Call for trustee participation: LibOCon discussion about present & future state of the TDF

Hello TDF trustees,

TL;DR:

Dennis Roczek and myself will be moderating a session at the conference open to TDF trustees only, regarding the state of our foundation and its future, and all of you - fellow trustees - are invited to attend and perhaps also speak.

Time barring further rescheduling:
2025-09-04, 16:45–18:15, Track Room 1

Short (and brief-form) list of potential subjects:

  • Overall structure of the TDF
  • Information flow within the TDF, especially to the trustees
  • Oversight and accountability within in the TDF
  • Expulsions from the foundation
  • How do we handle statute violations?
  • The weight of BoDs and of executive director(s) in policy- and decision-making
  • The experience of TDF employees on the Board of Directors
  • The Board of Trustees’s ability to act and take decisions
  • State of our dispute with Collabora & Allotropia
  • TDF spending & recruitment policy vs upcoming risks/challenges

we will pick a few (not many) of these by participant preference.

Hoping to see you there,
Eyal and Dennis

Note: Only TDF trustees may attend.


Longer version:

As we all know, our foundation has known a lot tumult and quite a bit of strife over past few years.

While some issues have been aired online - on our discourse board, on Jitsi and here on the mailing list - this usually occurred in the “heat of the moment”, arguing about an action just taken, a fact just discovered, or an upcoming decision. Moreover - network-mediation of such discussions has its own problems.

In past LibOCons, there have also been a few sessions which had other purposes, and were almost “overrun” by people wanting to air grievances about our ongoing issues - as nothing in the schedule was intended for that purpose. Sometimes, this just spilled over into the “hallway track”, but with much more limited participation.

It occurred to myself, and to Dennis Roczek - basically independently - that we should actually set aside time within the conference schedule to have a more structured discussion.

This session is not going to be about people giving rousing and passionate speeches. It is also not going to be about “Person X is terrible and let me count the reasons” or “Person Y did nothing wrong and I will prove it”. It should, instead, be an opportunity to share ideas, observations, and concerns about the TDF institutionally - in light of the tumult we’ve experienced. I would especially encourage trustees who have avoided getting “into the fray”, to attend; and people who have experience in running other non-profit organizations in the past, who could do some comparing-and-contrasting.

On my end, I promise to try and co-moderate as fairly as I can, and avoid letting myself talk too much…

Finally, and to be clear - this will not be a session of the board-of-trustees, and there will be no decision-making.


Some subjects to consider:

  • Overall ‘constitutional’ structure of the TDF - considered relative to other political structures. What are noteworthy structural differences which you find to strengths or weaknesses?
  • The significance of oversight of executive bodies in organizations, generally and the TDF particularly. Why is this considered important? Who in the TDF has a right, and a duty, to oversee whom?
  • A related issue - mechanisms of accountability within the TDF, on the individual and collective level. Which are those, and are they working?
  • What happens, and what should happen, when TDF statutes are violated? Who gets to accuse, who gets to adjudicate or hear appeals, who guarantees due process, and who sets penalties?
  • How much power do the BoD and the Executive Director have had, relative to each other, in major decision-taking and policy-making? Are new directors, rotating every year or a few years, able to get a “grip” on things and conduct the TDF meaningfully, without physical presence in our offices and with limited experience?
  • There have recently been some expulsions from the TDF - two very public, but others happened quietly and have not been reported. What do we know about who has been expelled, the process of expulsion, and the reasons? Let’s pool our knowledge.
  • Are trustees effectively apprised of what goes on in the TDF, or do they rather learn about important matters after-the-fact?
  • What are the pros and cons of having TDF employees, and contractors, on the Board of Directors? This was not customary in the past (IIANM), and we are now nearing the conclusion of a first term with this changing. Regardless of the merit of individual directors and specific decisions - how would we evaluate this “experiment”?
  • The board of trustees - which we are all in - never formally convenes, never formally discusses matters, and ever takes decisions or action, even when a great number of trustees are up in arms
  • What information, communications and documents are important for trustees to have access to, but are unavailable to them?
  • Our dispute with Collabora and Allotropia: What were the initial positions of both sides, what are the current positions, and what causes, other than interpersonal dislike, prevent it from being resolved after so much time?
  • Until recently, the TDF had no “straight up” developers, without leadership and coordination duties. This number has risen to and is decided to rise further, as means of reducing our large reserve; at the same time, limited-duration project budgeting is mostly suspended, and some have suggested we are at risk of losing our tax exempt status due to issues identified by our last two audits. What are the pros and cons of this dramatic change.

Naturally, a single session cannot begin to cover so many subjects. These are possibilities - for you to think what you would like to talk about, or hear others discuss. In the session, we will select a few subjects based on participant interest, allocate some time for each of them, and leave the rest for another time and place.

Being the oldest - anagraphically - TDF Member in Budapest, I volunteer to help moderating the session, to collect the questions, the suggestions and the proposals which will be discussed. Some of the subjects are better suited to the discussion, and some are not. My suggestion is to select the topics where suggestions and proposals by TDF Members can represent an added value (there are quite a few), and to make a list of the questions that TDF Members still consider as open (please consider that to get a fair understanding of some issues you have to read hundreds of legal documents).

Hi,
Usually, this type of workshop does indeed have a proposal phase. The proposals are displayed on sticky notes, for example, and we decide in small working groups to filter out redundant proposals to be studied collectively. It is NOT one person who decides, based on who knows what criteria, which proposals are worthy of study.

Although, it is not a collaborative workshop.

Best,

Régis Perdreau

Hello Regis,

In hindsight, you’re making a valid observation: Myself and Dennis could have set up more of a process beforehand to choose specific subjects. But - there is also something to be said for people being able to spontaneously make the decision to attend this session - and have only participants decide what they would rather devote time to.

This will of course be somewhat of an experiment: Maybe the requests for subjects will be more uniformly distributed, and maybe most people will want to focus on the same things. Also, since we have a full day that’s been scheduled away - if people want to continue the discussion or cover a subject we didn’t have time for, we could in principle try to make arrangements for Saturday the 6th.