).
- The rules for membership of the openSUSE Foundation will remain the same as the rules for existing openSUSE members with the exception that members are required to be over 16 as per legal requirements. Existing openSUSE Members will be invited to become members of the new openSUSE Foundation
Hmm, normally a Foundation (Stiftung) does not have members, except the founders. An assocation (Verein) has members though.
This is true, however The Document Foundation (libre office) have paved the way here and have a Stiftung where the board is elected by members which means that it is possible.
It probably depends on how we define "member". At TDF, they use the Board of Trustees (Stiftungsrat/Verwaltungsrat/Aufsichtsrat) as the "container" for membership. That is really a bit twisted, imo. For one thing, the bodies of a foundation may be held legally liable for their actions (or lack thereof). Also - I don't know the German law sufficiently well, but in Switzerland, changes to the Stiftungsrat must be announced (SHAB) and recorded publicly (HRA). I'm not saying this is absolutely the wrong way to go, but turning all of the openSUSE members into an oversized Aufsichstrat seems a little unnecessary. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (19.1°C) http://www.hostsuisse.com/ - dedicated server rental in Switzerland. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 20/06/2019 16:42, Per Jessen wrote:
Simon Lees wrote:
On 20/06/2019 00:54, Per Jessen wrote:
Simon Lees wrote:
- The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules
Maybe we ought to consider electing a chairman. For us to seek a greater degree of independence seems to clash with SUSE appointing a chairman.
This foundation proposal is not really about being more independent from SUSE, we will continue to be just as dependent on SUSE and in some ways we will be more dependent at least initially,
Looking at your initial post, under "Motivations", it seems quite clear it is primarily about becoming more independent.
Then we failed in our wording badly, maybe the simple explanation is that for everything we currently depend on SUSE for and some other things we need to make the foundation work we will continue to depend on SUSE just as much and the relationship wont change. The difference will be that with a foundation should we want to do something additional to what we do now and some other company is willing to help, whether thats conference sponsorship hardware donations or some other things that may benefit the community. In a sense that makes us more independent because currently we depend 100% on SUSE. The board has been very careful in not using the word "independent" rather opting for phrases like "less dependent" due to the fact that previous pushes for a foundation were very much about openSUSE moving away from SUSE which is not what we are trying to do, it would be especially easy for lazy journalists to take the words foundation and independence and write an article stating that openSUSE and SUSE are moving away from each other which is pretty much the opposite of whats happening, hence us trying to avoid the independence branding.
As for the chairman position the board feels that while SUSE is the primary sponsor and is managing / maintaining all of SUSE's infrastructure etc having the chairman position as someone who can work between openSUSE and the community / board is a very valuable role, in addition to the current things that SUSE provides it is likely a foundation would need 1 to 2 people to deal with the admin / paperwork of running the foundation, rather then the foundation employing these people directly it would be far easier if SUSE were to employ such people on behalf of the foundation as they already have HR / payroll people etc which is another reason why keeping a strong link between SUSE and the board makes sense.
Certainly - I only suggested we elect such a person, instead of having her or him appointed. Not having a chairman at all is also an option - not uncommon in Foundations (I believe).
I think a strong case against this is that the chairman ends up reporting to someone reasonably high within SUSE so I think its fair they get to have a say, in a sense the current openSUSE chairman is not like most chairmen in most organisations, for example Richard isn't always the one chairing board meetings we tend to all work together maybe the word chairperson is wrong, given that there role is much less about chairing meetings and more about being the link between SUSE and the board, as such I think its reasonable for SUSE and the board to have the biggest say in there appointment, under the current scheme SUSE appoints the chairperson but if the board feels that the relationship between the chairperson and the rest of the board isn't working the board can formally ask SUSE for a replacement.
- The rules for membership of the openSUSE Foundation will remain the same as the rules for existing openSUSE members with the exception that members are required to be over 16 as per legal requirements. Existing openSUSE Members will be invited to become members of the new openSUSE Foundation
Hmm, normally a Foundation (Stiftung) does not have members, except the founders. An assocation (Verein) has members though.
This is true, however The Document Foundation (libre office) have paved the way here and have a Stiftung where the board is elected by members which means that it is possible.
It probably depends on how we define "member". At TDF, they use the Board of Trustees (Stiftungsrat/Verwaltungsrat/Aufsichtsrat) as the "container" for membership. That is really a bit twisted, imo. For one thing, the bodies of a foundation may be held legally liable for their actions (or lack thereof). Also - I don't know the German law sufficiently well, but in Switzerland, changes to the Stiftungsrat must be announced (SHAB) and recorded publicly (HRA).
I'm not saying this is absolutely the wrong way to go, but turning all of the openSUSE members into an oversized Aufsichstrat seems a little unnecessary.
I don't think this is how we have discussed it, it also doesn't sound great to me. I am also not an expert in German law. In practice once we as the board are satisfied this is a reasonable way forward and its worth spending time on, we will ask SUSE for money to hire an independent lawyer to help us start drafting more concrete official documents. The board is not really in a hurry we would rather get everything right then rush to have a foundation, having said that given the lack of negative comments the proposal has got here (compared to some other threads) and the positive feedback the board received at the conference and our initial feedback from SUSE management this process will probably start reasonably soon. Of course once everything is finalized we will put it to the members for a final vote. -- 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 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 20/06/2019 18:09, Simon Lees wrote:
As for the chairman position the board feels that while SUSE is the primary sponsor and is managing / maintaining all of SUSE's infrastructure etc having the chairman position as someone who can work between openSUSE and the community / board is a very valuable role, in addition to the current things that SUSE provides it is likely a foundation would need 1 to 2 people to deal with the admin / paperwork of running the foundation, rather then the foundation employing these people directly it would be far easier if SUSE were to employ such people on behalf of the foundation as they already have HR / payroll people etc which is another reason why keeping a strong link between SUSE and the board makes sense.
Certainly - I only suggested we elect such a person, instead of having her or him appointed. Not having a chairman at all is also an option - not uncommon in Foundations (I believe).
I think a strong case against this is that the chairman ends up reporting to someone reasonably high within SUSE so I think its fair they get to have a say, in a sense the current openSUSE chairman is not like most chairmen in most organisations, for example Richard isn't always the one chairing board meetings we tend to all work together maybe the word chairperson is wrong, given that there role is much less about chairing meetings and more about being the link between SUSE and the board, as such I think its reasonable for SUSE and the board to have the biggest say in there appointment, under the current scheme SUSE appoints the chairperson but if the board feels that the relationship between the chairperson and the rest of the board isn't working the board can formally ask SUSE for a replacement.
Sorry I missed something here, defining how a membership vote would work for chairperson would be kind of messy. The chairperson needs to be a SUSE employee and presumably they'd want to be on the board, so if the vote was at the same time if you were a SUSE employee running for chairman would you also be able to run for the general board at the same time, if not you'd risk people not running for chairperson because they want to be on the board and the chairman position might be a 1/4 chance where as general board might be 3/6 for example. Alternatively if they can run for the general board what happens if the members elect a chairperson who doesn't get elected to the board do you pick the person who ends up on the board with the highest number of votes for chairperson? Do you take only the first 2 board members elected instead of the first 3 and the third spot goes to the new chairman? If the community really wanted such a change we maybe able to do it but we'd have to consult with SUSE first we'd also have to come up with a solution which probably is possible but may not be all that clean but of all the options for a chairperson personally this is my least favorite but I am just one person. -- 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 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
* Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de> [06-19-19 09:28]:
Hi All,
During this years face to face board meeting, the board started more serious work / discussions in relation to an openSUSE Foundation, to most people reading this list including our meeting minutes or who were at the openSUSE conference this comes as little surprise.
[...]
- The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules - The rules for membership of the openSUSE Foundation will remain the same as the rules for existing openSUSE members with the exception that members are required to be over 16 as per legal requirements. Existing openSUSE Members will be invited to become members of the new openSUSE Foundation - trademark / intellectual property usage guarantee in case SUSE ever drops doing Linux distributions (like KDE / Qt) - Ideally/eventually transfer of openSUSE trademarks into Foundation
would this "Foundation" membership make "members" become liable in the result of legal action against the "Foundatiton"? if so, perhaps a "caretaker" committee should be elected and indemnified from legal action. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet freenode -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 20/06/2019 02:19, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
* Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de> [06-19-19 09:28]:
Hi All,
During this years face to face board meeting, the board started more serious work / discussions in relation to an openSUSE Foundation, to most people reading this list including our meeting minutes or who were at the openSUSE conference this comes as little surprise.
