I think I misread that part, sorry about that. I understand now Bjoern doesn’t mean that being a staff member is in itself a CoI when participating in TDF discussions. But that external links that can constitute a CoI (or be perceived as such) should be declared.
Is that right, Bjoern?
This whole process starts in a vague way:
- “there are thoughts about” who has those thoughts?
- “there are undeniably issues and tensions in the community” what tensions? in which community? why is it mentioned now?
- “it is needed work on a result that really benefits the community and TDF” always! but, in particular, why mention it now?
- “Decides: to start a carefully crafted process to that end” but, has it been approved to create a policy or just start a process, and depending on the result and the general opinion, create the policy?
I get the impression that what is intended is to create a policy of the directors for the directors, without taking into account the staff, and that this whole process has been initiated to justify the need to create that policy and to justify each and every one of the points that you decide to add to the policy, there will always be someone who has mentioned what you decide, and you can say so and so said this, even if there are hundreds who have said the opposite.
From what is being seen in the posts there are many people who do not see the need to create this policy, are you going to retract and reverse the decision to create the policy? (if that decision has been taken, which is not clear to me)
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This seems tailor-made to prevent something I did in 2020 from happening again. The board had decided in 2019 that a business entity would be established in the UK and TDF would give it a loan. I questioned the decision on board-discuss and continued the discussion on private lists. As many remember, it turned out a separate business entity was not needed to achieve the things it was supposed to unlock.
Edit: important to note here is that there was no discussion outside the board before the decision was published, so there was no possibility to comment beforehand.
It would be a really miserable outcome to have such a one-sided policy put in place to limit free speech. It would corrupt what it means to be a TDF member. As I mentioned in a similar topic on a private list a couple of months ago, if wearing two hats is seen as a problem, a fair solution would be to simply exclude both TDF staff and ecosystem company employees from being TDF members.
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Hi @stragu,
Yes, I’d just like staff to consider if they argue like any other trustee would or if being a member of staff might influence their opinion. If in doubt, leave that to the reader by making explicit that your staff membership might color your argument.
I mean “conflict of interest” also in the colloquial sense, rather than in a formal one: There is no overlap between staff and board, which is good, and decisions are ultimately made by the board.
I’d also like members of the board and staff to restrain themselves from reopening discussions once there is a decision by the board as representing the will of the majority of trustees. The way to challenge decision is to build different majorities after an upcoming election and disagree and commit until then(*).
Best Regards,
Bjoern
(*) The exception to that is communication between board members in private. Having to endure persistent private lobbying even after a decision is made is one of the duties of board members. Still doesnt mean board members owe a reply to every suggestion.
Hi Ilmari,
Thanks for bringing this example. I appreciate that. Honestly - since I think that talking about issues is better then not and then e.g. grumble silently.
The term ‘tailor-made’ you use, can have a negative annotation, I think. I’m not sure if that is your intention, but in any case I hope that - in some time - we can both say that it is fair to interpret it as “This seems to match well with this specific example”.
From what I remember, yes. Then also that things it was meant to solve, really are not all solved yet, that it seemed a reasonable/good solution, and maybe not the best.
So for me, a far from black and white picture. But a very relevant, useful example.
So yes, I support looking at the example, and what the influence of certain parts of a policy could have been on the process, but I am not (not yet maybe?) convinced that the following conclusion you draw, is justified.
Can you (& others) join me in looking at some questions before drawing that conclusion?
- Have the possibilities to engage in the process before the decision, not (effectively) used?
- Or were they not enough / was maybe the decision making not open enough for vital feedback?
- Our statues offer the possibility to contest decisions; isn’t that enough?
- Wouldn’t what I write in my suggestions (see next) be enough to help in such a situation, or is more needed?
- Would it be good to have another mechanism for staff to speak up in some cases?
- Would possibly improving overall board-staff communication (always time consuming, formalities or honest engaging… - to drop some notes
) … - …
Different discussion I think. But staff is paid to do what the board decides, and the board is elected to represent the will of the trustees, and that people working for ecosystem companies can be member, is a vital element for a meritocratic organization.
Back to the relevant discussion. Can you imagine Ilmari, that there is maybe reason to have some care in to what extend staff can fight decisions from the board?
