LWN: Comments on "A slow start to openSUSE's board election"

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

smoogen — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 20:08:11 +0000

You are welcome, and I am glad it is useful. It is something I have been mulling over the years as I see multiple communities run into this and similar problems over and over again.

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

smoogen — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 20:03:04 +0000

I don't really have a general opinion on which one is preferable... as different groups have different needs.

If a project is set up as a non-profit corporation/organization and the laws/rules/etc are for an organization to be set up as a private board, then that is what is going to happen. If a project's original people prefer working that way it can be set up that way also. There may be multiple other reasons also.

If a project prefers complete transparency then it must organize itself completely with that in mind. That may mean it doesn't organize in XYZ 'state' because the laws don't allow for that level of transparency. It may mean having long protracted debates but that may be how the people on that project actually function and build things better.

My opinion is more that if a group is set up one way or the other that it is clear about it. Otherwise people tend to assume things and then we have conflicts because those assumptions do not meet the reality.

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

sysrich — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 19:52:35 +0000

> If you have other reasons that "default closed" is preferable, I would like to hear them.

"default open" is the default operating model of the entire openSUSE Project

and decisions should be made by people outside of the Board (ie. contributors, or Board members acting as contributors, not as Board members) in that standard "default open" model

In my view the openSUSE Board should only be called in to answer a question/issue/conflict as a Board when that "default open" is not appropriate (such as personal or inter-organisational financial issues). And in those cases, I think we agree that the collective decision and collective declaration approach is the way to go.

I absolutely get the fear of private bodies making decisions in private and usurping the will of the masses in open source projects, but I really think the openSUSE Project is one of the least likely places for such a fear to be a reality.

Our mailinglists are full of spirited debate on topics benign to malignant and while often amusing for the less-involved to enjoy with some popcorn the vast majority of the time it's all the project needs to inspire contribution that gets stuff done. and thats what we are here for.

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

sysrich — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 19:19:20 +0000

Wow, that's a really good way of explaining things and I think you have a very good point.

I think I'll frame my view on future discussions in the same way. I think it's especially important to note that in a Project like openSUSE, we hold exceptional value in an individuals right to their own voice.

Each maintainer, each contributor, each user, is encouraged, expected, and empowered to use their own voice. We're the sort of Project that really embraces that idea that contributions drive the project, not a Board or any other leadership caste.

The main/only reasons the openSUSE Board exist are for when those values bump up against reality. When conflicts and disputes get in the way of contributions and a decision making entity is required to mediate or break deadlocks.

And in that case, yes, absolutely, the "second sort" of Board you describe is exactly the sort of Board I believe is needed in that case, and the sort the openSUSE Board is envisioned to be.

The election of that Board is intended to bestow upon it the trust of the membership, but not the voice of the membership - Members are still expected to have their own voice, not only individually, but as a group, with Project's rule that 20% of the membership can recall the Board if they wish.

Never thought to describe the role, function or intent of the openSUSE Board in the terms you have, but I think it helps, thank you.

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

faramir — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 19:02:51 +0000

While you do a good job of pointing out the differences between public vs. private decision processes and where they are most frequently used, I don't feel like you say much about why one or the other is preferable. Even governmental boards sometimes go into executive session which are private (personnel issues at the municipal level for example). As someone who supports transparency and open discussion in general, I think "default open" (except for well-defined cases) is preferable. "Default closed" seems to me to be simply a way to avoid second guessing or embarrassment. If you have other reasons that "default closed" is preferable, I would like to hear them.

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

smoogen — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 14:54:25 +0000

I think that your view of board unamity after a decision is something lost on most people because it is one that isn't taught. When you go to school you get shown town, state and country governments where even a town council member is allowed to speak out against something after a vote. The usual reason listed is that denying them to speak, also denies the votes and voices of the constituents who voted for them.

Business boards and military council are not set up that way. People may be voted onto it but the people are expected to speak as one voice after a vote even if they disagreed. When they don't it usually causes major problems (usually leading to members of the board being forced out, court martials, etc.). However the whole underneath setup is a command and control infrastructure where it is expected to only have one voice which directs things down.

One thing I have run in every internet community is most people expect that their councils/boards/parliaments/etc are of the first sort. I am voting for you because you are the closest to my voice. If you are silenced then I am silenced and being asked to leave. However, most of these elected bodies are actually set up to be the second sort because they are set up to laws for a corporation (even if it is non-profit). That means there is a huge disconnect between what the voters expect and what is happening. And also with many of the people who are standing who think they are going to be a free-will-voice representative but are expected to be a deliberate-and-stick-with-the-result-or-resign board member.

I don't know if better education will help here. It is not like this sort of story hasn't happened over and over again in slightly different ways over the last 20 years.

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

sysrich — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 14:42:59 +0000

Well the vast majority of the decisions in openSUSE are made in public, and close to the commit - I talked about this at FOSDEM last year in fact; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5YKBS-KUe8

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

jezuch — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 09:46:28 +0000

Debian does have a couple of small, selected bodies to make decisions in contentious matters, but Debian's experience has also been, I think, that decisions made behind closed doors will not be trusted and will not be respected by the community. That's why vast majority of discussion in Debian is public.

(I'm not a member of Debian, just a hugely grateful user, so my view may be inaccurate.)

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

nilsmeyer — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 08:31:09 +0000

> This is a topic I’m always expending neurons over.

That's good. I think there is probably a lot of untapped value here, both in developer health and potential contributions.

> All good works (of software) begin with scratching your own itch

> Reminding contributors that their first motivation can be, and arguably should be, selfish ones is surprisingly empowering and motivating.

I think that makes a lot of sense, I saw that sentiment echoed recently by a member of the Debian community. I think that point has to be driven home more with users who often display a certain sense of entitlement, often turning into hostility, even though they're receiving an excellent product for free that also increases their freedom and often prosperity. Turning that sense of entitlement into a greater sense of duty may be helpful but I wouldn't know how.

It doesn't take too many toxic people to ruin a community I think, and the recent debates around codes of conduct have shown that there are no good solutions to curtailing that behavior without a lot of collateral damage (and to me it often feels patronizing and overly based on US politics, but then again I don't contribute).

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

sysrich — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 13:13:48 +0000

> Do you have to face tough or risky decisions? Then don't restrict the decision to a few because that will likely backlash and there will be no support from the community. Instead, acknowledge that it is too difficult for a restricted groupd and empower the community to make the decision.

Interesting viewpoint.. history and experience has shaped mine to be differently.

"Do you have to face tough or risky decisions?" is the right question, but I don't agree with your conclusion.

Dealing with tough and risky decisions in public, requiring public votes, repeatedly leads to painful, divisive flamewars. See not only this thread, across the ecosystem, all the angry debates Debian has had over systemd and other topics, etc.

More projects have torn themselves apart over such things than have been helped by that approach.

For tough and risky decisions, I argue that you NEED a small, selected, trusted body to step in and make a hard decision in an uncomfortable situation. They should take that delegation seriously, and should all stand behind that decision as one collective unit when made.

For anything else, anything not tough/risky/decisive, then yes public decisions, either by the individual close to the commit or by a collective group, is the best way to go.

If the community at large disagree with the decisions of such a body, well the community at large needs to have recourse to correct that - like in openSUSE, where 20% of the voting membership of the Project can force a recall of _the entire board_.

Despite the obvious heat in the discussions referenced in this article, this low threshold wasn't met, the Board was not recalled.

That's not to say it wasn't a learning exercise.

One lesson I took from this exercise is that the openSUSE Board occasionally mis-assumed topics would be divisive and took it upon itself to decide.

"Do we need to answer this question? Is this our job?" has since been a standard question asked for all incoming requests to the openSUSE Board in the months since the incident referred in this article, and I think the openSUSE Project is better for it.

Answering "No" to that question of course leads to either more public discourse, or more contributors feeling empowered to do whatever they want without needing permission from some Board. Neither is a bad thing.

But that doesn't dilute my view that sometimes the right answer to that question is "Yes, the Board must decide", and that the Board's decision must be decisive.

Anything else undermines their role as the decision makers and arbiters of last resort in the Project, that's the job.

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

Adrien — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 11:46:56 +0000

I believe Richard Brown has conflated two things: expressing one's thoughts and acting according to the vote. Since this was voted by people who were elected (five to 1, which means that Brown being nominated by SUSE changes nothing) and members agree to follow the board's decision, there is no need to put additional constraints and require board members to keep silent on the internals: members already agree to follow the decisions even if they don't like them.

That aspect notwithstanding, IMHO, the best way to avoid such issues is to open up the decision to the community when a topic that will clearly be controversial comes up. Usually this is not done on the basis that it takes too much energy overall to poll the members. However, for some topics the flame that comes from the community after a decision has been taken by a few is so great that this argument doesn't hold. This is obvious now that we have hindsight but I strongly believe this is not an uncommon case and this one was likely foreseen.

In other words: Do you have to face tough or risky decisions? Then don't restrict the decision to a few because that will likely backlash and there will be no support from the community. Instead, acknowledge that it is too difficult for a restricted groupd and empower the community to make the decision.

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

sysrich — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 16:39:32 +0000

> I haven't read all the threads. I'm wondering in general how we can make the experience of maintainers and other people critical to the OS communities more rewarding.

This is a topic I’m always expending neurons over.
I don’t claim to have all the answers, but one part of the answer seems to be remembering one lesson from the Cathedral and the Bazaar.

All good works (of software) begin with scratching your own itch

Reminding contributors that their first motivation can be, and arguably should be, selfish ones is surprisingly empowering and motivating.

As soon as volunteers feel they are beholden to enact the whims of the masses complaining at them over the internet, the emotional payout of any reward is negated.

That’s not to say that it’s okay for maintainers to just ignore their user base - but approaching it with a mindset that they are choosing to help and implementing what they want to do, and then hopefully getting praised for it in return, really helps maintainers keep themselves sane.

Without that sort of emotional health in a project, other solutions like badges, kudos, crowdfunding or other financial rewards are all going to fail. I’m not ruling out they might enhance the experience for some though.

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

nilsmeyer — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 15:59:30 +0000

> It can be a lot of work, and the scrutiny can be a negative over time (mitigating that is the heart of my arguments in the referenced debate)

I haven't read all the threads. I'm wondering in general how we can make the experience of maintainers and other people critical to the OS communities more rewarding.

> But there are few roles the openSUSE Project needs good people to fill more, and resolving the projects issues, instigating changes, and seeing those changes adopted by the wider community and growing with a life of their own is still surprisingly rewarding.

I'm glad to hear it (even though I currently don't use openSUSE).

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

sysrich — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 14:43:37 +0000

Sure, any position of responsibility has it's negatives.

It can be a lot of work, and the scrutiny can be a negative over time (mitigating that is the heart of my arguments in the referenced debate)

But there are few roles the openSUSE Project needs good people to fill more, and resolving the projects issues, instigating changes, and seeing those changes adopted by the wider community and growing with a life of their own is still surprisingly rewarding.

Knowing all I know now, and suffering all the critiques I get on a regular basis, I'd still volunteer again, and I'm glad to see such a large amount of volunteers stepping up to join the Board this year.

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

nilsmeyer — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 13:50:46 +0000

Glancing over the article and the debates on the mailing list I'm surprised anyone is interested in being on the openSUSE board. It looks like a lot of work, with lots of scrutiny, with little reward.

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

nilsmeyer — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 13:49:18 +0000

I agree that it reeks of misappropriation, however I think there is probably value in finding different ways of community outreach, especially reaching out to younger people who these days grow up with increasingly locked down devices. While a youth football team isn't such a good idea I think the general direction of getting young people interested in Open Source is a good idea in need of better execution. My first distribution was actually SuSE Linux (I believe I was around 12 years old) which was included on a computer magazine CD-ROM ;)

> From the looks of it opensuse community needs to have more women calling the shots...

I don't see how that is relevant?

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

johannbg — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 20:23:08 +0000

This most certainly could constitute as grossest misuse of community funds spending it on a group of individuals chasing a white ball as opposed to something that benefits and strengthen the community.

Arguably everyone that still reside on the board and voted for this corruption should accept their responsability and immediately resign.

Ana Martínez should be offered to take the chair since she has clearly shown that she has the community's best interest at her heart + From the looks of it opensuse community needs to have more women calling the shots...

A slow start to OpenSUSE's board election

sysrich — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 17:54:13 +0000

Thanks corbet for the interesting take on the situation and it's history.

One bit of additional context which I feel somewhat undermines some of the implications in the article - with 6 candidates already standing it means the Project has more than in any recent election

2017/18 - 5
2016/17 - 4
2015/16 - 5
2014/15 - 5

I'm aware of at least 2 more people considering running. If they both run, that will match the record for number of candidates set in the 2013 election.

Sure, things were off to a slow start (but organising anything over Christmas is always tricky), and we had some interesting debates in the last year, but I'm not sure I would imply any causal relationship;

It could just as easily be argued that they led to an increased amount of candidates in this years election for example.