[...]
- The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules - The rules for membership of the openSUSE Foundation will remain the same as the rules for existing openSUSE members with the exception that members are required to be over 16 as per legal requirements. Existing openSUSE Members will be invited to become members of the new openSUSE Foundation - trademark / intellectual property usage guarantee in case SUSE ever drops doing Linux distributions (like KDE / Qt) - Ideally/eventually transfer of openSUSE trademarks into Foundation
would this "Foundation" membership make "members" become liable in the result of legal action against the "Foundatiton"?
if so, perhaps a "caretaker" committee should be elected and indemnified from legal action.
It is likely that members of the foundation board would become liable and as such the foundation would take out insurance to protect them. -- 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 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Le mercredi 19 juin 2019 à 22:55 +0930, Simon Lees a écrit :
*Proposed Charter* - openSUSE Foundation is a legal entity having been founded on the date of xxxxxxx with the following identity: yyyyyyyyy.
[...]
*Other Considered Options* - e. V. (association)
Having excluded the e.V. means that there have been some thoughts about the type of legal entity we're talking about. Do you have more details on this? (eg: which country would it be estabished in? if in the US, what kind of non-profit organization? etc.) Thanks, Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 21/06/2019 01:22, Vincent Untz wrote:
Le mercredi 19 juin 2019 à 22:55 +0930, Simon Lees a écrit :
*Proposed Charter* - openSUSE Foundation is a legal entity having been founded on the date of xxxxxxx with the following identity: yyyyyyyyy.
[...]
*Other Considered Options* - e. V. (association)
Having excluded the e.V. means that there have been some thoughts about the type of legal entity we're talking about. Do you have more details on this?
(eg: which country would it be estabished in? if in the US, what kind of non-profit organization? etc.)
We looked at a German e.V (eingetragener Verein), the two main concerns were that the charter is not set in stone, so theoretically a group of people could join as members over time and then decide to change the charter / purpose of the foundation. The way the foundation board is structured also has more restrictions so we would not be able to allow SUSE to appoint someone to the board. Where as the Foundation approach we are looking at has disadvantages in terms of being far more expensive and more complex to setup it gives us alot more flexibility to maintain governance structures similar to the ones we currently have and the charter can never be changed. Additionally SUSE has thus far indicated they are happy to help cover the setup costs etc. This is atleast how I currently understand it, other board members have been involved in running both styles of organizations and can actually speak German and therefore may possibly understand it better. -- 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 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi Simon, Le vendredi 21 juin 2019 à 11:11 +0930, Simon Lees a écrit :
On 21/06/2019 01:22, Vincent Untz wrote:
Le mercredi 19 juin 2019 à 22:55 +0930, Simon Lees a écrit :
*Proposed Charter* - openSUSE Foundation is a legal entity having been founded on the date of xxxxxxx with the following identity: yyyyyyyyy.
[...]
*Other Considered Options* - e. V. (association)
Having excluded the e.V. means that there have been some thoughts about the type of legal entity we're talking about. Do you have more details on this?
(eg: which country would it be estabished in? if in the US, what kind of non-profit organization? etc.)
We looked at a German e.V (eingetragener Verein), the two main concerns were that the charter is not set in stone, so theoretically a group of people could join as members over time and then decide to change the charter / purpose of the foundation. The way the foundation board is structured also has more restrictions so we would not be able to allow SUSE to appoint someone to the board. Where as the Foundation approach we are looking at has disadvantages in terms of being far more expensive and more complex to setup it gives us alot more flexibility to maintain governance structures similar to the ones we currently have and the charter can never be changed. Additionally SUSE has thus far indicated they are happy to help cover the setup costs etc.
Thanks, that's a good explanation as why the e.V. is less desired. However I'm still wondering what kind of organization is being considered: German one? (I'm not clear if there's even something besides e.V.) American 501(c)(3) one? French one? My guess, based on what you described, is that it'd be a 501(c)(3) organization based in the US. Is that correct, or is it not decided yet in the proposal? Cheers, Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 21/06/2019 17:46, Vincent Untz wrote:
Hi Simon,
Le vendredi 21 juin 2019 à 11:11 +0930, Simon Lees a écrit :
On 21/06/2019 01:22, Vincent Untz wrote:
Le mercredi 19 juin 2019 à 22:55 +0930, Simon Lees a écrit :
*Proposed Charter* - openSUSE Foundation is a legal entity having been founded on the date of xxxxxxx with the following identity: yyyyyyyyy.
[...]
*Other Considered Options* - e. V. (association)
Having excluded the e.V. means that there have been some thoughts about the type of legal entity we're talking about. Do you have more details on this?
(eg: which country would it be estabished in? if in the US, what kind of non-profit organization? etc.)
We looked at a German e.V (eingetragener Verein), the two main concerns were that the charter is not set in stone, so theoretically a group of people could join as members over time and then decide to change the charter / purpose of the foundation. The way the foundation board is structured also has more restrictions so we would not be able to allow SUSE to appoint someone to the board. Where as the Foundation approach we are looking at has disadvantages in terms of being far more expensive and more complex to setup it gives us alot more flexibility to maintain governance structures similar to the ones we currently have and the charter can never be changed. Additionally SUSE has thus far indicated they are happy to help cover the setup costs etc.
Thanks, that's a good explanation as why the e.V. is less desired.
However I'm still wondering what kind of organization is being considered: German one? (I'm not clear if there's even something besides e.V.) American 501(c)(3) one? French one?
My guess, based on what you described, is that it'd be a 501(c)(3) organization based in the US. Is that correct, or is it not decided yet in the proposal?
Sorry, this is probably something we missed, currently we are proposing a German "Stiftung" This is the same type of foundation The Document Foundation is using. -- 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 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Thursday, 20 June 2019 17:52:37 CEST Vincent Untz wrote:
Having excluded the e.V. means that there have been some thoughts about the type of legal entity we're talking about. Do you have more details on this?
(eg: which country would it be estabished in? if in the US, what kind of non-profit organization? etc.)
As far as I read between the lines the foundation will be established in Germany, just where SUSE has it's headquarters. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Pierre Böckmann wrote:
On Thursday, 20 June 2019 17:52:37 CEST Vincent Untz wrote:
Having excluded the e.V. means that there have been some thoughts about the type of legal entity we're talking about. Do you have more details on this?
(eg: which country would it be estabished in? if in the US, what kind of non-profit organization? etc.)
As far as I read between the lines the foundation will be established in Germany, just where SUSE has it's headquarters.
