[DECISION] Code of Ethics and Fiduciary Duties review

Apologies for the confusion; I searched for the relevant topics on the forum - and found only this old thread; might be worth having a new topic thread.

For reference - the link to the document is to (FiduciaryDuties - The Document Foundation Nextcloud)

Code of Ethics section 9 for example continues to contain this expansive demand for directors who are already at risk of having their whole life sucked into LibreOffice, weirdly qualified by “at any rate”, and then with this “when acting” scope in the last sentence.

The good news is: When boards act sensibly and trust colleagues, staff and community members, and not try to silence them, then there is no need to have their whole life sucked into LibreOffice. Actually, only then a fruitful working together can grow and flourish.

Having one’s full life sucked into one thing clearly tells something is going fundamentally wrong.

I’ve actually written a piece about this at opensource.com and also gave a presentation at FLOSS Backstage back in the day.

Other organisations have similar rules, and given the experience at TDF, it seems more than mandated.

2 Likes

So you consider this and “expansive demand”?
“9. Members of the Board of Directors shall always and predominantly hold the Foundation’s interests above their own personal or business interests at any rate, avoiding actions which could potentially damage the Foundation or result against the furtherance of its scope and principles. When acting as Member of the Board of Directors, they will work toward the success of the Foundation alone.”

I suppose most would believe that it is obvious that they should act that way but we have seen that it is necessary to state it clearly as some didn’t find it that obvious.

I’ve added that just for you so that it’s once again clear that it applies when discharging the duties as a Member of the Board of Directors. I hope it is now clear for you so we don’t have to go over this again.

Please do create another thread if you’d like to provide some constructive feedback.

why not using Directors ? :thinking:

Pledge.pdf - The Document Foundation Nextcloud
image

IMHO, sounds a bit strange though.
it questions “predominantly” as used in a first sentence.

maybe you meant “in priority” ? “in unambigous priority” ?

Some commented, in relation to this document but also in others, that it wasn’t clear to whom the various clauses were applicable to so I decided to make it unambiguous.

Well spotted, thanks.

I’ve removed “and predominantly” to remove any doubts about it.

was ambiguous with what ? :thinking:

so, we have tens of ambiguities/inconsistencies like :

The above is to be considered a summary of the Fiduciary Duties to which each Members of the Board of Directors is bound to. It is essential that all past, current and future directors understand that their position entails duties and joint legal liabilities with the rest of the board members.

Capitalization is also quite messyunclear.

Some commented that they didn’t know to whom the document applied.

Let’s see if there are further improvements needed in future and add that to the list.

[quote=“PaoloVecchi, post:28, topic:13058”]
didn’t know to whom

[quote]
question being “[Dd]irector” vs “[Mm]ember of the [Bb]oard of [Dd]irectors”
what is ambiguous ?

where ? when ?

what list ? :thinking:

even more caricatural in the deepl-French version with “directeur du conseil d’administration” all over the place :face_with_thermometer: