[opensuse-project] Notes from the board on the recent thread
Dear Community, several members asked for a clarification and, even if we tried to keep the desired confidentiality as already mentioned in the other threads, there are not many alternatives to (at least) partially disclosing what happened in the last weeks. What guided the decision taken were our community guiding principles and code of conduct. https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Guiding_principles "We value respect for other persons and their contributions, for other opinions and beliefs. We listen to arguments and address problems in a constructive and open way. We believe that a diverse community based on mutual respect is the base for a creative and productive environment enabling the project to be truly successful. We don't tolerate social discrimination and aim at creating an environment where people feel accepted and safe from offense." For the second time Sarah significantly breached the guiding principles and how she chose to deal with this situation led to 2/3rds of board members believing that she should step down from her role within the board. As all of you can imagine, this decision was not an easy one, and the board gave her the opportunity to try to solve what happened. Unfortunately the ultimate outcome was to offer her to step down instead of publicly removing her from the board per the openSUSE election rules. Christian was the board member against this decision and to our regret decided to step down. Yours Marina, On behalf of the board. -- Marina Latini openSUSE Board: deneb_alpha -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Op zaterdag 29 februari 2020 02:21:28 CET schreef Marina Latini:
Dear Community,
several members asked for a clarification and, even if we tried to keep the desired confidentiality as already mentioned in the other threads, there are not many alternatives to (at least) partially disclosing what happened in the last weeks.
What guided the decision taken were our community guiding principles and code of conduct.
https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Guiding_principles
"We value respect for other persons and their contributions, for other opinions and beliefs. We listen to arguments and address problems in a constructive and open way. We believe that a diverse community based on mutual respect is the base for a creative and productive environment enabling the project to be truly successful. We don't tolerate social discrimination and aim at creating an environment where people feel accepted and safe from offense."
For the second time Sarah significantly breached the guiding principles and how she chose to deal with this situation led to 2/3rds of board members believing that she should step down from her role within the board.
As all of you can imagine, this decision was not an easy one, and the board gave her the opportunity to try to solve what happened. Unfortunately the ultimate outcome was to offer her to step down instead of publicly removing her from the board per the openSUSE election rules.
Christian was the board member against this decision and to our regret decided to step down.
Yours Marina, On behalf of the board. I'd like to thank the board for this email to the community, and sure hope it will put an end to speculations and community vs. board discussions.
-- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Forums Team -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Thank you! * Thank you, board members, for providing relevant information to the community. * Thank you, Sarah, for how you are. There were (and are) enough people in our community who value your position enough to vote for you. This brings the wanted diversity. * Thank you, Christian, for standing behind your principles * Thank you *all* for your work! I fully understand that the current situation is hard for everyone. The provided information (and former discussion) helped at least me to understand it - at least enough to build my own picture. We are a relatively small project with wonderful people, who choose to work together in a diverse community. I think everyone knows that even the smallest groups have conflicts to solve. I think, 'how' these conflicts get solved is a very important part. ---- As one of the person's who asked for more details, I think you (as board - and this includes former and current members) deserve a short explanation from me: I understand that the whole board tried to avoid a leakage of personal information and I honor this very high. But for me, everyone decided with her/his application for the board to work in a public and political environment. This - sad, but true - includes for me that you should not harm to talk about conflicts and even ongoing discussions happening in your work as board member. I voted for you to represent my interests. These interests do not stop with the election. Without getting involved "somehow" in your work, I don't know if you are (still) representing my interests. I expect discussions inside the board meetings, I expect that board members have different opinions - and I expect that most of the time these different opinions could be "merged" in discussions. But I also know that sometimes this might not be possible. This is the time when I expect the board to be open and allow every board member to express his opinion publicly: to gather feedback from the community. Handling personal conflicts that are carried towards the board are of course sensitive. I understand that these kind of discussions are better kept internal. But I'm speaking about conflicts between members of the openSUSE community here. If there are conflicts inside the board, I like to know about them. Not in every deep detail. But enough to understand the positions. Again: you as board member decided to take a public, political job. Hiding behind something like 'don't talk about the fight club' rules is NOT why I voted for you. ---- With deepest respect and greetings to everyone in our community, Lars -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hello, Am Samstag, 29. Februar 2020, 02:21:28 CET schrieb Marina Latini:
several members asked for a clarification and, even if we tried to keep the desired confidentiality as already mentioned in the other threads, there are not many alternatives to (at least) partially disclosing what happened in the last weeks.