That is also my impression. There are probably numerous logistical/practical/legal advantages. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (19.4°C) http://www.dns24.ch/ - free dynamic DNS, made in Switzerland. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Simon Lees wrote:
Hi All,
During this years face to face board meeting, the board started more serious work / discussions in relation to an openSUSE Foundation, to
JFYI - we actually had an opensuse-foundation mailing list, but it was closed just about a year ago, upon request from the Board :-) -- Per Jessen, Zürich (18.2°C) member, openSUSE Heroes -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Woops forgot to press send sorry for the delay. On 21/06/2019 16:59, Per Jessen wrote:
Simon Lees wrote:
Hi All,
During this years face to face board meeting, the board started more serious work / discussions in relation to an openSUSE Foundation, to
JFYI - we actually had an opensuse-foundation mailing list, but it was closed just about a year ago, upon request from the Board :-)
Yep we know, this time the board decided that as we want to work with SUSE to create this foundation we'd put the work into deciding on what we think is the best proposal then use that to get feedback from both SUSE and here, as opposed to getting a group of community members to come up with the first proposal who then need somewhere like a mailing list to discuss it. -- 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 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/19/19 9:25 AM, Simon Lees wrote:
Hi All,
<snip>
*Proposal Summary* - The Board request that SUSE provide capital stock and help to setup the foundation - The Board request that SUSE provide 1 or 2 FTE staffing to handle the admin work of the foundation alongside the existing work it does managing the TSP etc - The Board is open to any discussion regarding bylaws or statues to codify and guarantee the ongoing productive relationship between SUSE & openSUSE - The openSUSE Foundation board will take over the role of the current openSUSE Board - The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules
That, IMHO, would create a problem. The current rules contain "....and a chairperson is separately appointed by SUSE." My underlying assumption is that with the foundation there will be some formal agreement that states SUSE gives the foundation $$$ and people. That also appears what this proposal appears to imply. In this case SUSE is a sponsor of the foundation, like any other entity would be that gives to the foundation. However, if we follow the current rules then SUSE gets to appoint the board chairperson, i.e. "pay to play". Therefore, this will inevitably raise the question, how much any other entity would have to "pay to play", i.e. how much does it cost to get a person onto the board? In another thread someone mentioned that we should not have a "pay to play" situation. This of course can be discussed. But the current proposal would establish such a "pay to play" situation. SUSE gives generously to the foundation and gets to appoint the chairperson. I think the governance rules w.r.t. to board composition need to be re-visited. We should not have 1 company in a "pay to play" position while denying similar access to other entities. If we have "pay to play" then we need some kind of fee schedule, if we do not have "pay to play" SUSE would have to relinquish it's privilege to appoint people on the Foundation board. Later, Robert -- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU Distinguished Architect LINUX Technical Team Lead Public Cloud rjschwei@suse.com IRC: robjo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
* Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> [06-24-19 09:18]:
On 6/19/19 9:25 AM, Simon Lees wrote:
Hi All,
<snip>
*Proposal Summary* - The Board request that SUSE provide capital stock and help to setup the foundation - The Board request that SUSE provide 1 or 2 FTE staffing to handle the admin work of the foundation alongside the existing work it does managing the TSP etc - The Board is open to any discussion regarding bylaws or statues to codify and guarantee the ongoing productive relationship between SUSE & openSUSE - The openSUSE Foundation board will take over the role of the current openSUSE Board - The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules
That, IMHO, would create a problem. The current rules contain "....and a chairperson is separately appointed by SUSE."
My underlying assumption is that with the foundation there will be some formal agreement that states SUSE gives the foundation $$$ and people. That also appears what this proposal appears to imply.
In this case SUSE is a sponsor of the foundation, like any other entity would be that gives to the foundation. However, if we follow the current rules then SUSE gets to appoint the board chairperson, i.e. "pay to play". Therefore, this will inevitably raise the question, how much any other entity would have to "pay to play", i.e. how much does it cost to get a person onto the board?
In another thread someone mentioned that we should not have a "pay to play" situation. This of course can be discussed. But the current proposal would establish such a "pay to play" situation. SUSE gives generously to the foundation and gets to appoint the chairperson.
I think the governance rules w.r.t. to board composition need to be re-visited. We should not have 1 company in a "pay to play" position while denying similar access to other entities.
If we have "pay to play" then we need some kind of fee schedule, if we do not have "pay to play" SUSE would have to relinquish it's privilege to appoint people on the Foundation board.
simple, the Foundation Board != openSUSE Board as there does not presently exist a Foundation Board, and hasn't, I do not believe there are any "stipulations" yet presented aside of the present Board filling both positions and that appears to not be acceptable. the two subj Boards need to be *separate* entities. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet freenode -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/24/19 9:37 AM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
* Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> [06-24-19 09:18]:
On 6/19/19 9:25 AM, Simon Lees wrote:
Hi All,
<snip>
*Proposal Summary* - The Board request that SUSE provide capital stock and help to setup the foundation - The Board request that SUSE provide 1 or 2 FTE staffing to handle the admin work of the foundation alongside the existing work it does managing the TSP etc - The Board is open to any discussion regarding bylaws or statues to codify and guarantee the ongoing productive relationship between SUSE & openSUSE - The openSUSE Foundation board will take over the role of the current openSUSE Board - The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules
That, IMHO, would create a problem. The current rules contain "....and a chairperson is separately appointed by SUSE."
My underlying assumption is that with the foundation there will be some formal agreement that states SUSE gives the foundation $$$ and people. That also appears what this proposal appears to imply.
In this case SUSE is a sponsor of the foundation, like any other entity would be that gives to the foundation. However, if we follow the current rules then SUSE gets to appoint the board chairperson, i.e. "pay to play". Therefore, this will inevitably raise the question, how much any other entity would have to "pay to play", i.e. how much does it cost to get a person onto the board?
In another thread someone mentioned that we should not have a "pay to play" situation. This of course can be discussed. But the current proposal would establish such a "pay to play" situation. SUSE gives generously to the foundation and gets to appoint the chairperson.
I think the governance rules w.r.t. to board composition need to be re-visited. We should not have 1 company in a "pay to play" position while denying similar access to other entities.
If we have "pay to play" then we need some kind of fee schedule, if we do not have "pay to play" SUSE would have to relinquish it's privilege to appoint people on the Foundation board.
simple, the Foundation Board != openSUSE Board
as there does not presently exist a Foundation Board, and hasn't, I do not believe there are any "stipulations" yet presented aside of the present Board filling both positions and that appears to not be acceptable.
the two subj Boards need to be *separate* entities.
Yes, having separate boards solves the problem. That implies that the cited rules [1] should not apply to the Foundation board. Later, Robert [1] https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules -- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU Distinguished Architect LINUX Technical Team Lead Public Cloud rjschwei@suse.com IRC: robjo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On pon, cze 24, 2019 at 3:53 PM, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
On 6/24/19 9:37 AM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
* Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> [06-24-19 09:18]:
On 6/19/19 9:25 AM, Simon Lees wrote:
Hi All,
<snip>
*Proposal Summary* - The Board request that SUSE provide capital stock and help to setup the foundation - The Board request that SUSE provide 1 or 2 FTE staffing to handle the admin work of the foundation alongside the existing work it does managing the TSP etc - The Board is open to any discussion regarding bylaws or statues to codify and guarantee the ongoing productive relationship between SUSE & openSUSE - The openSUSE Foundation board will take over the role of the current openSUSE Board - The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules
That, IMHO, would create a problem. The current rules contain "....and a chairperson is separately appointed by SUSE."
My underlying assumption is that with the foundation there will be some formal agreement that states SUSE gives the foundation $$$ and people. That also appears what this proposal appears to imply.
In this case SUSE is a sponsor of the foundation, like any other entity would be that gives to the foundation. However, if we follow the current rules then SUSE gets to appoint the board chairperson, i.e. "pay to play". Therefore, this will inevitably raise the question, how much any other entity would have to "pay to play", i.e. how much does it cost to get a person onto the board?
In another thread someone mentioned that we should not have a "pay to play" situation. This of course can be discussed. But the current proposal would establish such a "pay to play" situation. SUSE gives generously to the foundation and gets to appoint the chairperson.
I think the governance rules w.r.t. to board composition need to be re-visited. We should not have 1 company in a "pay to play" position while denying similar access to other entities.
If we have "pay to play" then we need some kind of fee schedule, if we do not have "pay to play" SUSE would have to relinquish it's privilege to appoint people on the Foundation board.
simple, the Foundation Board != openSUSE Board
as there does not presently exist a Foundation Board, and hasn't, I do not believe there are any "stipulations" yet presented aside of the present Board filling both positions and that appears to not be acceptable.
the two subj Boards need to be *separate* entities.
Yes, having separate boards solves the problem. That implies that the cited rules [1] should not apply to the Foundation board.
This sounds like adding quite a bit of complexity. There doesn't seem to be a reason to have both boards in case where we choose to not have SUSE influencing the board directly, outside of existing voting rules. I might be repeating myself, but the 2010 foundation proposal did not have a chairman in place, instead having an X people board with President, Vice President and Treasurer as additional people for taking care of foundation specific tasks [1, 2]. This sounds like a better way to go than relying on 2 separate boards. We should also probably start to gather stuff that was already well discussed in some place on the wiki, that won't override the 2010 stuff just so we can reference the ideas there. [1] https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Foundation_legal_form#The_Board [2] http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/files/presentations/ooo_foundation.pdf (please note, this was quite a rocky time for both Novell and openSUSE) 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 Mon, 24 Jun 2019 at 16:14, Stasiek Michalski <hellcp@opensuse.org> wrote:
I might be repeating myself, but the 2010 foundation proposal did not have a chairman in place, instead having an X people board with President, Vice President and Treasurer as additional people for taking care of foundation specific tasks [1, 2]. This sounds like a better way to go than relying on 2 separate boards.
