Hi Paolo,
A misunderstanding. Thorsten was not involved.
You accuse me of individually committing spending TDF’s money. That would be a criminal offense. And in all your smart talks, the only substance you give is that in the offer, that I bring to the board to look at, the other party states that they consider their offer also to cover for time spent in getting a reasonable understanding of the situation… So?
Cor
I have won the discourse “Reader” budge because I have read all 100+ posts in this thread.
Maybe if I’ve missed something, I’m sure it’s because of the lack of clarity and the messages that hide part of the data justifying it in the “privacy” of the data.
Therefore, as I have said: “that a policy cannot solve the problem, much less a policy made by a BoD that is in part a generator of the problem.”
So, I right when I said "an inoperative BoD in which a couple of the members oppose anything another couple proposes and vice versa "
So you think a BoD of two against two, and three silent members can solve any problems?
Maybe they can comply with the bylaws to pass policies and whatever they want, but they certainly won’t solve the problems.
Hi @cornouws,
thanks, this makes it a bit clearer.
No, stopping the process itself won’t solve the problems (but might help making problems worse, if the process tends to fuel distrust).
The thing that I thought was there to solve problems and rebuild trust was the mediation process (that should IMHO not be stopped; it actually hasn’t even started yet for the BoD/team constellation).
It’s not the way I’d suggest in the current situation. But then, with the promise in point 2 above and a promise that the policy will not be passed unless there’s a consensus among those affected by the policy (which the “mediation” part in point 3 here seems to suggest if combined with the goal of a mediation process as described in my previous comment Asking your input! - #133 by michaelweghorn ), that wouldn’t sound too bad to me.
Do I interpret your following comment that his is also your assumption?
@cornouws wrote in https://community.documentfoundation.org/t/asking-your-input/9543/135:
To make it clear: Do you (Does the BoD) promise the policy will only be passed when there’s a consensus between the parties involved, i.e. it will not be pushed (voted on) by the BoD without it widely being accepted by the team as well?
Interestingly I find that after changing a single word that statement applies to a lot of what you said and wrote here.
I hope you’re not suggesting that team members are puppets manipulated by agitators. Would find it quite insulting otherwise. People here are adults and entitled do their own opinion and logical thinking, just like you are.
I hope by “at least one” you meant 5, and weren’t suggesting that some directors were less capable than others. (Also FWIW there always was people not up for reelection: 3 after 2013-2015, 2 after 2015-2017, 5 after 2017-2019, and 5 after 2019-2021, so purely arithmetically the high turnout predates the arrival of your fellow board members you appear to blame for most of TDF’s problems.) What does it have to do with this topic though? Did these former board members blame team members for the toxicity?
I wonder if this - endless - thread is going anywhere?
I only see messages entering my inbox, which try to be confronted (in the spirit of dispersing the discussion) with vague and stilted arguments by the established duocracy.
Having a solid and over-argued position the -only- intelligent decision would be to dismiss this absurd and unnecessary policy.
No need to fancy words… at all.
Dear community,
let me add a few general remarks to this discussion. Below, I’ll also
answer to a few of the previous posts.
For the background, it is perhaps illustrative to outline, how TDF is
currently run, operationally:
The foundation currently has a team of 15 people, some of them
employees, some of them contractors, and some working for small
companies, but with a large fraction of their time dedicated to
TDF. The team is led by Florian, and since many years, he’s managing
the staff at arms length from the board.
That means, usually directors would not direct staff members
themselves, nor evaluate/manage them. To help with that, staff has
private chats, discussion forums, and meetings, for which no board
member has access nor insight into. Team reviews, salary negotiations,
benefits & raises are also handled by Florian, and then brought back
to the board for discussion and (usually) approval.
So from a director’s perspective, the day-to-day work of the team is
already pretty well-separated from us - and in fact the experience is
not too different from a service provider, tasked with managing the
foundation, and the many functions needed to serve our
community. Sure, we know each other well, sometimes for 20+ years, we
value each other & our work, and we collaborate as community members
on LibreOffice in our respective volunteer [1] roles - but that’s the
same for the staff of many of the other companies TDF is contracting
(e.g. for tendered core improvements).
There are a few differences between staff at TDF and staff at
contributing ecosystem companies. One is that for some ecosystem
companies (like in my case), there are representatives on the board
(which is not currently the case for staff members - though there was
a brief period in 2012 and 2013, when Florian served in a dual
role). We’re currently checking with counsel, if, and under which
conditions, this might be possible.