"Thanks" for making something (partially) public that you had promised to keep confidential. Maybe you should also have mentioned that someone shouted Sarah down in the handover meeting for several minutes, and continued after she was already completely shocked and scared. Even if you think someone made a mistake, that's clearly not the way to handle such cases :-( In the following days, the way the board acted towards Sarah was not really better. I'd hate to mention more details or even names (and therefore still ask everybody not to ask more questions), but I had to write this mail to ensure that everybody gets a somewhat balanced view. Needless to say that the way how the board handled this situation was a very big part of the reasons for my decision to resign in protest. Regards, Christian Boltz -- Digital files cannot be made uncopyable, any more than water can be made not wet. [Bruce Schneier on `copy protection' schemes] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
* Christian Boltz <opensuse@cboltz.de> [02-29-20 07:53]:
Hello,
Am Samstag, 29. Februar 2020, 02:21:28 CET schrieb Marina Latini:
several members asked for a clarification and, even if we tried to keep the desired confidentiality as already mentioned in the other threads, there are not many alternatives to (at least) partially disclosing what happened in the last weeks.
"Thanks" for making something (partially) public that you had promised to keep confidential.
Maybe you should also have mentioned that someone shouted Sarah down in the handover meeting for several minutes, and continued after she was already completely shocked and scared.
Even if you think someone made a mistake, that's clearly not the way to handle such cases :-(
In the following days, the way the board acted towards Sarah was not really better.
I'd hate to mention more details or even names (and therefore still ask everybody not to ask more questions), but I had to write this mail to ensure that everybody gets a somewhat balanced view.
Needless to say that the way how the board handled this situation was a very big part of the reasons for my decision to resign in protest.
Your frankness is appreciated. And this revelation brings much concern for present board members and their cooperative attitude or lack thereof. Perhaps it is time for a "special" election and the present board members stepping down out of respect for our community. Call it "loss of confidence" or ... fwiw: I have voted for everyone on the board at one time or another. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri 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
Le samedi 29 février 2020 à 08:43:53, Patrick Shanahan a écrit :
* Christian Boltz <opensuse@cboltz.de> [02-29-20 07:53]:
Hello,
Am Samstag, 29. Februar 2020, 02:21:28 CET schrieb Marina Latini:
several members asked for a clarification and, even if we tried to keep the desired confidentiality as already mentioned in the other threads, there are not many alternatives to (at least) partially disclosing what happened in the last weeks.
"Thanks" for making something (partially) public that you had promised to keep confidential.
Maybe you should also have mentioned that someone shouted Sarah down in the handover meeting for several minutes, and continued after she was already completely shocked and scared.
Even if you think someone made a mistake, that's clearly not the way to handle such cases :-(
In the following days, the way the board acted towards Sarah was not really better.
I'd hate to mention more details or even names (and therefore still ask everybody not to ask more questions), but I had to write this mail to ensure that everybody gets a somewhat balanced view.
Needless to say that the way how the board handled this situation was a very big part of the reasons for my decision to resign in protest.
Your frankness is appreciated.
And this revelation brings much concern for present board members and their cooperative attitude or lack thereof. Perhaps it is time for a "special" election and the present board members stepping down out of respect for our community. Call it "loss of confidence" or ...
