Cor, can you please write which board members supported and which opposed?
(Moved from the Decision post.)
(To be transparent: I am a TDF staff member since November 2022.)
Quoting from the original post:
If find this quite vague. Is the Board of Directors (BoD) able to clarify:
- A more precise time-frame than “for a longer time”
- A more precise part of the community this originates from than “there are thoughts”. BoD exclusively? Members? Volunteers? Ecosystem? All? Others?
- Does the board want to collaboratively shape a “Staff policy” (as quoted in the decision) or a “Staff-Board policy” (as in the title of the decision)? It matters as it defines which group members or whose actions the policy applies to. Or is it a “framework document”, as imprecise as that is?
Furthermore, so contributions to this discussion can be as useful and targeted as possible, can I ask:
- What exactly is this policy trying to fix? Something more precise than:
-
As this policy apparently focuses on staff and BoD (according to the decision post), is the quote about just this part of the “community”, or the community at large?
-
We have a Code of Conduct (CoC): The Document Foundation Code of Conduct — The Document Foundation
I understand we don’t need to duplicate anything already outlined there as staff and BoD both need to abide to it. Contributors to this discussion need to be familiar with it to not discuss what is already covered there.
Finally, regarding:
I feel like the scope as stated above is so wide-ranging that the community might not have any idea where to start (on top of not knowing what issue(s) the policy is trying to resolve).
Thank you!
(And for nitpicking: there are quite a few typos in the Decision post, enough to affect readability. Would be great to fix those.)
I work for the users. Most of them care about the project and have no idea of the structure and the community behind. Members are a (unfortunately small) subgroup of the users being active in the project, caring about the future. Most of them have never involved in discussions-- and probably don’t want to. The staff facilitates users to become a member, aiming to grow the community and supporting the development in all facets. The board is the legal entity taking the responsibility for decisions and steering the project (not the product). Going back to my first statement: I do not need a policy to interact with the board. And I hope the users are happy with my work and interaction and do not ask for a policy as well.
Some of the rules are pretty clear: thou shalt not speak about HR and legal topics. And to repeat Thorsten: it’s always a good idea to stay positive and forward-looking. But people have bad days, are not native speakers, and may misunderstand comments. It should be replied on the actual situation if a statement is inappropriate rather than defining a policy. To muzzle people is definitely not correct.
The term “policy” triggers the comparison with SMBs or larger companies. And I rather assume a problem with trust, as you can see in the response to this question (one can see it as a path to resolve problems as well as an attempt to control the staff). Don’t see another way out of the dilemma than restricting the board to members without any affiliation and business interests. Would be a huge loss for the project, on the one hand. But I could imagine to strengthen the position of the ESC in order to provide the technical expertise.
Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion. I’m open to critics and discussion and willing to accept alternative views. My personal “policy”: I might be wrong.
PS: Would have been good to clarify and narrow the goal of this discussion first, as commented by Stephane.
4 Likes
Hi Stéphane,
[stragu] stragu https://community.documentfoundation.org/u/stragu
July 19(Moved from the Decision post )
Ah - thanks.
On the other hand, explaining on how to understand the process, maybe fits better below the resolution. Let me proceed here: it is clear we can move if that works better.
(To be transparent: I am a TDF staff member since November 2022.)
Both appreciated!
Quoting from the original post:
[DECISION] Creating of Staff-Board-Policy
for a longer time, there are thoughts about something as a staff policy;If find this quite vague. Is the Board of Directors (BoD) able to clarify:
A clear yes: clarifying what you ask in the three questions is possible.
However the wording is quite vague on purpose. The resolution does not to spell all that out; it might easily lead to debate right away on various statements. The idea is first to gather all ideas, wishes. Freely.
And only then, with hopefully all clear, have the debate 
Hence the urge to only ask questions for clarification in phase 1. (And of course it is possible to phrase strong criticism as a question, but that will show.)
Furthermore, so contributions to this discussion can be as useful and targeted as possible, can I ask:
- What exactly is this policy trying to fix? Something more precise than:
[DECISION] Creating of Staff-Board-Policy
there are undeniably issues and tensions in the community
That statement is to recognize that we as board are aware that for various people this topic is clearly not a popular one.
And that is not cheap talk, it means: yes, we are aware of that. And therefore we want to have a careful, clear process, allowing maximum participation, by being respectful, listening, aiming to grow understanding.
As this policy apparently focuses on staff and BoD (according to the decision post), is the quote about just this part of the “community”, or the community /at large/?
Board and staff have a special relation because of roles,
responsibilities etc. So the first.
We have a Code of Conduct (CoC): The Document Foundation Code of
Conduct
I understand we don’t need to duplicate anything already outlined there as staff and BoD both need to abide to it. Contributors to this discussion need to be familiar with it to not discuss what is already covered there.
See above.
CoC is generally important for all parts of the community but definitely not targeted at the specifics of the board-staff relation.