Imagine there is a decision and for whatever reason 5 people don’t like it and refuse to execute, but the decision stands and holds… just find another job, split the community, …? None of which I’m looking forward to. But looking at the far edges of the possible scenario’s is to me helpful to at least support thinking.
Looking forward to your thoughts,
Cor
Hi Juan,
Have you been looking at some posts below the announcing topic?
Here and further down
IMO your questions have been covered there somehow already.
And please let us know if anything misses.
Thanks,
Cor
Yes that was answered:
“A clear yes: clarifying what you ask in the three questions is possible. However the wording is quite vague on purpose”
It is said that it can be answered, but the answer is that nothing is clarified on purpose.
In any case, actually, they were not questions that I expected to be answered, those questions were to show that as you say “the wording is quite vague on purpose” and that what is really intended is
- To create a policy of the directors for the directors.
- That this is a parody in order to justify the decisions to be taken
And I think that splitting messages from one thread to another and from the other to the first is also, as you see, a way to confuse and bore people.
The proposal of Ilmari is bit blunt, but quite effective to prevent conflict of interest/ having multiple hats on. However a big part of the contributions is coming from eco-system partners. And input from eco-system partners can surely be an advantage.
The interest of TDF don’t necessary align with eco-system partners vision, at subtle or more obvious level. You can’t be neutral when being an employee or director of an eco-system partner and being on the board of TDF. A director of a (eco-system partner) company X who actually is neutral in a vote which strategically relevant for his enterprise, wouldn’t - theoretically - fulfill his task properly in relation to his commitment to is duties as director of company X.
Another idea would be allowing the eco-system partner a seats with the eco-system partner hat on, without pretention of being neutral/impartial. The interest of the TDF would be ensured by distributing the majority. Say three members of the board being unaffiliated (ideally also holding the position of the chair), and two representing the eco-system partner. With some cooling off period for people who where affiliate with eco-system partner and want to be voted onto the board as unaffiliated. This also would ensure that eco-system partners board members can speak freely.
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Hi @Telesto,
Note this is not only true for “eco-system partners” (which is commonly used for companies contributing to LibreOffice), but also for other employers, entities and enterprises of community members, namely those that are users of LibreOffice themselves. And with companies or entities that use and benefit from LibreOffice – be that by providing hosting, related services (e.g. trainings), or running big deployments or something else – the risk for conflicts of interest are much higher than for “eco-system partners”, because the latter are at least actively contributing to the project (which is one of the main goals of TDF and one of the hardest to grow on).
So any suggestion for additional redtape should first consider those employers before maybe going after “eco-system partners”.
Best Regards,
Bjoern
If you like to get feedback from the people, I suggest to postpone this 4 week period to at least after the LibOCon is finished.
Right now, for LibOCon I myself have several action items to complete, and around 5 presentations in hand for the LibreOffice conference and various sessions of the student workshop, which also need a lot of preparation in addition to the presentations. I am sure other staff, and many other people who participate in the LibOCon have many things to do before the conference.
Bjoern calls it “going after” people, but whatever its implications would be, I would appreciate if this is postponed to some time after LibOCon, so that the conference and its workshop can be held smoothly.
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Hi @jucasaca,
it’s interesting to see that also from outside the board there are people that are getting the same feelings about this proposed policy.
When Cor started the vote, despite objections, I stated:
"…the input gathered included also 2 directors stating that it would be much better to avoid trying to go out with a catch all vote and instead focus on smaller targeted votes and processes, that doesn’t seem to have been taken in consideration.
The vote [contains] also misleading statements and focuses on a staff policy that has been promoted only by directors affiliated with companies of the ecosystem which disliked receiving uncomfortable questions on matters in which they were/are clearly in CoI.
During last term no other directors thought it was a good idea to come up with that policy, during this term an attempt to reopen that discussion has been pushed back at FOSDEM and now it came back again to create more distractions and surely discussions at a time where directors should be focusing on other issues which have been ignored or actively dismissed for months.
If you really think it’s a good idea to do that then just publish the proposal on board discuss first and see what kind of reactions it will get."
Unfortunately the majority of the board sent their +1 without even discussing the merits of the proposal as usual.