Maybe we should do the opposite and not make this thing any bigger and painful than it is. I feel really confused and sorry and uncomfortable as this community member. I am glad that we had explaination from the board, but unhappy of their form. I still believe that there was a middle path, a balanced level of transparency that would have explained the resignations without exposing people's name. But calling for everybody to step down is not a solution, I imagine that this has been and still is difficult for the Board, so let's give them all a little more credit and trust. -- 'When there is no more room at school, the dumb will walk the Earth.' Sébastien 'sogal' Poher
-----Original Message----- From: Marina Latini <deneb_alpha@opensuse.org> Sent: 29 February 2020 02:21 To: oS Project <opensuse-project@opensuse.org> Subject: [opensuse-project] Notes from the board on the recent thread
Dear Community,
Dear Marina Latini,
several members asked for a clarification and, even if we tried to keep the desired confidentiality as already mentioned in the other threads, there are not many alternatives to (at least) partially disclosing what happened in the >>>last weeks.
*Important*: I have found that some of our forums can be perused on the web. Is it the case with this one?
For the second time Sarah significantly breached the guiding principles and how she chose to deal with this situation led to 2/3rds of board members believing that she should step down from her role within the board. Well, I have been writing Job Descriptions since 1977 and I always had a paragraph : Limitations on Authority. I could even limit the Chair from buying himself a Jaguar, unless it went through the process. In the early 90's, I was a Director of NPA, formerly CNEPA (in Novell Offices in Provo Utah) We had meetings that was 03:00AM for me in France, but we did it, it was a team work and if a particular task was assigned to a Director, he/she knew to what extent he/she could engage or not.
As all of you can imagine, this decision was not an easy one, and the board gave her the opportunity to try to solve what happened. Unfortunately the ultimate outcome was to offer her to step down instead of publicly removing her from the board per the openSUSE election rules. I would say that we have learnt from this major incident and need no move forward, the show must go on!
Christian was the board member against this decision and to our regret decided to step down. I am inter-alia a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and one thing that I evangelize is sub committees. This way "Power" is shared and more people involved, hence responsibility shared. Many a time, a storm can be confined within the egg and *do not hatch*.
Best wishes, Dr Jimmy Pierre -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
jimmypierre.rouen.france@gmail.com wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: Marina Latini <deneb_alpha@opensuse.org> Sent: 29 February 2020 02:21 To: oS Project <opensuse-project@opensuse.org> Subject: [opensuse-project] Notes from the board on the recent thread
Dear Community,
Dear Marina Latini,
several members asked for a clarification and, even if we tried to keep the desired confidentiality as already mentioned in the other threads, there are not many alternatives to (at least) partially disclosing what happened in the >>>last weeks.
*Important*: I have found that some of our forums can be perused on the web. Is it the case with this one?
Most of our mailing lists are archived and available on the web, yes. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (11.6°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Gesendet: Samstag, 29. Februar 2020 um 02:21 Uhr Von: "Marina Latini" <deneb_alpha@opensuse.org> An: "oS Project" <opensuse-project@opensuse.org> Betreff: [opensuse-project] Notes from the board on the recent thread
Dear Community,
several members asked for a clarification and, even if we tried to keep the desired confidentiality as already mentioned in the other threads, there are not many alternatives to (at least) partially disclosing what happened in the last weeks.
What guided the decision taken were our community guiding principles and code of conduct.
https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Guiding_principles
"We value respect for other persons and their contributions, for other opinions and beliefs. We listen to arguments and address problems in a constructive and open way. We believe that a diverse community based on mutual respect is the base for a creative and productive environment enabling the project to be truly successful. We don't tolerate social discrimination and aim at creating an environment where people feel accepted and safe from offense."
For the second time Sarah significantly breached the guiding principles and how she chose to deal with this situation led to 2/3rds of board members believing that she should step down from her role within the board.
I did not breach the guiding principles. I wrote an email to the openSUSE Board because of a conflict on opensuse-project. I wrote that that has happened in the past really often with that person. Therefore, I had asked the Board for support. Gerald asked me for an explanation. I don't write to the Board without any reasons. Additionally, I am working with facts which have really happened. Someone claimed in the handover meeting that some of the reasons I gave would be a breaching of the openSUSE guidelines.