Another difference is the level of scrutiny conflicts of interests are
getting - though arguably the team has got allocated by far the
largest proportion of all TDF income, and is able to exert quite some
pressure on board members (see this, and other discussions in the
past) - there’s been very little concerns about interests so far. In
any case only the board and the MC have a CoI policy enacted for
themselves.
The above setup itself is worth writing down as policy (or if you
prefer it, call it ‘documenting best practices’, such that future
boards can have guidance on how things are setup) - unless we come to
the conclusion that too much separation is bad for e.g. re-building
trust, see below. At any rate, adherence to community norms (on either
side, board and staff) like CoC and CoI policies would be good to have
in there, too.
In addition, I would personally like to see addressed the structural
disadvantage a volunteer board finds itself in, when dealing with a
large group of people (with a lot of paid time at their hands), who
can campaign in public & with their TDF trustee hat on. This never
happened, but conceivably those campaigns could be for more staff
budget, additional hires, more perks etc - all directly or indirectly
benefiting the group.
And lastly, TDF has by now noticeable execution problems. Some of them
are clearly located at a divided board, some of them are massive,
unresolved & unmoderated interpersonal conflicts (across the entire
community). But some of them are due to the black box, that the team
currently represents for the board, where some things simply don’t
seem to happen (or things happen that really shouldn’t). Attempts to
inquire, or go directly to individual team members, are then often
perceived as attacks or harassments. That is clearly not intended, but
any improvement here requires to give directors confidence, that their
decisions will be executed timely, even if they don’t chase people
personally.
Now, for the individual statements & my responses:
I am really surprised to see this topic pushed so much. The public vote on protection of employees has not progressed so far yet.
That seems inaccurate by now. The vote for the staff protection has
started, while no vote for any policy here did happen (besides the
help for coming up with a first draft).
Transparency and openness is something that I strongly advocate for. However, now we discuss a policy that is relevant only for the the team, but with the whole world watching.
That most things are public at TDF is a side effect of the setup we
chose. I’m with you that sometimes, public debates are making our life
harder. In this particular case though, it was explicitly mentioned
that private feedback is possible - so why didn’t you use that avenue?
From what I remember, things started to turn bad about three and a
half years ago.
No. In another conversation, you mentioned the board term 2014-2016 as
the time when things went bad. I can’t put a finger on a date, but I’d
probably agree with Cor, that there’s many different things at play
here, over quite a long period of time.
So we as a team worked on a set of questions and sent them to the
board. We did so only in private, not in public. Still, that lead to
some very unpleasant phone calls for some of us. Several employees
reported they felt pressured and attacked during these
one-on-one-calls.
It is disappointing to see you bringing this example, after I said
repeatedly, that at least I would consider the private TDC feedback
within policy (for any possible policy that I can imagine).
The subsequent interactions with team members then might be positively
influenced by any putative policy (which is supposed to cover
behaviour on all sides, including the board)? But hard to tell in this
case, since I was IIRC not involved, and it’s quite a while ago.
That is not only a problem about communication inside the board, but
also in communication with the team. Several employees report health
issues due to their job. What happens now makes things only
worse. You might end up with a policy, but at the price of losing
several people.
I’m frankly baffled to read that people are apparently developing
health issues due to the situation, and their manager still pushes
against – at the moment merely looking at options for – a policy,
which would, as stated, also regulate behaviour on the board side.
I feel the need to state, that TDF staff management, and downstream of
that the board, should consider a more proactive approach to get
people out of harms way (and/or support them appropriately in their
individual situations. Which might involve challenging perception
issues).
What happens here, pushing through a policy, will be just
detrimental for everyone.
I don’t see anybody pushing through a policy. But I see a lot of
pent-up grief, and unresolved conflict, plus quite some FUD around
something that is not even available as a draft.
Today we should all be enjoying what is happening in Surakarta and
we are there miserably trying to understand what a policy should
solve for the team when the wrong behavior is at board level.
Please be assured that we hear your concerns, and I was very sad when
I heard how this is all affecting you. The fear and panic that a
policy is creating, which does not even exist in draft form, that is
though incomprehensible to me. Finally, that you believe the only
wrong behaviour is at the board level, is neither true, nor helpful
for making progress in healing relationships.
There is management, working, including the manager and board of
directors, and creating something from scratch is “the worst thing
to do”. That’s what I say to the similar requests to rewrite
LibreOffice from scratch in order to solve the problems! There is
always room for improvement, but to reach to that, there is no way
but sitting toghether, discussing the problems, and finding
solutions.
I fully endorse this approach. And it is actually what is attempted
here.
To me, mediation actually sounds like a good approach. But I think
that the impression that a policy is “pushed” regardless of all
concerns does not at all help to rebuild trust and fix the
situation.