The Board discussed the 2010 proposal. It is not the basis of this current proposal. While it is always good to look at past efforts, the reality is that the Project and SUSE are both very different organizations than we were in 2010. The inclusion of the continuation of the Chairperson position in the current proposal is intentional. This inclusion in the proposal was added without any discussion with or involvement of the current Chairperson, who had been under the assumption the role would no longer exist. In other words - I wasn't joking when I said "they didn't ask me" during the discussion panel on this topic at openSUSE Conference ;) Even with the Foundation Board retaining a Chairperson appointed by SUSE, I would expect the nature of the role to change. I think it highly unlikely that any Foundation could have any appointed position having a veto like my role currently holds. Such veto power would undermine legal mandated requirements for operating independently. For example, IANAL but I imagine tax authorities would have concerns about a tax-exempt foundation being directly veto control by SUSE, a profit-seeking corporation. But on the flipside, as we have repeatedly stated through this effort, the Foundation will seek to formalise and reinforce many aspects of the Project's relationship with SUSE. Ensuring SUSE has guaranteed representation on the Board is one way of doing that. Remember the Chairperson can be replaced by SUSE at any time, and the elected members of the Board can request that at any time. Having that position be at the mercy of the elected members keeps the position very much under the influence of the community at large,which I think is very beneficial for such an role. Therefore I see where my Board colleagues are coming from with including that in the current draft of the plan. Regards, Richard -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 24/06/2019 23:43, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
On pon, cze 24, 2019 at 3:53 PM, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
On 6/24/19 9:37 AM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
* Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> [06-24-19 09:18]:
On 6/19/19 9:25 AM, Simon Lees wrote:
Hi All,
<snip>
*Proposal Summary* - The Board request that SUSE provide capital stock and help to setup the foundation - The Board request that SUSE provide 1 or 2 FTE staffing to handle the admin work of the foundation alongside the existing work it does managing the TSP etc - The Board is open to any discussion regarding bylaws or statues to codify and guarantee the ongoing productive relationship between SUSE & openSUSE - The openSUSE Foundation board will take over the role of the current openSUSE Board - The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules
That, IMHO, would create a problem. The current rules contain "....and a chairperson is separately appointed by SUSE."
My underlying assumption is that with the foundation there will be some formal agreement that states SUSE gives the foundation $$$ and people. That also appears what this proposal appears to imply.
In this case SUSE is a sponsor of the foundation, like any other entity would be that gives to the foundation. However, if we follow the current rules then SUSE gets to appoint the board chairperson, i.e. "pay to play". Therefore, this will inevitably raise the question, how much any other entity would have to "pay to play", i.e. how much does it cost to get a person onto the board?
In another thread someone mentioned that we should not have a "pay to play" situation. This of course can be discussed. But the current proposal would establish such a "pay to play" situation. SUSE gives generously to the foundation and gets to appoint the chairperson.
I think the governance rules w.r.t. to board composition need to be re-visited. We should not have 1 company in a "pay to play" position while denying similar access to other entities.
If we have "pay to play" then we need some kind of fee schedule, if we do not have "pay to play" SUSE would have to relinquish it's privilege to appoint people on the Foundation board.
simple, the Foundation Board != openSUSE Board
as there does not presently exist a Foundation Board, and hasn't, I do not believe there are any "stipulations" yet presented aside of the present Board filling both positions and that appears to not be acceptable.
the two subj Boards need to be *separate* entities.
Yes, having separate boards solves the problem. That implies that the cited rules [1] should not apply to the Foundation board.
Yeah I don't see how this could sainly work, what is the foundation board responsible vs what is the openSUSE board responsible for? how do both boards get reelected etc.
This sounds like adding quite a bit of complexity. There doesn't seem to be a reason to have both boards in case where we choose to not have SUSE influencing the board directly, outside of existing voting rules.
I might be repeating myself, but the 2010 foundation proposal did not have a chairman in place, instead having an X people board with President, Vice President and Treasurer as additional people for taking care of foundation specific tasks [1, 2]. This sounds like a better way to go than relying on 2 separate boards.
openSUSE has now had a treasurer for many years who is not a part of the board this has worked really well for reducing the amount the board needs to deal with. Given that in this proposal the project is in a position to ask SUSE for people resources part of the current plan involves hiring someone to take care of the work of being treasurer + other admin work, in our opinion the amount of work required to do this role is far more then we can expect from any one volunteer board member. To the point were personally I don't believe we should peruse such a foundation without the knowledge that we'd be able to employ someone in that role. -- 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 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/24/19 8:21 PM, Simon Lees wrote:
On 24/06/2019 23:43, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
On pon, cze 24, 2019 at 3:53 PM, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
On 6/24/19 9:37 AM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
* Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> [06-24-19 09:18]:
On 6/19/19 9:25 AM, Simon Lees wrote:
Hi All,
<snip>
*Proposal Summary* - The Board request that SUSE provide capital stock and help to setup the foundation - The Board request that SUSE provide 1 or 2 FTE staffing to handle the admin work of the foundation alongside the existing work it does managing the TSP etc - The Board is open to any discussion regarding bylaws or statues to codify and guarantee the ongoing productive relationship between SUSE & openSUSE - The openSUSE Foundation board will take over the role of the current openSUSE Board - The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules
That, IMHO, would create a problem. The current rules contain "....and a chairperson is separately appointed by SUSE."
My underlying assumption is that with the foundation there will be some formal agreement that states SUSE gives the foundation $$$ and people. That also appears what this proposal appears to imply.
In this case SUSE is a sponsor of the foundation, like any other entity would be that gives to the foundation. However, if we follow the current rules then SUSE gets to appoint the board chairperson, i.e. "pay to play". Therefore, this will inevitably raise the question, how much any other entity would have to "pay to play", i.e. how much does it cost to get a person onto the board?
In another thread someone mentioned that we should not have a "pay to play" situation. This of course can be discussed. But the current proposal would establish such a "pay to play" situation. SUSE gives generously to the foundation and gets to appoint the chairperson.
I think the governance rules w.r.t. to board composition need to be re-visited. We should not have 1 company in a "pay to play" position while denying similar access to other entities.
If we have "pay to play" then we need some kind of fee schedule, if we do not have "pay to play" SUSE would have to relinquish it's privilege to appoint people on the Foundation board.
simple, the Foundation Board != openSUSE Board
as there does not presently exist a Foundation Board, and hasn't, I do not believe there are any "stipulations" yet presented aside of the present Board filling both positions and that appears to not be acceptable.
the two subj Boards need to be *separate* entities.
Yes, having separate boards solves the problem. That implies that the cited rules [1] should not apply to the Foundation board.
Yeah I don't see how this could sainly work, what is the foundation board responsible vs what is the openSUSE board responsible for? how do both boards get reelected etc.
There are probably other solutions, but the current proposal creates a "pay for play" problem. No appointed board members, by any sponsor of the foundation, on the Foundation board is another option. Trying to live in both worlds, i.e. a "pay for play" arrangement for one special company is going to be a problem. Later, Robert -- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU Distinguished Architect LINUX Technical Team Lead Public Cloud rjschwei@suse.com IRC: robjo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 25/06/2019 09:58, Robert Schweikert wrote:
On 6/24/19 8:21 PM, Simon Lees wrote:
On 24/06/2019 23:43, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
On pon, cze 24, 2019 at 3:53 PM, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
On 6/24/19 9:37 AM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
* Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> [06-24-19 09:18]:
On 6/19/19 9:25 AM, Simon Lees wrote: > Hi All, > <snip> > *Proposal Summary* > - The Board request that SUSE provide capital stock and help to > setup > the foundation > - The Board request that SUSE provide 1 or 2 FTE staffing to > handle the > admin work of the foundation alongside the existing work it does > managing the TSP etc > - The Board is open to any discussion regarding bylaws or statues to > codify and guarantee the ongoing productive relationship between > SUSE & > openSUSE > - The openSUSE Foundation board will take over the role of the > current > openSUSE Board > - The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board > will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in > https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules
That, IMHO, would create a problem. The current rules contain "....and a chairperson is separately appointed by SUSE."
My underlying assumption is that with the foundation there will be some formal agreement that states SUSE gives the foundation $$$ and people. That also appears what this proposal appears to imply.
In this case SUSE is a sponsor of the foundation, like any other entity would be that gives to the foundation. However, if we follow the current rules then SUSE gets to appoint the board chairperson, i.e. "pay to play". Therefore, this will inevitably raise the question, how much any other entity would have to "pay to play", i.e. how much does it cost to get a person onto the board?
In another thread someone mentioned that we should not have a "pay to play" situation. This of course can be discussed. But the current proposal would establish such a "pay to play" situation. SUSE gives generously to the foundation and gets to appoint the chairperson.
I think the governance rules w.r.t. to board composition need to be re-visited. We should not have 1 company in a "pay to play" position while denying similar access to other entities.
If we have "pay to play" then we need some kind of fee schedule, if we do not have "pay to play" SUSE would have to relinquish it's privilege to appoint people on the Foundation board.
simple, the Foundation Board != openSUSE Board
as there does not presently exist a Foundation Board, and hasn't, I do not believe there are any "stipulations" yet presented aside of the present Board filling both positions and that appears to not be acceptable.
the two subj Boards need to be *separate* entities.
Yes, having separate boards solves the problem. That implies that the cited rules [1] should not apply to the Foundation board.
Yeah I don't see how this could sainly work, what is the foundation board responsible vs what is the openSUSE board responsible for? how do both boards get reelected etc.
There are probably other solutions, but the current proposal creates a "pay for play" problem.
No appointed board members, by any sponsor of the foundation, on the Foundation board is another option. Trying to live in both worlds, i.e. a "pay for play" arrangement for one special company is going to be a problem.
Do you have any specific examples of how you believe this will be a problem? If we were to do something like $10k a year or something gives you a seat on the board I think that would be a problem, but it is clear to everyone that the relationship between SUSE and openSUSE is special, beyond being a financial sponsor, they employ most of the people working in key parts of the project, they host almost all our infrastructure defend the openSUSE trademark amongst other things, if some other company was doing this to the same degree over a prolonged period of time i'd personally be happy for them to have a seat on the board as well. Would you be happyier if we had a "pay to play" fee that was so high SUSE would be the only company that would ever meet it? -- 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 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/25/19 1:40 AM, Simon Lees wrote:
On 25/06/2019 09:58, Robert Schweikert wrote:
On 6/24/19 8:21 PM, Simon Lees wrote:
On 24/06/2019 23:43, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
On pon, cze 24, 2019 at 3:53 PM, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
On 6/24/19 9:37 AM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
* Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> [06-24-19 09:18]: > On 6/19/19 9:25 AM, Simon Lees wrote: >> Hi All, >> > <snip> >> *Proposal Summary* >> - The Board request that SUSE provide capital stock and help to >> setup >> the foundation >> - The Board request that SUSE provide 1 or 2 FTE staffing to >> handle the >> admin work of the foundation alongside the existing work it does >> managing the TSP etc >> - The Board is open to any discussion regarding bylaws or >> statues to >> codify and guarantee the ongoing productive relationship between >> SUSE & >> openSUSE >> - The openSUSE Foundation board will take over the role of the >> current >> openSUSE Board >> - The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation >> board >> will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in >> https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules > > That, IMHO, would create a problem. The current rules contain > "....and a > chairperson is separately appointed by SUSE." > > My underlying assumption is that with the foundation there will > be some > formal agreement that states SUSE gives the foundation $$$ and > people. That > also appears what this proposal appears to imply. > > In this case SUSE is a sponsor of the foundation, like any other > entity > would be that gives to the foundation. However, if we follow the > current > rules then SUSE gets to appoint the board chairperson, i.e. "pay > to play". > Therefore, this will inevitably raise the question, how much any > other > entity would have to "pay to play", i.e. how much does it cost to > get a > person onto the board? > > In another thread someone mentioned that we should not have a > "pay to play" > situation. This of course can be discussed. But the current > proposal would > establish such a "pay to play" situation. SUSE gives generously > to the > foundation and gets to appoint the chairperson. > > I think the governance rules w.r.t. to board composition need to be > re-visited. We should not have 1 company in a "pay to play" > position while > denying similar access to other entities. > > If we have "pay to play" then we need some kind of fee schedule, > if we do > not have "pay to play" SUSE would have to relinquish it's > privilege to > appoint people on the Foundation board.
simple, the Foundation Board != openSUSE Board
as there does not presently exist a Foundation Board, and hasn't, I do not believe there are any "stipulations" yet presented aside of the present Board filling both positions and that appears to not be acceptable.
the two subj Boards need to be *separate* entities.
Yes, having separate boards solves the problem. That implies that the cited rules [1] should not apply to the Foundation board.
Yeah I don't see how this could sainly work, what is the foundation board responsible vs what is the openSUSE board responsible for? how do both boards get reelected etc.
There are probably other solutions, but the current proposal creates a "pay for play" problem.
No appointed board members, by any sponsor of the foundation, on the Foundation board is another option. Trying to live in both worlds, i.e. a "pay for play" arrangement for one special company is going to be a problem.
Do you have any specific examples of how you believe this will be a problem? If we were to do something like $10k a year or something gives you a seat on the board I think that would be a problem, but it is clear to everyone that the relationship between SUSE and openSUSE is special, beyond being a financial sponsor, they employ most of the people working in key parts of the project, they host almost all our infrastructure defend the openSUSE trademark amongst other things, if some other company was doing this to the same degree over a prolonged period of time i'd personally be happy for them to have a seat on the board as well. Would you be happyier if we had a "pay to play" fee that was so high SUSE would be the only company that would ever meet it?
I have a problem with "special". The rules should be clear and apply to everyone. I am not certain he ultimate solution really matters. We don't know if company "A" has enough interest to spend large sums of money to "buy" a seat on the board. The point is that if we are going down that road the rules have to apply equally to everyone in the same way. On a personal note, I am not much of a fan of the very common "pay for play" scheme and I'd rather see the Foundation board elected with no appointed members by anyone. However, no matter the implementation my biggest underlying concern is the "you are special" problem created with the proposal. Later, Robert -- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU Distinguished Architect LINUX Technical Team Lead Public Cloud rjschwei@suse.com IRC: robjo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Robert point is spot on. I'd be surprised if any worthy company "donated" a penny to a project under another company's mercy. Why waste its resources to serve SUSE's interests? On Tue, Jun 25, 2019 at 2:19 PM Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
On 6/25/19 1:40 AM, Simon Lees wrote:
On 25/06/2019 09:58, Robert Schweikert wrote:
On 6/24/19 8:21 PM, Simon Lees wrote:
On 24/06/2019 23:43, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
On pon, cze 24, 2019 at 3:53 PM, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
On 6/24/19 9:37 AM, Patrick Shanahan wrote: > * Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> [06-24-19 09:18]: >> On 6/19/19 9:25 AM, Simon Lees wrote: >>> Hi All, >>> >> <snip> >>> *Proposal Summary* >>> - The Board request that SUSE provide capital stock and help to >>> setup >>> the foundation >>> - The Board request that SUSE provide 1 or 2 FTE staffing to >>> handle the >>> admin work of the foundation alongside the existing work it does >>> managing the TSP etc >>> - The Board is open to any discussion regarding bylaws or >>> statues to >>> codify and guarantee the ongoing productive relationship between >>> SUSE & >>> openSUSE >>> - The openSUSE Foundation board will take over the role of the >>> current >>> openSUSE Board >>> - The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation >>> board >>> will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in >>> https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules >> >> That, IMHO, would create a problem. The current rules contain >> "....and a >> chairperson is separately appointed by SUSE." >> >> My underlying assumption is that with the foundation there will >> be some >> formal agreement that states SUSE gives the foundation $$$ and >> people. That >> also appears what this proposal appears to imply. >> >> In this case SUSE is a sponsor of the foundation, like any other >> entity >> would be that gives to the foundation. However, if we follow the >> current >> rules then SUSE gets to appoint the board chairperson, i.e. "pay >> to play". >> Therefore, this will inevitably raise the question, how much any >> other >> entity would have to "pay to play", i.e. how much does it cost to >> get a >> person onto the board? >> >> In another thread someone mentioned that we should not have a >> "pay to play" >> situation. This of course can be discussed. But the current >> proposal would >> establish such a "pay to play" situation. SUSE gives generously >> to the >> foundation and gets to appoint the chairperson. >> >> I think the governance rules w.r.t. to board composition need to be >> re-visited. We should not have 1 company in a "pay to play" >> position while >> denying similar access to other entities. >> >> If we have "pay to play" then we need some kind of fee schedule, >> if we do >> not have "pay to play" SUSE would have to relinquish it's >> privilege to >> appoint people on the Foundation board. > > simple, the Foundation Board != openSUSE Board > > as there does not presently exist a Foundation Board, and hasn't, > I do not > believe there are any "stipulations" yet presented aside of the > present > Board filling both positions and that appears to not be acceptable. > > the two subj Boards need to be *separate* entities.
