Comments on: openSUSE Board Election Extension

By: Joe Brockmeier

Joe Brockmeier — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:07:27 +0000

“actually I find the whole OpenSUSE Members to be stupid, you shouldn’t have to meet any criteria to become a member, it should be open to all of the community, as people who are not technical minded have very little chance of becoming members.”

The obvious flaw in this is that, without some criteria for membership, virtually anyone could vote — and leave the entire system open to electing any random person to the board.

As for non-technically minded people becoming members, that’s entirely false. The criteria for membership are deliberately designed to allow “contributors” who offer sustained contributions — whether that’s technical, translations, documentation, marketing, or another form of contribution — to become members. It doesn’t take any major technical skill, for example, to help edit openSUSE Weekly News or to help on the marketing team aside from basic computer skills (and without some basic computer skills, I don’t see a person having a great deal of interest in openSUSE to start with…).

By: Beineri

Beineri — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:26:12 +0000

Some links for self-study: http://en.opensuse.org/Members, http://lizards.opensuse.org/2008/09/25/opensuse-membership-applications/ and https://users.opensuse.org/membership/list.

By: manchette

manchette — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:47:27 +0000

So what are the criterias to be a community member ? Who decides ?
It looks that only community members can vote, how many are they ?

By: Beineri

Beineri — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:20:47 +0000

They could have asked either to become a member or an approved member to give them a vote in the last weeks.

By: Ismael

Ismael — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:13:37 +0000

There are a lot of people registered at the opensuse-mailinglists and they do a lot of helpful work. They *are* the community. They too should be allowed to vote, even if they are not members of opensuse.

By: AlbertoP

AlbertoP — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:51:33 +0000

I don’t agree. Letting every user vote is simply useless because a lot of voters would not know anything about the community and vote on unfounded basis.

I’m not a member, but I think that members are a good idea recognize the merits of those active contributors that really make a difference. If you don’t contribute to the community but use openSUSE you are welcome, you are a user like me. If you want to become a member, you don’t need to be technically minded. You can contribute with translations, with wiki clean-up, helping on IRC or forums and reporting problems and bugs.

Just my two cents…

By: anon

anon — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 10:57:37 +0000

I personally consider the election to be a joke.

It should be the openSUSE community that is voting, not just OpenSUSE members, the vast majority of the OpenSUSE community are not and never will be OpenSUSE members.

actually I find the whole OpenSUSE Members to be stupid, you shouldn’t have to meet any criteria to become a member, it should be open to all of the community, as people who are not technical minded have very little chance of becoming members.

So, in my view, this election is a joke, the process is a joke and the board is being decided not by the community but by the elite few that are members, and I actually think I will be removing my support of Guiding Principles, as I do not believe I can support the way the openSUSE community is heading at this moment.