As all of you can imagine, this decision was not an easy one, and the board gave her the opportunity to try to solve what happened. Unfortunately the ultimate outcome was to offer her to step down instead of publicly removing her from the board per the openSUSE election rules.
And that is no demacracy! I had to choose between stepping down or you would remove me without speaking with me before about that. You didn't discuss that with me before giving me this "choice", and AFAIK Christian was also excluded from most discussions, and when he was involved, you already had decided and his arguments were ignored. He felt like his arguments were ignored. I wanted to solve what has happened, too. But you did not want to accept my arguments after the decision without us. So the only acceptable option for me was stepping down.
Christian was the board member against this decision and to our regret decided to step down.
His decision is understandable because your decisions are breaching our guidelines. A real leader is thinking about his decisions in such a case. That is not easy. Most important questions are "Why" do I do smoething with "which reasons"? Do I know all point of views? That did not happen here. I was not allowed to explain my point of view. Christian was excluded during most of the discussions, too. The decision does not have any watertight argument. You can call that bossing instead of leading. And that is another argument for stepping down at the right time. Best regards, Sarah
Yours Marina, On behalf of the board.
-- Marina Latini openSUSE Board: deneb_alpha -- 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
Hello Sarah, Am Samstag, 29. Februar 2020, 19:35:59 CET schrieb Sarah Julia Kriesch:
Gesendet: Samstag, 29. Februar 2020 um 02:21 Uhr Von: "Marina Latini" <deneb_alpha@opensuse.org> An: "oS Project" <opensuse-project@opensuse.org> Betreff: [opensuse-project] Notes from the board on the recent thread
Dear Community,
several members asked for a clarification and, even if we tried to keep the desired confidentiality as already mentioned in the other threads, there are not many alternatives to (at least) partially disclosing what happened in the last weeks.
What guided the decision taken were our community guiding principles and code of conduct.
https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Guiding_principles
"We value respect for other persons and their contributions, for other opinions and beliefs. We listen to arguments and address problems in a constructive and open way. We believe that a diverse community based on mutual respect is the base for a creative and productive environment enabling the project to be truly successful. We don't tolerate social discrimination and aim at creating an environment where people feel accepted and safe from offense."
For the second time Sarah significantly breached the guiding principles and how she chose to deal with this situation led to 2/3rds of board members believing that she should step down from her role within the board.
I did not breach the guiding principles.
Thats wrong. Multiple times, and you were already warned for this.
I wrote an email to the openSUSE Board because of a conflict on opensuse-project. I wrote that that has happened in the past really often with that person. Therefore, I had asked the Board for support. Gerald asked me for an explanation. I don't write to the Board without any reasons.
This mail for the board was not the reason.
Additionally, I am working with facts which have really happened.
You may have perceived it that way (as the only person).
Someone claimed in the handover meeting that some of the reasons I gave would be a breaching of the openSUSE guidelines.
Alternative facts are not part of our guidelines or Code of Conduct.
As all of you can imagine, this decision was not an easy one, and the board gave her the opportunity to try to solve what happened. Unfortunately the ultimate outcome was to offer her to step down instead of publicly removing her from the board per the openSUSE election rules.
And that is no demacracy! I had to choose between stepping down or you would remove me without speaking with me before about that.
This is wrong. Between the handover meeting and your stepping down was more than a week. You spoke to Marina, Gerald and me (and probably Christian) beforehand.
You didn't discuss that with me before giving me this "choice", and AFAIK Christian was also excluded from most discussions, and when he was involved, you already had decided and his arguments were ignored. He felt like his arguments were ignored. I wanted to solve what has happened, too. But you did not want to accept my arguments after the decision without us. So the only acceptable option for me was stepping down.
No, you could have stayed.
Christian was the board member against this decision and to our regret decided to step down.