Yes, having separate boards solves the problem. That implies that the cited rules [1] should not apply to the Foundation board.
Yeah I don't see how this could sainly work, what is the foundation board responsible vs what is the openSUSE board responsible for? how do both boards get reelected etc.
There are probably other solutions, but the current proposal creates a "pay for play" problem.
No appointed board members, by any sponsor of the foundation, on the Foundation board is another option. Trying to live in both worlds, i.e. a "pay for play" arrangement for one special company is going to be a problem.
Do you have any specific examples of how you believe this will be a problem? If we were to do something like $10k a year or something gives you a seat on the board I think that would be a problem, but it is clear to everyone that the relationship between SUSE and openSUSE is special, beyond being a financial sponsor, they employ most of the people working in key parts of the project, they host almost all our infrastructure defend the openSUSE trademark amongst other things, if some other company was doing this to the same degree over a prolonged period of time i'd personally be happy for them to have a seat on the board as well. Would you be happyier if we had a "pay to play" fee that was so high SUSE would be the only company that would ever meet it?
I have a problem with "special". The rules should be clear and apply to everyone. I am not certain he ultimate solution really matters.
We don't know if company "A" has enough interest to spend large sums of money to "buy" a seat on the board. The point is that if we are going down that road the rules have to apply equally to everyone in the same way.
On a personal note, I am not much of a fan of the very common "pay for play" scheme and I'd rather see the Foundation board elected with no appointed members by anyone.
However, no matter the implementation my biggest underlying concern is the "you are special" problem created with the proposal.
Later, Robert
-- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU Distinguished Architect LINUX Technical Team Lead Public Cloud rjschwei@suse.com IRC: robjo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Tue, 25 Jun 2019 at 14:03, Imad Aldoj <zerocon.opensource@gmail.com> wrote:
Robert point is spot on. I'd be surprised if any worthy company "donated" a penny to a project under another company's mercy. Why waste its resources to serve SUSE's interests?
You mean like AMD, B1 Systems, Core Backbone, Heinlein, Marvell, or Tuxedo? https://en.opensuse.org/Sponsors Please, don't waste our time with such nonsense - plenty of companies do already sponsor SUSE under our current arrangements, and the biggest hindrance is the logistical issues we currently have due to the lack of an independent openSUSE Legal entity, not the fact that SUSE is the primary sponsor of the openSUSE Project. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Well sorry, I didn't mean to waste your time, carry on Btw why did you ignore contributing your "evidence" to Robert's discussion for days then responded to mine within an hour? I mean don't get me wrong, I'm glad I got your attention On Tue, Jun 25, 2019 at 4:08 PM Richard Brown <RBrownCCB@opensuse.org> wrote:
On Tue, 25 Jun 2019 at 14:03, Imad Aldoj <zerocon.opensource@gmail.com> wrote:
Robert point is spot on. I'd be surprised if any worthy company "donated" a penny to a project under another company's mercy. Why waste its resources to serve SUSE's interests?
You mean like AMD, B1 Systems, Core Backbone, Heinlein, Marvell, or Tuxedo?
https://en.opensuse.org/Sponsors
Please, don't waste our time with such nonsense - plenty of companies do already sponsor SUSE under our current arrangements, and the biggest hindrance is the logistical issues we currently have due to the lack of an independent openSUSE Legal entity, not the fact that SUSE is the primary sponsor of the openSUSE Project.
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Tue, 25 Jun 2019 at 15:30, Imad Aldoj <zerocon.opensource@gmail.com> wrote:
Well sorry, I didn't mean to waste your time, carry on Btw why did you ignore contributing your "evidence" to Robert's discussion for days then responded to mine within an hour? I mean don't get me wrong, I'm glad I got your attention
I replied to Roberts post on Monday just under 2 hours after he posted it I replied to yours just over 1 hour after you posted it Don't think too highly of yourself - the attitude you display in this post I am replying to certainly make me like Robert more than you. I expect I will be prioritising my replies to posts from others over yours in the future. Regards, Richard
On Tue, Jun 25, 2019 at 4:08 PM Richard Brown <RBrownCCB@opensuse.org> wrote:
On Tue, 25 Jun 2019 at 14:03, Imad Aldoj <zerocon.opensource@gmail.com> wrote:
Robert point is spot on. I'd be surprised if any worthy company "donated" a penny to a project under another company's mercy. Why waste its resources to serve SUSE's interests?
You mean like AMD, B1 Systems, Core Backbone, Heinlein, Marvell, or Tuxedo?
https://en.opensuse.org/Sponsors
Please, don't waste our time with such nonsense - plenty of companies do already sponsor SUSE under our current arrangements, and the biggest hindrance is the logistical issues we currently have due to the lack of an independent openSUSE Legal entity, not the fact that SUSE is the primary sponsor of the openSUSE Project.
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Le 25/06/2019 à 18:37, Richard Brown a écrit :
On Tue, 25 Jun 2019 at 15:30, Imad Aldoj <zerocon.opensource@gmail.com> wrote:
I expect I will be prioritising my replies to posts from others over yours in the future.
this thread (like some others) is pretty hard to follow, specially for you who is much involved :-) If I understand it, there is problem if somebody hire (pay for) some board member. But the problem is probably less is somebody gives money to the foundation and then the foundation hire a board member (or any other like a treasurer) that is the pay is not assigned to a job. It's like this (at least in France) for taxes: most of them can't be tied to a special job. This imply probably that SUSE would have to give a global amount to the foundation. Part of it can be in task force or hardware or infrastructure (as today). Anyway, as long as the openSUSE code and SLES/SLED are so tighly linked, SUSE and openSUSE will have a major mutual benefit to work together, and I want to thank all the people, present and past that worked to make this happen. I don't know who is Jesus among them, but sure they are the saints :-) jdd -- http://dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Robert Schweikert wrote:
On a personal note, I am not much of a fan of the very common "pay for play" scheme and I'd rather see the Foundation board elected with no appointed members by anyone.
+1. I would also much prefer to have an elected Board of Directors. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (32.2°C) member, openSUSE Heroes. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Le mardi 25 juin 2019 à 04:28:24, Per Jessen a écrit :
Robert Schweikert wrote:
On a personal note, I am not much of a fan of the very common "pay for play" scheme and I'd rather see the Foundation board elected with no appointed members by anyone.
+1. I would also much prefer to have an elected Board of Directors.
For a lot of political and ethical reasons, I second this view. The Board, including its Chairman should, ideally, be elected by its community, I think we almots all agree of that ideal. But the reality, that no one here can deny, is that SUSE has indeed a "special" relationship with openSUSE. And the other way round as well. We might have others sponsors and I hope we will get more. But I seriously doubt that we will ever get one with a similar link as we have with SUSE. So having, amongst the Board, an "ambassador" from SUSE is not "pay to play" (to "play" what exactly btw?), it is just realistic and if we remove it I think it will make certain things difficult. Should the "ambassador" be the Chairman of the Board is another question. I do not think this is necessary and would rather like the Chairman be elected by the other Board members. -- '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
* Sébastien 'sogal' Poher <sogal@opensuse.org> [06-25-19 14:42]:
Le mardi 25 juin 2019 à 04:28:24, Per Jessen a écrit :
Robert Schweikert wrote:
On a personal note, I am not much of a fan of the very common "pay for play" scheme and I'd rather see the Foundation board elected with no appointed members by anyone.