That’s likely to follow the same path of Cor’s alternative take on the Developers Proposal that received only negative comments by trustees but got voted in regardless.
Maybe some good things will come out of this catch all policy but as already stated it will put me in a position where I’ll have to vote on something that will contain also clauses that censor our members of staff.
If “the board” really wanted to do something good for our members of staff then they could have participated to the following votes:
Once again some board members didn’t perform their basic duty of voting for proposals that are the result of clear legal advice to have a valid budget. These would have helped by putting in place measures that protect our staff from undue influence as it happened too often especially since TDF’s staff questioning helped in making new board members aware of the issues present in the decision voted back in 2019.
I would think that another useful policy would be to have a senior representative of the members in the board to help the board with feedback coming from the team which is in daily contact with the many communities around the world and with the day to day operations. That would help a lot in avoiding making some mistakes.
Ciao
Paolo
Given urgent pending tasks at least on my desk the board is aware of, vacation planning and upcoming LibOCon that will also take time from several of us - I do support this request.
Hi Florian, Hossein, *,
There’s already been written quite a bit about the process and ‘nuances’ around the idea of shifting.
Given the feedback, I expect it is easier and more effective that the board makes absolutely sure, to talk with team members at least when there is a first draft. It will then be more natural to give feedback and input.
The plan obviously already works with feedback in various phases/ways, but it is definitely good to state that we will reach out to the team explicitly and separately! Will talk a bit more in detail with the team.
HTH,
Cor
I do support the request as well.
I’m also not finding it very ethical to go out with a proposal including all sort of things which will force me to vote on items that I don’t find beneficial for TDF and the members of staff while instead I would be willing to vote on others.
The wisest move, IMHO, would be to revoke the vote and go out with separate proposals for each item that some board members have already in mind and allow members of staff to make their own proposals as well.
You wrote earlier on
And now you wrote
You said you will not let us in the cold when we ask for an extension.
Me and others explained why the timing is too short and in a bad time of the year, and you had more feedback internally why it’s not a good time.
So, I’d like to take you by you word, ask to not let us in the cold, and give the extension of the deadline as asked.
Apart from that, the vast majority of feedback received is negative towards a policy, including feedback from our very own Advisory Board. An AB member, as quoted here, said it will require a lot of work and require a lot of time also from my end, so I hope my request to ask for an extension is even more sensible now.
Thanks for considering,
Florian
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Hi Florian,
Thanks for spending time to ask this.
I see it as my role as director here, to bridge rationale and emotional.
There is quite some posts where I read or understand that people do not like a policy. Then my conclusion is: there must be things that these people do not want to see in a policy. But what is that?
So the emotion is “I don’t want that” - emotions are important. The rationale is: 'Why, what do we have to learn out of that" - understanding also is important.
So I’ve been constantly encouraging you and other people to explain. Mind that it is not without reason, that the boards decision suggests various ways to make ideas known, including anonymous.
I’ve appreciated that Ilmari replies with a clear example from the past, showing what he does not want to happen. A valid one to look at, I think. I’ve reflected on his view and defined some questions to look at, to really understand what that example can/could/should mean for the topic at hand. So far no response. Maybe it is too complicated to look at those in this setting? Anyhow, I will not forget the example and questions, because I do care.
So various people are happy with the idea, but there is no explanation to take advantage of. The logic thing is then to make extra efforts to look at a draft with members of staff; that will make it much easier to give factual feedback from which we will all benefit. This is in my post here .
Then:
Correct. And on the internal matrix channel I also wrote “Is it strange though, that if I would expect, that the ones with clear ideas would be able to find some 30-60 minutes in the next 2 weeks to write that down?” (sorry for my sometimes complex constructions. Combined with my not so perfect English, that may not always be easy to understand.)
So that is already one week more than planned. OK?
Again, I feel strongly that a separate and explicit opportunity for the staff to reflect on a draft, is way more useful than shifting more and again a bit more. If it is hard to find words now - apparently - that will be just as hard in 4 or 8 weeks. Then there will also be lots of other work to do…
The setting/situation will be helping you much more to give feedback than a few weeks extra.
I think it is only natural, that often it is easier to give feedback, when looking at some text in stead of at some empty paper.