On that, please notice that the only people framing this process as
‘fait accompli, forcing down something that has been decided already’
are those in violent opposition.
Perhaps you are not aware, that this is a straw man
argument. Otherwise, it is great & considered input you’re providing,
thanks for that!
So let’s be careful with the FUD here, since that is often very
‘helpful’ when attempting to rally troops & build momentum.
[1] I like the volunteer definition from other communities in this
context - where a volunteer is defined as someone whose work you
cannot direct. This person might still get paid to do the work,
but it is not under your control. So what is volunteered is the
input to the community (and similar mechanisms as for true
charitable work apply - i.e. it is hard to gain people, and easy
to lose them)
Cheers,
– Thorsten
And to remedy this situation, a few seem to want to impose a staff//team policy right now? Really?
Which in my opinion is already happening creeping and must be stopped urgently: risk of demotivation, risk of fear and intimidation, risk of reduction of commitment to the ideas behind TDF, risk of elimination of experience and diversity of ideas and free expression of dissenting opinions, risk of retaliation for postings that make few uncomfortable, risk of loss of cohesion, risk of demotion, etc.
Hi Guilhem,
Could apply…? Clear difference is IMO that I give reasons to have a policy and also am open to discuss to work on a draft and to evaluate the draft when it is here. OTOH Florian only says he is against and that people are upset. All he tells in detail about the unhappy feelings, proof no causal relation between the two. On the contrary: it rather indicates we miss the guidance (of something as a policy ?..) to help avoiding unnecessary problems.
No, I have no indication that the full team is ‘being manipulated’.
Clearly I refer to the situation in the board, and to the fact that various people made clear that to them that was the reason to ‘move on’. To me it is fair to point at this, when various people speak up loudly about unhappy feelings in the team and at the same time seem to not realize what they are doing towards directors. I should have spelled that out more clearly, I think.
Caring for good (work) relations needs help and awareness from everyone.
Cheers,
Cor
Hi Michael,
Fair that you ask. Do you think it is reasonable to set consensus as a goal with at least one being vigorously and totally against? I think a mediation is aiming at getting people together as closely as possible.
Also, when starting a mediation, those involved could set the expectations, a desired outcome? Consensus (on ) is one possibility, consent another, and there will be more.
But maybe it is better that we work with facilitated meetings?
We should focus on the goal of finding a way to look at the draft content in a factual and open and fair way. To understand what are the desired effects etc and at possible alternatives.
It is very likely that for various aspects it is hard (or impossible?) to be (close to) 100% sure that either the policy or a possible alternative will always work. Nevertheless, the investigation and discussion are needed to get a picture/understanding as good as possible. And indeed to grow acceptation.
Consent is by the way an interesting concept. One gives that when she/he is not really in favor of a proposal but when there are no substantiated objections (or none left, after discussions, amendments.)
HTH,
Cor
Hi Thorsten, all,
I have to fully agree here. There has been some rare constructive discussion on this thread, but that was few and far between. I am happy a few members of the community care enough about providing these – but at the same time, I am utterly disappointed by so many – often long time friends of mine – arguing dishonestly by strawman or ad-homimen and a broad range of trivially identifiable logical fallacies.
Now I have to admit this post merely arguing on the meta level is not much better. I will try to make this the last such post and sincerely hope that readers in this train wreck of discussion will be wise enough to ignore it like all the other entirely unhelpful metadiscussion.
Best, Bjoern
[ posted reply to the wrong post - removed ]
Oh, here we go again…
Simply not true. But stating so is a useful frame in your fight against board decisions that you do not support. Since it is known that your natural attitude is ‘to be right’, there can be no doubt on the false intentions or bad understanding of people that do not follow your ideas, isn’t it? 
On the other hand, it is very pleasant to work with you in case of agreement - that is true.
It is very unfair to blame certain directors, who are having clearly set day time and demanding job responsibilities, for not showing up as frequent and with as many words as you (and to some extend the others with more freedom). Also it is noteworthy that you do not blame Emiliano, who is mostly +1 your proposals, for the same behavior. Yes Emiliano is also not in the same luxury situation that you are.
You are very smart so really must be able to understand that it is simply impossible for most board members to deal with the enormous amount of email. And that therefore it would be very helpful if the communication can be as polite as possible, avoiding blaming or attacking people, running in circles, putting words in people’s mouths, etc.
That is simply not true. All decisions are discussed on the directors list (some personal/hr topics excluded of course) and based on information available to all. That not all directors use as many words or like to interact with someone who can be expected to attack at any moment, is something you cannot blame them for. I think it is only fair to applaud for them (including Emiliano) because despite the situation in the board, they still (sometimes) join discussions, support the boards work, and actually do some useful work in the community with e.g. supporting QA, cooperating with team members and development, organizing a LibOCon, …
Thanks to the board decision that you are mostly opposing, TDF publishes LibreOffice in the app stores for a reasonable ‘convenience remuneration’, is making progress on improved and new procedures (the ESC Ranking Procedure and other procurement procedures being most noticeable) started working on the legal back log, hires extra people for QA and webdev, is able to hire developers, started working on strategic goals, and started working on getting over old grievances.
And as far as I concerned: more to come! 
(Answering to both of your posts here - the one that this is technically a reply to and Asking your input! - #144 by thb , since they’re related.)
Reading that, maybe “consensus” as criterion for having a vote is indeed too strong. Would something along the lines of “consent” or the second half of the sentence I wrote earlier (“it will not be pushed (voted on) by the BoD without it widely being accepted by the team as well”) fit better? (Feel free to suggest an alternative/better way to express it.)
So far, I’m not saying that it’s my impression that a policy is being pushed through. But I think it’s pretty obvious that this is an impression that several people have. And then there’s at least Cor and you stating that’s not the case.
For myself (and maybe others that might still be in the process of assessing the situation), it would be very helpful to get a clear statement on what the process will look like. In my opinion, FUD is best met by facts and clear actions that help to build trust.
So: What can you offer to support your statement that this is not being pushed through? Are you willing to give a promise along the lines of what I suggested above, or do you have another suggestion?
As mentioned repeatedly, I’m lacking some of the background and am not aware of having any personal conflict with anybody involved myself, but I think I somewhat understand both, your (Cor’s and Thorsten’s) unhappiness about what you consider FUD on the one hand, and a certain skepticism towards the proposal on the other hand that cannot be removed by just saying “Trust us, we want your best”. (Sorry, that’s simplified, but I hope the point is clear.)
How can we move on from there and get to a situation where suggestions on how to improve the situation (either through a policy or another way) can be discussed constructively, to build acceptance for the process itself?
Hi @jucasaca,
I might have misunderstood what you stated as at the end we seem to be mostly agreeing.
Ciao
Paolo
Hi Michael,
Well certainly not by begging the question and asking questions of the “have you stopped beating your wife?” kind like … right here:
Best, Bjoern
Hi Cor and all,
My attitude is to fully evaluate facts, pro and cons of a proposal and to comment accordingly.
My recommendation, joined in also by another director, was to avoid pushing for this type of policy since at least last FOSDEM as it would create more frictions and issues than those it pretends to solve.
If other directors had shown the same attitude in evaluating the pro and cons of the proposal with the due care then it wouldn’t be just a minority of the board to be proven right once again.
I understand that some directors have less time than others and provided 0 (zero) feedback during the whole process but they should be able to quickly recognise from this forum and the feedback they received at LibOCon that they made a mistake to send out their +1.
The feedback received clearly shows that also this time the board got it wrong.
The board should apologise for the mistake, revoke the vote to spend donors money to get another law firm to write a draft of the policy, act on the the issues created by board members and then, once the board is actually able to lead by example, review with the team if a policy is actually necessary.
Ciao
Paolo
Hi Bjoern,
sorry, but I don’t fully understand what you’re saying here. Can you please be more explicit and explain?
Best,
Michael
Hi Michael,
That is what we read yes.
Let’s look at this from a different angle. If the board had wanted to push this through, it could have drafted something itself almost a year ago now, ask input from various quarters and sought legal advice. And then be done; in maybe about 5% of the time and a similar amount of effort. Completed in early '23.
Even more, the board could have done this 3+ years ago, in stead of asking (tasking?) the ED.
When picking this up again, the choice was to give everyone a chance to participate. After all, that is what people generally value. IMO it is fair when it comes to people’s work or role to give a fair amount of confidence.
Now looking at the offer made in the resolution, to have an open process, and the numerous additional steps taken, and then the balance between the constructive feedback that came on that and ‘the rest’, it seems we were too optimistic.
With that experience, it really isn’t logic or wise to promise in advance that ‘agreeing on that consent is needed’ or anything like that. I think the board has shown a fair amount of faith, and I think it is fair to expect some trust in response.
That is at its best a perception, based on short term expectation. Looking at the history of this task, and the problems piling up all those years, the damage of not solving this now should be considered huge.
Hi Michael,
A good approach seems to be to gather all that would be put into such a policy, or could be put into that, and make sure that all people are allowed to contribute.
The next step then could be to look at that together with all interested, and if desired find external support to make sure that is done in a fair and balanced way.
Or?
Cheers,
Cor