His decision is understandable because your decisions are breaching our guidelines.
This is your personal opinion. The board tried to solve the issue with as less noise as possible, and in accordance with our guiding principles and CoC, and with the intention to avoid damage from all involved parties.
A real leader is thinking about his decisions in such a case. That is not easy. Most important questions are "Why" do I do smoething with "which reasons"? Do I know all point of views? That did not happen here. I was not allowed to explain my point of view. Christian was excluded during most of the discussions, too. The decision does not have any watertight argument. You can call that bossing instead of leading. And that is another argument for stepping down at the right time.
I will not comment your sidekick here. Given the special relation between you and Christian, his move is understandable. Everybody in the board regrets this move Kind regards Axel on behalf of the openSUSE Board -- Dr. Axel Braun <docb@opensuse.org> Member of the openSUSE Board -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Sun, Mar 1, 2020 at 09:22, Axel Braun <axel.braun@gmx.de> wrote:
Am Samstag, 29. Februar 2020, 19:35:59 CET schrieb Sarah Julia Kriesch:
A real leader is thinking about his decisions in such a case. That is not easy. Most important questions are "Why" do I do smoething with "which reasons"? Do I know all point of views? That did not happen here. I was not allowed to explain my point of view. Christian was excluded during most of the discussions, too. The decision does not have any watertight argument. You can call that bossing instead of leading. And that is another argument for stepping down at the right time.
I will not comment your sidekick here. Given the special relation between you and Christian, his move is understandable. Everybody in the board regrets this move
I would kindly ask the board to consider changing the election rules so we don't have situations where the board turns into a telenovela. People with "special relations", whatever the status of that relation, should not exist together on the board. It leads to certain kinds of involvement, which should never ever be a part of the board's dealings. I hope this situation is an example enough as to why it's bad, but it's really bad, and if revealed before this whole ordeal, I would have asked the election officials for a forced re-election vote, regardless of the state of the previous election. Let's never do this again. 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 3/1/20 9:31 PM, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
On Sun, Mar 1, 2020 at 09:22, Axel Braun <axel.braun@gmx.de> wrote:
Am Samstag, 29. Februar 2020, 19:35:59 CET schrieb Sarah Julia Kriesch:
A real leader is thinking about his decisions in such a case. That is not easy. Most important questions are "Why" do I do smoething with "which reasons"? Do I know all point of views? That did not happen here. I was not allowed to explain my point of view. Christian was excluded during most of the discussions, too. The decision does not have any watertight argument. You can call that bossing instead of leading. And that is another argument for stepping down at the right time.
I will not comment your sidekick here. Given the special relation between you and Christian, his move is understandable. Everybody in the board regrets this move
I would kindly ask the board to consider changing the election rules so we don't have situations where the board turns into a telenovela. People with "special relations", whatever the status of that relation, should not exist together on the board. It leads to certain kinds of involvement, which should never ever be a part of the board's dealings.
With the intention of basing the foundation rules on the current ones, do you have a recommended way of adding a rule that would cover this? it kinda gets pretty hard and messy, beyond if people do or don't end up in relationships people may work very closely together for up to 4 years on the board which can lead to really close friendships and people will naturally have a tendency to defend there friends. Beyond that in our current rules we deem that having more then 40% of people from one company forms a conflict situation and don't allow that but is it acceptable for two people on the same team to run together or if someones direct manager is also on the board could that cause a conflict situation? In the end the line between what is and isn't acceptable is often not clear and simple which makes it very hard to formulate into set rules. From my general experience I could say that as some general advice if you think that there is a possibility there could be a conflict of interest with another member of the board its best to not run or for one person to step down if things change while on the board. If I was to have a go at actually drafting something that could be added to make this better I think it would end up being something along the lines of candidates should declare any affiliations / friendships / relationships with other board members or candidates before the voting period commences so that members can take this into account when they vote. Not doing so could be considered "serious misconduct or negligence" which is grounds for removal. But two years is a long time and alot can change in that time and i'm not sure how you'd cover all those cases other then hoping the community has chosen to elect candidates that are smart enough and willing to step back if they can see any potential for a conflict. Being such a grey area anything we would change would need to be exceptionally carefully worded. Having said that i'd love to here feedback on possible proposals with the thought of including it into the election rules or a future foundations constitution. -- 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
On Sun, Mar 1, 2020 at 22:32, Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de> wrote:
On 3/1/20 9:31 PM, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
I would kindly ask the board to consider changing the election rules so we don't have situations where the board turns into a telenovela. People with "special relations", whatever the status of that relation, should not exist together on the board. It leads to certain kinds of involvement, which should never ever be a part of the board's dealings.
With the intention of basing the foundation rules on the current ones, do you have a recommended way of adding a rule that would cover this? it kinda gets pretty hard and messy, beyond if people do or don't end up in relationships people may work very closely together for up to 4 years on the board which can lead to really close friendships and people will naturally have a tendency to defend there friends.
Beyond that in our current rules we deem that having more then 40% of people from one company forms a conflict situation and don't allow that but is it acceptable for two people on the same team to run together or if someones direct manager is also on the board could that cause a conflict situation?
In the end the line between what is and isn't acceptable is often not clear and simple which makes it very hard to formulate into set rules. From my general experience I could say that as some general advice if you think that there is a possibility there could be a conflict of interest with another member of the board its best to not run or for one person to step down if things change while on the board.
If I was to have a go at actually drafting something that could be added to make this better I think it would end up being something along the lines of candidates should declare any affiliations / friendships / relationships with other board members or candidates before the voting period commences so that members can take this into account when they vote. Not doing so could be considered "serious misconduct or negligence" which is grounds for removal. But two years is a long time and alot can change in that time and i'm not sure how you'd cover all those cases other then hoping the community has chosen to elect candidates that are smart enough and willing to step back if they can see any potential for a conflict. Being such a grey area anything we would change would need to be exceptionally carefully worded. Having said that i'd love to here feedback on possible proposals with the thought of including it into the election rules or a future foundations constitution.
It would be good to look up if there are already organizations that employ rules against this kind of stuff, but... The current removal procedure mentions chairman contacting the board member to resolve the situation, but I don't think the chairman, or any person for that matter, has much influence over this kind of stuff, unless SUSE decides to appoint a cupid next time around. However, we need to have a rule for relationships that might influence one's choices, like affection, manager/managee, etc. to be grounds for removal via misconduct (or negligence if we also have a rule that a person in that position has a few week window to step down by themselves). A person in that position should not be eligible for election either, and specifying this stuff should be a duty of a candidate/board member in the first place. Basically every rule possible just so we are covered just in case, because this is ridiculous. LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hello, Am Sonntag, 1. März 2020, 09:22:25 CET schrieb Axel Braun:
Am Samstag, 29. Februar 2020, 19:35:59 schrieb Sarah Julia Kriesch:
Von: "Marina Latini" <deneb_alpha@opensuse.org>
For the second time Sarah significantly breached the guiding principles and how she chose to deal with this situation led to 2/3rds of board members believing that she should step down from her role within the board.
I did not breach the guiding principles.
Thats wrong. Multiple times, and you were already warned for this.
The warning I remember (and that was also brought up in the handover meeting after two years) was triggered by something that you could call a serious step, but it was something that is explicitly allowed in the board rules. Getting a warning for such a thing is, well, questionable.
I wrote an email to the openSUSE Board because of a conflict on opensuse-project. I wrote that that has happened in the past really often with that person. Therefore, I had asked the Board for support. Gerald asked me for an explanation. I don't write to the Board without any reasons.
This mail for the board was not the reason.
It clearly was the starting point for everything that happened afterwards.
Additionally, I am working with facts which have really happened.
You may have perceived it that way (as the only person).
Not the only person ;-) - but there's some history only seasoned board members might know. I told the current board some of this history (explaining everything would have taken hours), but it seems you decided to ignore it.
As all of you can imagine, this decision was not an easy one, and the board gave her the opportunity to try to solve what happened. Unfortunately the ultimate outcome was to offer her to step down instead of publicly removing her from the board per the openSUSE election rules.
And that is no demacracy! I had to choose between stepping down or you would remove me without speaking with me before about that.
This is wrong. Between the handover meeting and your stepping down was more than a week. You spoke to Marina, Gerald and me (and probably Christian) beforehand.
Right, but at this time, there was no clear indication that someone would consider to give Sarah this "choice". That "choice" came up after some days of silence. When you told me (and a day later, Sarah) about this "choice", I had the impression that you ignored all the arguments and background I gave, and your decision was already set into stone.
You didn't discuss that with me before giving me this "choice", and AFAIK Christian was also excluded from most discussions, and when he was involved, you already had decided and his arguments were ignored. He felt like his arguments were ignored. I wanted to solve what has happened, too. But you did not want to accept my arguments after the decision without us. So the only acceptable option for me was stepping down.
No, you could have stayed.
Seriously? I already heard that "joke" in the board meeting after Sarah had left, and if it wouldn't be so sad, I'd laugh about it. You (as in "most board members") presented Sarah (and the day before, me) the options that she could either step down or would be removed in the next meeting. My impression was that you already had decided that "staying" is not an option before telling or asking me, and ignored all my arguments and explanations why Sarah did what she did.
I will not comment your sidekick here. Given the special relation between you and Christian, his move is understandable. Everybody in the board regrets this move
To clarify what Axel means with "special relation": Sarah and I are close friends. Given how long we know each other and how much we work(ed) together, that shouldn't be a big surprise. For example, we are both founding members of the heroes, and joined the board at the same time. We even managed to (independently) upset the same person on the same day ;-) - but I better don't go into details how this was handled back then because it would make someone look quite bad. IMHO being friends shouldn't mean avoiding to work together in the board or elsewhere, and I'm sure it's much better than having to work with "enemies" [1] ;-) Nevertheless, this doesn't mean that friends always have to have the same opinion - different opinions are normal and ok. I know all this might make me look biased, but I can assure you (and told the board more than once) that I ignored this "detail" as much as possible when deciding to leave the board. To make it very clear: I did not resign "for Sarah". In fact, I would have done the same if another board member would have been treated in a similar way. Regards, Christian Boltz [1] To make it clear (and to avoid that someone tries to read between the lines) - even after the recent events, I don't see anyone in the board as an "enemy". -- Die eigentliche Arbeit macht bei dem compare-Tool ja nicht das gute Perl, sondern ImageMagick, und das ist nur in C++ programmiert (Das ist eine Scriptsprache für Buffer-Overruns), weil viele Leute ja kein BASIC können. Ich werde da mal im Forum posten, ob die das nicht in Perl neu schreiben wollen. [Ratti in fontlinge-devel] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am 01.03.20 um 16:56 schrieb Christian Boltz:
IMHO being friends shouldn't mean avoiding to work together in the board or elsewhere, and I'm sure it's much better than having to work with "enemies" [1] ;-) Nevertheless, this doesn't mean that friends always have to have the same opinion - different opinions are normal and ok.
I very much agree to this - and voting rules against 'relationships' is a no go to me. It should be 100% up to board members and candidates who they are close friend with. Greetings, Stephan -- Lighten up, just enjoy life, smile more, laugh more, and don't get so worked up about things. Kenneth Branagh -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
participants (13)
-
Axel Braun -
Christian Boltz -
jimmypierre.rouen.france＠gmail.com -
Knurpht-openSUSE -
Lars Vogdt -
Marina Latini -
Patrick Shanahan -
Per Jessen -
Sarah Julia Kriesch -
Simon Lees -
Sogal -
Stasiek Michalski -
Stephan Kulow