Do think a moment about what in fact the consequences for staff are, if we do that
Still, OTOH I see no reason to be too stressed on the term for the first phase either, so we can look at shifting another week, why not. That would then be 22 days from now.
I found the feedback from the AB critical and constructive; appreciated and the chat we had was useful.
Acting on negative feedback in the “I don’t want this” -form is impossible for me. It is the boards responsibility to support good relations, have a proper governance framework in place etc.
Thanks,
Cor
No, there were no possibilities to engage in the process as the decision about TDC was taken in private. I also remember over the years some board members objecting to the idea of having more open processes, so this practice of arbitrarily making even highly impactful decisions in private seems likely to continue.
About contesting decisions, TDF statutes say complaints must be submitted by at least 30% of the Board of Trustees members. The discussion here is about the ability of individual trustees to make comments, so it’s not a fitting comparison. The main mystery in your proposal remains: why is it needed to selectively limit the free speech of trustees?
What is the need for another mechanism for this group of trustees to speak?
No, it is the essential discussion here. You see us wearing two hats to be a problem for some reason (not explaining properly, just “IMO no good/not appropriate”) and you want to limit our free speech. Why would your “IMO” carry any weight here while you are also wearing two hats and are apparently not open to the idea of equal restrictions for being a trustee?
You want to reposition TDF to favour trustees who are ecosystem employees and this deserves to be be stated clearly when communicating it. Will you commit to this clarity of communication going forward?
Now you are starting a new discussion about TDF staff hypothetically going on strike. This is diverging too far from the main discussion, so I will not comment on it.
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Hi Cor, everyone,
As a TDF staff member for seven years, active in the marketing project and in community outreach, these areas you describe as potential “conflict of interest for staff” worry me. For instance:
lobbying for a friendly persons project that may not be in the foundations interest;
I’ve been working with the Thunderbird community on cross-promotion recently. What if the Board then decides that it’s my “friendly persons project” and I get charged with a “conflict of interest”?
trying to grow your tasks beyond what is useful/necessary to the goals;
Team members do the daily work in the project and with the community, and know what the community wants. This sounds like we need to check every task with the Board to see if it’s “necessary for the goals”, to avoid getting in “conflict of interest”.
Ultimately, I feel like a “staff policy” that some Board members are in favour of will make it much harder for TDF’s staff to do their daily work, be creative and try new things. Many of us will avoid doing imaginative things to avoid potential “conflicts of interest” coming up, or stepping on the toes of the ecosystem members.
I joined TDF in 2016 to be part of an independent, non-profit organisation focused on growing a community (including the ecosystem, which I’ve promoted a lot). Today, giving the Board much more control over the team’s daily work and feeling more constrained and restricted in our work isn’t what TDF should be about, IMO.
I urge more community members to consider these discussions and share their views, as it’s the community that’s doing the biggest work on LibreOffice. What should the team be allowed to do?
Mike
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Hi Mike,
Interesting part of the discussion to look at. Though IMO only a side path that popped up when Stéphane suggested that all that staff can never be in CoI.
I don’t see how the Thunderbird project could be doing anything that is not good for TDF; it is an important open source project just as LibreOffice acting in it’s own area.
But imagine that someone is pushing TDF to do things that are benefiting his business, while there is no contribution to the project, and those things will make it harder for those who do contribute to the project, to continue doing that. That is something that has to be seriously and carefully considered from the perspective of the foundations interest.
I cannot imagine that staff feels under (constant) supervision of the board. There is quite some distance and I think that is good. Board is there more for overall policy, goals etc, enabling people to work (either volunteer or staff).
Also, I guess you do not want to suggest that ‘knowing what the community wants’ is an exclusive quality of staff members, do you 
?
Again, I see no signals at all that go in the direction of actually limiting creative powers or whatever.
These examples were given to nuance the idea that what the staff does can never be in CoI. Hope that is more clear now.
With you there. The work on the policy is, should not, be that.
I’ll read my own thoughts (somewhere up ^^) again tonight, and consider them from that perspective.
But feel free to help me, if you see things that you think can be (too) restricting.
And perhaps where the area begins/area’s are, that requires some caution because of different roles and responsibilities ?
Thanks Mike!