On Tue, Aug 4, 2020 at 10:05, Richard Brown <rbrown@suse.de> wrote:
Hi Stasiek,
Thanks for agreeing to run and posting your platform. I have a few questions/comments/thoughts in response:
Board Structure - I would be very happy if you could post detailed suggestions of what Board structure you'd like to see. Given any major constitutional change will require consent of the openSUSE Membership (most likely expressed through a vote) I feel this is mostly irrelvant to your election to the Board - whether you get elected or not, this topic can be progressed. Indeed, if you do not get elected, I'd still expect the topic to be discussed, so it seems strange to me that your platform states you have a general opinion on this topic but you have not apparently shared it yet.
I have over the years, there is so much of me on various mailing lists, although I might be forgetting how much of that was said publicly and how much privately when discussing with members of the community. But yeah, I rushed with writing this platform, just to get to mailman 3 deployment stuff, because that is one of the things the projects needs more than me on the board
Role of the Board - You state your dissapointment that the Board does not involve itself in technical issues, but the openSUSE Board is explicitly forbidden from "directing or control development". [1] Are you suggesting not only a constitutional change to the Stucture of the Board, but also it's scope and role?
Yeah, I wrote that twice in the platform iirc, so it should be fairly obvious that I expect the board to be a more functional part of the software side of the project, by codifying currently unenforceable rules of the project. A lot of guidelines regarding the main missions of the project have been written a decade ago and never updated or even worse, moved over from the old wiki, so written over a decade ago. We need to have a group of people knowledgeable on the main topics of the project's work, which would keep a pulse of those guidelines, and update them semi-periodically with the help of the community (yay meetings), so we don't stay behind the curve.
Trademark requests - speaking from experience, the Board expends a HUGE amount of energy on Trademark requests under our guidelines [2]. Most of these have to be handled privately because they are commercially sensitive to the companies who wish to be using openSUSE while complying with our trademark guidelines. However there have been some clearly visible examples, such as the Tuxedo deal which I took literally years of negotiations before it bore fruit. I would imagine the way you have dismissively talked about this in your platform might have hurt feelings in the team you wish to be joining - I certainly would be pissed off if I was still in the Board ;)
Well, that's not what I meant, and I certainly could have worded it better. I have a lot of respect to the board's work and mission, and I never mean to insult anybody or their work in this way. The issue at hand is public communication about the topics.
Your platform does a wonderful job of discussing what you have done for the Project in the past, which I absolutely adore and praise, but I am dissapointed that your platform seems to lack any detail on how you'll act as an actual Board member. I cannot find any detail that maps to any of the roles the Board is currently constituted to act. This is a topic I know you have some experience in so here are some leading questions I'd like to see you answer and flesh out your platform with.
Yeah, my platform reflects why I don't contribute to documentation and bulk of marketing, I'm not good with words, especially with words that talk about the topics where I'm not sure what will happen when we start discussing those things within the community. I don't like saying something I can't promise. I don't know if any of my ideas will come into play with the new board structure, because that's kinda what collaboration is, compromise for the well-being of everyone in the community.
How do you make yourself available for contact by community members?
My email is open. My website, which is in the signature of all of my emails, lists every single communication method I have. My DMs on pretty much everything are open. I listen in on openSUSE Discord, openSUSE Matrix, openSUSE Telegram, r/openSUSE and openSUSE Mailing Lists all the time.
Ho w much time do you engage with community members every week?
It feels like every waking moment. I have spent more time over the last 2 years with the openSUSE community than outside.
What is your view on conflict resolution?
I wish we could just exist without conflict, but I recognize being a pacifist in today's world is pretty much impossible ;)
How do you currently moderate the Discord channel?
Iron fist (although the other mods tell me I'm too nice, so I'm not so sure). The rules apply equally to everybody, so even though I am officially the owner, I would leave for the period of the ban if I got 4 warnings
Would you like to see that philosophy spread broader across the community?
In the current form, probably not. We still manage to come to conclusions too fast, leading to some unfortunate situations. I also get way too heated over some things, so clearly I need to fight with my own anger management and not let it control the way we moderate. It still leads to way better general atmosphere than what usually happens on the mailing lists.
How do you make sure that you dont step on the toes of others when pushing your agenda and contributions in an area where existing contributors could be present but struggling?
I think we all step on each others' toes anyway, we just have to allow ourselves to see the other side of the conversation, and compromise in ways that still improve the "product" and most importantly each other
The Board's role includes "Facilitate decision making processes where needed." - should the Board decide when "when needed" applies, or should the Board only involve themselves when invited by community members who wish their help in decision making processes?
I think even on this premise, the board doesn't do enough. You can't expect developers to just have a meeting on a topic, they will want to do something about it rather than discuss it. Board needs to lead and organize in those cases, which in the long run might also prevent some conflict within the project.
What is your opinion of the Project's key sponsor (SUSE)? How do you intend to communicate and collaborate with SUSE in an official capacity? What are the first things you're going to ask for?
I tend to be very critical of them publicly, but in truth I know very well that openSUSE wouldn't be where it is without them. Is this enough of an endorsement? LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org