Finally, regarding:
[DECISION] Creating of Staff-Board-Policy
What experiences, wishes, hopes, goals are there, that should benefit from guidelines, rules, procedures in the to be written policy?I feel like the scope as stated above is so wide-ranging that the community might not have any idea where to start (on top of not knowing what issue(s) the policy is trying to resolve).
I understand that question ~similar to what Heiko asks (“clarify and
narrow the goal of this discussion”).
Maybe an example helps.
I expect the policy to guide directors in their communication with staff. Is that so hard then? No of course not in general. But occasionally, yes.
If you want to have contact on <aaa, bbb>, make sure that you do <x…>.
Or in case of special topics <c…> do or try <y…>…
And in case of doubt, contact <zz…>.
And of course the other way round. Or how we talk about the others work as well. And what we can do to solve issues, or how to learn from them etc.
But that’s only examples. This topic is about everyone’s input!
I think it is good to spell out as well, that having rights, comes at the price of having responsibilities. Well, maybe not when we talk about ‘human rights’, but if we talk about rights of e.g. staff, yes. there
are responsibilities of staff and also responsibilities of directors.
And let us assume that is even more nuanced, or more complicated, because of the nature of our community, staff being also members… An extra reason to have something written down that helps us.
Thank you!
You’re welcome.
(And for nitpicking: there are quite a few typos in the Decision post,
enough to affect readability. Would be great to fix those.)
Sorry for that.
If you have (off list?) specific items, I’m happy to look at these.
Greetings,
Cor
Hi Heiko,
[htietze] htietze https://community.documentfoundation.org/u/htietze
July 19I work for the users. Most of them care about the project and have no idea of the structure and the community behind. Members are a (unfortunately small) subgroup of the users being active in the project, caring about the future. Most of them have never involved in discussions-- and probably don’t want to.
Correct. This process is about those that do care and are involved.
… The staff facilitates users to become a member, aiming to grow the community and supporting the
development in all facets. The board is the legal entity taking the responsibility for decisions and steering the project (not the product).
Correct. And responsibility does not come for free. It links to both the legal and social background TDF is working in, and towards the trustees that put their trust in people to represent their will and ideas 
Going back to my first statement: I do not need a policy to interact with the board.
In general: fully clear. It definitely is not my expectation that a policy must be consulted often. Nor do I hope that it is needed
However, I’m also considering that the to be produced ‘policy’ also has to be useful to support (growing a) culture of understanding and communication.
And I hope the users are happy with my work and interaction and do not ask for a policy as well.
That is clearly out of scope of this effort, yes
Some of the rules are pretty clear: thou shalt not speak about HR and legal topics. And to repeat Thorsten: it’s always a good idea to stay positive and forward-looking. But people have bad days, are not native speakers, and may misunderstand comments.
Indeed. Then depending on the situation, sometimes it may be needed to do something. So e.g. we could make sure that there is a well prepared stage/place for people to communicate in these cases.
speakers, and may misunderstand comments. It should be replied on the actual situation if a statement is inappropriate rather than defining a policy. To muzzle people is definitely not correct.
To me, that seems to be a suggestion
May I ask you to put that in a separate comment, possibly with other specific ideas?
The term “policy” triggers the comparison with SMBs or larger companies.
In the end, it may be called something else then ‘board-staff-policy’?
Really depends on the outcome, I think.
And I rather assume a problem with trust, as you can see in the response to this question (one can see it as a path to resolve problems as well as an attempt to control the staff).
Don’t see another way out of the dilemma than restricting the board to members without any affiliation and business interests. Would be a huge loss for the project, on the one hand. But I could imagine to strengthen the position of the ESC in order to provide the technical expertise.
You know I’m an optimistic person that believes in growing our habits and capabilities to do good things, despite and thanks to different ideas and backgrounds. But that does not come as a given, without dedicated effort and understanding that we need to somehow work on it.
(To spell out my believe in life itself)
Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion. I’m open to critics and discussion and willing to accept alternative views. My personal “policy”: I might be wrong.
Love that.
One of my favorite statements: “I seldom make mistakes, at least not more than 15 a day” 
PS: Would have been good to clarify and narrow the goal of this discussion first, as commented by Stephane.
Hope my reply sufficiently helps.
Cheers,
Cor
Hi all,
I’ll have a longer answer hopefully on the weekend with some ideas and proposals on this topic.
However, when Heiko writes:
I work for the users.
I have some minor nitpick:
I think that creates an unhelpful framing for TDFs staff: LibreOffice is not a product and the Document Foundation is not a entity (like a company) that provides a product. As such, TDFs staff doesnt work for the users, but rather along the lines of “committing to an open and transparent peer-reviewed software development process where technical excellence is valued”. Does that make a difference here?
Yes, although in the case of UX it might be a subtile one. It means that building a product with excellent UX is not the primary goal – instead, creating a process and peers that are able to produce that is the goal. This means that enabling and broadening the number of peers who can contribute to the project should be the focus instead of trying to build a better product for “users”(*).
For UX, this might be somewhat mood, because the community of possible contributors is so small, that direct product improvements are sometimes the only way to move forward. But that should be a secondary goal after enabling peers (volunteers and other contributors alike) and their technical excellence. