[Mageia-discuss] Board dissolution proposal

[Oliver Burger]

Hi there,

I notice, not everything went all that well in the past, but there are
things I don't understand:
There are two ways to react to things you dislike in any kind of group
of human beings:
First: If there's anything you think is going wrong, to talk to the
people involved.
This would be the board and the association members in this respect.
Discuss the topic at hand with those people and try to sort it out,
keeping in mind, that others might not share your personal opinion and
you might be overruled.
Although, as Marja has told us in another respect, nobody can be forced
to do anything, he thinks it is fundamentaly wrong (which is part of the
fundamental human rights, although I think that's an awfully big
argument in a small group like ours), living together in a democracy
means also having to accept the majorities decision even if you think,
the majority is wrong (which it sometimes is, as history shows us all
too often).
But this way does only make sense, when you react in time and don't wait
for the next and next and next issue to come up.
Second: You can eat all things you don't like and say nothing about it
until the time comes, where you can't do that anymore. At that time,
everything bursts out of you.

If you ask me, the first way is by far the better solution, because you
don't achieve anything with the second way, except perhaps, do further
damage to some the group you are part of and you are working with.

As I see it, there are two things, that went wrong:
- The board election (that should not have been done by the council,
better said, in which the council has no vote, which makes the election
of yesterday void.
I know, I was asking for an election, because I do think even if you
only have two candidates for two positions, it's important to vote upon
them, because if you take a position like that, you have to know, you
have some backing up ba the group you represent. Actually I do prefer
elections with more candidates then positions, so there really is a choice.
I did not consider that not all members of the current council are
association members and that not all association members are in council,
so let's do it right, ask the association members (by mail, we don't
need a secret election here, do we?) and get over this. Solved!
- It's not really clear, what the board is for and what it is not for:
well, (saying, that I don't know French law and can only say it as I see
it from my german perspective.
Looking at https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Org the board has the following
responsibilities:
   - being in charge of the Mageia properties (hardware,...)
   - leading the association according to the rules of the law (calling
for the AG, giving reports there,...)
   - conflict resolution (mainly conflicts the council can't handle)
   - keeping the core values of the project
   - council and teams coordination
What the board is not for is the daily work of the project. This is the
council's and the teams' duty.
As I see it the boards duties are more a kind of an oversight commitee,
that has to act, when things go wrong but otherwise doesn't meddle in
the council's work.
When it comes to decisions regarding e.g the finances, the council can
still discuss it but the board has to approve.
What should be done better in the future is having regular reports of
the assciation work done by the board. So people do know what's happening.

Coming back to the situation at hand, I think Michael is an important
and valuable member of the project and I do remember, there were quite
some issues in the past, he gave us valuable advices, because we did not
see the problems in the first place. E.g. if you think about the tainted
nonfree things.
Next to that he is someone always diving into problems and solving them.
So I would really hate it, if he should really resign from his
positions, since we do need him, being it as sysadmin, as developer or
as someone with a very clear view on the neccesities of a FLOSS project.

So I ask misc to reconsider his decision. So that all of us may take
some time to adjust some processes and the organization so that we can 
improve it for the coming years.

And I ask any person involved in Mageia to be prepared to accept a
majority decision as well.
The only thing we can improve there is transparency on these decisions. 
But for now, except for some private mails, all was done on IRC or 
public ML with available archives.

Oliver