+1. I would also much prefer to have an elected Board of Directors.
For a lot of political and ethical reasons, I second this view. The Board, including its Chairman should, ideally, be elected by its community, I think we almots all agree of that ideal. But the reality, that no one here can deny, is that SUSE has indeed a "special" relationship with openSUSE. And the other way round as well. We might have others sponsors and I hope we will get more. But I seriously doubt that we will ever get one with a similar link as we have with SUSE.
So having, amongst the Board, an "ambassador" from SUSE is not "pay to play" (to "play" what exactly btw?), it is just realistic and if we remove it I think it will make certain things difficult. Should the "ambassador" be the Chairman of the Board is another question. I do not think this is necessary and would rather like the Chairman be elected by the other Board members.
agree, and this should be the basis when moving forward. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet freenode -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 26/06/2019 04:09, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher wrote:
Le mardi 25 juin 2019 à 04:28:24, Per Jessen a écrit :
Robert Schweikert wrote:
On a personal note, I am not much of a fan of the very common "pay for play" scheme and I'd rather see the Foundation board elected with no appointed members by anyone.
+1. I would also much prefer to have an elected Board of Directors.
For a lot of political and ethical reasons, I second this view. The Board, including its Chairman should, ideally, be elected by its community, I think we almots all agree of that ideal. But the reality, that no one here can deny, is that SUSE has indeed a "special" relationship with openSUSE. And the other way round as well. We might have others sponsors and I hope we will get more. But I seriously doubt that we will ever get one with a similar link as we have with SUSE.
So having, amongst the Board, an "ambassador" from SUSE is not "pay to play" (to "play" what exactly btw?), it is just realistic and if we remove it I think it will make certain things difficult. Should the "ambassador" be the Chairman of the Board is another question. I do not think this is necessary and would rather like the Chairman be elected by the other Board members.
"Pay to play" is an English expression, I believe its origin is in sporting where a certain player might make it onto a team not because they are the best most suitable player for the team, but because having them on the team ensures the club gets a significant amount more sponsorship, its fairly common in motorsport. Onto the more important parts, as I said somewhere else the "chairperson" is really just a title, Richard doesn't always chair / direct meetings often we take it in turns depending on the topic of discussion and who knows more. Having said that alot of the time Richard does chair, but partly thats because everyone else is too lazy. For what its worth everyone on the board was quite opposed to any form of "pay to play" in our initial discussions. -- 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 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
* Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de> [06-25-19 19:58]:
On 26/06/2019 04:09, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher wrote:
Le mardi 25 juin 2019 à 04:28:24, Per Jessen a écrit :
Robert Schweikert wrote:
On a personal note, I am not much of a fan of the very common "pay for play" scheme and I'd rather see the Foundation board elected with no appointed members by anyone.
+1. I would also much prefer to have an elected Board of Directors.
For a lot of political and ethical reasons, I second this view. The Board, including its Chairman should, ideally, be elected by its community, I think we almots all agree of that ideal. But the reality, that no one here can deny, is that SUSE has indeed a "special" relationship with openSUSE. And the other way round as well. We might have others sponsors and I hope we will get more. But I seriously doubt that we will ever get one with a similar link as we have with SUSE.
So having, amongst the Board, an "ambassador" from SUSE is not "pay to play" (to "play" what exactly btw?), it is just realistic and if we remove it I think it will make certain things difficult. Should the "ambassador" be the Chairman of the Board is another question. I do not think this is necessary and would rather like the Chairman be elected by the other Board members.
"Pay to play" is an English expression, I believe its origin is in sporting where a certain player might make it onto a team not because they are the best most suitable player for the team, but because having them on the team ensures the club gets a significant amount more sponsorship, its fairly common in motorsport.
Onto the more important parts, as I said somewhere else the "chairperson" is really just a title, Richard doesn't always chair / direct meetings often we take it in turns depending on the topic of discussion and who knows more. Having said that alot of the time Richard does chair, but partly thats because everyone else is too lazy.
but there is a *title* and with it comes ... even if only perception, it must not provide an inkling that any entity can provide influence that they would not otherwise have.
For what its worth everyone on the board was quite opposed to any form of "pay to play" in our initial discussions.
A Good Thing !TM -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet freenode -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi all, This thread is socially and politically very interesting. Le mardi 25 juin 2019 à 20:14 -0400, Patrick Shanahan a écrit :
* Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de> [06-25-19 19:58]:
On 26/06/2019 04:09, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher wrote:
Le mardi 25 juin 2019 à 04:28:24, Per Jessen a écrit :
Robert Schweikert wrote:
On a personal note, I am not much of a fan of the very common "pay for play" scheme and I'd rather see the Foundation board elected with no appointed members by anyone.
+1. I would also much prefer to have an elected Board of Directors.
For a lot of political and ethical reasons, I second this view. The Board, including its Chairman should, ideally, be elected by its community, I think we almots all agree of that ideal. But the reality, that no one here can deny, is that SUSE has indeed a "special" relationship with openSUSE. And the other way round as well. We might have others sponsors and I hope we will get more. But I seriously doubt that we will ever get one with a similar link as we have with SUSE.
So having, amongst the Board, an "ambassador" from SUSE is not "pay to play" (to "play" what exactly btw?), it is just realistic and if we remove it I think it will make certain things difficult. Should the "ambassador" be the Chairman of the Board is another question. I do not think this is necessary and would rather like the Chairman be elected by the other Board members.
"Pay to play" is an English expression, I believe its origin is in sporting where a certain player might make it onto a team not because they are the best most suitable player for the team, but because having them on the team ensures the club gets a significant amount more sponsorship, its fairly common in motorsport.
Thank you for the explanation and precision on this expression Simon, but I am not sure how it applies here. SUSE is defacto in the game with us already.
Onto the more important parts, as I said somewhere else the "chairperson" is really just a title, Richard doesn't always chair / direct meetings often we take it in turns depending on the topic of discussion and who knows more. Having said that alot of the time Richard does chair, but partly thats because everyone else is too lazy.
but there is a *title* and with it comes ... even if only perception, it must not provide an inkling that any entity can provide influence that they would not otherwise have.
I do not see the title in itself a problem. A Chair person, even if he/she doesn't always chair meetings, can be the spokesperson of the project/foundation inside and outside of it, representing the project/foundation interests. But if he/she represents both the openSUSE project/foundation interests *and* SUSE's interests, it is a problem. SUSE should have the right to appoint its representative amongst board members (especially if we keep the SUSE part in openSUSE project/foundation name, I wouldn't want that someone uses my name without having a look at what it does with it!) and its counter power, if I may say, should be a community elected Chairpersonn. Have a nice day, -- '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 26/06/2019 15:20, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher wrote:
Hi all, This thread is socially and politically very interesting.
Le mardi 25 juin 2019 à 20:14 -0400, Patrick Shanahan a écrit :
* Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de> [06-25-19 19:58]:
On 26/06/2019 04:09, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher wrote:
Le mardi 25 juin 2019 à 04:28:24, Per Jessen a écrit :
Robert Schweikert wrote:
On a personal note, I am not much of a fan of the very common "pay for play" scheme and I'd rather see the Foundation board elected with no appointed members by anyone.
+1. I would also much prefer to have an elected Board of Directors.
For a lot of political and ethical reasons, I second this view. The Board, including its Chairman should, ideally, be elected by its community, I think we almots all agree of that ideal. But the reality, that no one here can deny, is that SUSE has indeed a "special" relationship with openSUSE. And the other way round as well. We might have others sponsors and I hope we will get more. But I seriously doubt that we will ever get one with a similar link as we have with SUSE.
So having, amongst the Board, an "ambassador" from SUSE is not "pay to play" (to "play" what exactly btw?), it is just realistic and if we remove it I think it will make certain things difficult. Should the "ambassador" be the Chairman of the Board is another question. I do not think this is necessary and would rather like the Chairman be elected by the other Board members.
"Pay to play" is an English expression, I believe its origin is in sporting where a certain player might make it onto a team not because they are the best most suitable player for the team, but because having them on the team ensures the club gets a significant amount more sponsorship, its fairly common in motorsport.
Thank you for the explanation and precision on this expression Simon, but I am not sure how it applies here. SUSE is defacto in the game with us already.
Yeah so I think Robert's original concern was along the line of Since SUSE gives openSUSE lots of money maybe if other companies gave openSUSE lots of money then they would also expect to get an automatic seat on the board. The counter argument is of course that openSUSE and SUSE's partnership is "Special" and is unlikely to be replicated with any other company atleast in the near term. -- 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 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 26/06/2019 15:20, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher wrote:
Hi all, This thread is socially and politically very interesting.
Le mardi 25 juin 2019 à 20:14 -0400, Patrick Shanahan a écrit :
* Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de> [06-25-19 19:58]:
On 26/06/2019 04:09, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher wrote: Onto the more important parts, as I said somewhere else the "chairperson" is really just a title, Richard doesn't always chair / direct meetings often we take it in turns depending on the topic of discussion and who knows more. Having said that alot of the time Richard does chair, but partly thats because everyone else is too lazy.
but there is a *title* and with it comes ... even if only perception, it must not provide an inkling that any entity can provide influence that they would not otherwise have.
I do not see the title in itself a problem. A Chair person, even if he/she doesn't always chair meetings, can be the spokesperson of the project/foundation inside and outside of it, representing the project/foundation interests. But if he/she represents both the openSUSE project/foundation interests *and* SUSE's interests, it is a problem.
SUSE has a habit of picking chairperson's who tend to put openSUSE's interests in front of SUSE's. There are many many times i've seen Richard put openSUSE's interests in front of SUSE's but never the other way. Having said that the chairperson could change sometime so it is something that could become a concern. Having said that, SUSE's interests tend to also line up with openSUSE's and there is a large selection of openSUSE employees that generally put openSUSE before SUSE.
SUSE should have the right to appoint its representative amongst board members (especially if we keep the SUSE part in openSUSE project/foundation name, I wouldn't want that someone uses my name without having a look at what it does with it!) and its counter power, if I may say, should be a community elected Chairpersonn.
I still think that if it was to change, it would be better if the board voted for the chair person, you could get members to vote for a new chairperson out of the part of the board that wasn't up for re election, bu unless they voted for the SUSE appointed person it would mean a new chairperson every year, which would loose part of the consistency which is one of the things that the SUSE appointed chairperson was originally designed to bring. -- 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 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Le 26/06/2019 à 10:29, Simon Lees a écrit :
I still think that if it was to change, it would be better if the board voted for the chair person,
it's the usual way the board is elected, than inside it's members vote for a chairperson jdd -- http://dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 24/06/2019 22:46, Robert Schweikert wrote:
On 6/19/19 9:25 AM, Simon Lees wrote:
Hi All,
<snip>
*Proposal Summary* - The Board request that SUSE provide capital stock and help to setup the foundation - The Board request that SUSE provide 1 or 2 FTE staffing to handle the admin work of the foundation alongside the existing work it does managing the TSP etc - The Board is open to any discussion regarding bylaws or statues to codify and guarantee the ongoing productive relationship between SUSE & openSUSE - The openSUSE Foundation board will take over the role of the current openSUSE Board - The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules
That, IMHO, would create a problem. The current rules contain "....and a chairperson is separately appointed by SUSE."
My underlying assumption is that with the foundation there will be some formal agreement that states SUSE gives the foundation $$$ and people. That also appears what this proposal appears to imply.
In this case SUSE is a sponsor of the foundation, like any other entity would be that gives to the foundation. However, if we follow the current rules then SUSE gets to appoint the board chairperson, i.e. "pay to play". Therefore, this will inevitably raise the question, how much any other entity would have to "pay to play", i.e. how much does it cost to get a person onto the board?
Under the current proposal, the answer to this is really quite simple, if you can convince 2/3rds of members that the project would function better with a representative from your company on the board then we can change the rules. Currently the board believes that SUSE's unique relationship with openSUSE warrants such a position, hence us including it in the current proposal. However, what I see as a more likely scenario which I don't see happening with SUSE's current management is overtime openSUSE doing more on its own independently and relying on SUSE less and then maybe if SUSE's management was to ever change and start to pull back from there involvement then the board / someone else might suggest removing SUSE's chairperson role. As I said I don't see that happening under SUSE's current management but who knows what it will look like in another 10 or 15 years. Another approach that could be considered is maybe that "Major" partners could have a non voting seat on the board to make collaboration easier, they could decide whether this seat is held buy an employee voted to the board by openSUSE's members (and would then still have voting rights) or whether they appoint someone without voting rights to act as the official relay of information between the board and the partner. The board hasn't really looked at options like this because so far from the feedback we have had from the openSUSE conference and the feedback on this list (mostly the lack of people complaining about keeping the chairperson beyond 1 or 2) most people seem to be fine with keeping the status quo in regards to the make up of the board and membership. If that wasn't the case i'd strongly push for something like this, because there are many things where life is alot easier if SUSE management and the board both know that there is one person who is relaying stuff between the 2 groups and if that person has access to SUSE's internal systems. -- 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 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/24/19 9:40 PM, Simon Lees wrote:
On 24/06/2019 22:46, Robert Schweikert wrote:
On 6/19/19 9:25 AM, Simon Lees wrote:
Hi All,
<snip>
*Proposal Summary* - The Board request that SUSE provide capital stock and help to setup the foundation - The Board request that SUSE provide 1 or 2 FTE staffing to handle the admin work of the foundation alongside the existing work it does managing the TSP etc - The Board is open to any discussion regarding bylaws or statues to codify and guarantee the ongoing productive relationship between SUSE & openSUSE - The openSUSE Foundation board will take over the role of the current openSUSE Board - The makeup and election / removal of the openSUSE Foundation board will remain the same as the current openSUSE board as documented in https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules
That, IMHO, would create a problem. The current rules contain "....and a chairperson is separately appointed by SUSE."
My underlying assumption is that with the foundation there will be some formal agreement that states SUSE gives the foundation $$$ and people. That also appears what this proposal appears to imply.
In this case SUSE is a sponsor of the foundation, like any other entity would be that gives to the foundation. However, if we follow the current rules then SUSE gets to appoint the board chairperson, i.e. "pay to play". Therefore, this will inevitably raise the question, how much any other entity would have to "pay to play", i.e. how much does it cost to get a person onto the board?
Under the current proposal, the answer to this is really quite simple, if you can convince 2/3rds of members that the project would function better with a representative from your company on the board then we can change the rules. Currently the board believes that SUSE's unique relationship with openSUSE warrants such a position, hence us including it in the current proposal.
However, what I see as a more likely scenario which I don't see happening with SUSE's current management is overtime openSUSE doing more on its own independently and relying on SUSE less and then maybe if SUSE's management was to ever change and start to pull back from there involvement then the board / someone else might suggest removing SUSE's chairperson role. As I said I don't see that happening under SUSE's current management but who knows what it will look like in another 10 or 15 years.
Another approach that could be considered is maybe that "Major" partners could have a non voting seat on the board to make collaboration easier, they could decide whether this seat is held buy an employee voted to the board by openSUSE's members (and would then still have voting rights) or whether they appoint someone without voting rights to act as the official relay of information between the board and the partner. The board hasn't really looked at options like this because so far from the feedback we have had from the openSUSE conference and the feedback on this list (mostly the lack of people complaining about keeping the chairperson beyond 1 or 2) most people seem to be fine with keeping the status quo in regards to the make up of the board and membership. If that wasn't the case i'd strongly push for something like this, because there are many things where life is alot easier if SUSE management and the board both know that there is one person who is relaying stuff between the 2 groups and if that person has access to SUSE's internal systems.
Well in this case you have certainly secured my "no" vote on the foundation. Sorry I can not vote for something where we start out with building problem right into the basis of where we start from. Later, Robert -- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU Distinguished Architect LINUX Technical Team Lead Public Cloud rjschwei@suse.com IRC: robjo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
participants (12)
-
Imad Aldoj -
jdd＠dodin.org -
Patrick Shanahan -
Per Jessen -
Pierre Böckmann -
Richard Brown -
Robert Schweikert -
Simon Lees -
Stasiek Michalski -
Sébastien 'sogal' Poher -
Vincent Untz -
Vinzenz Vietzke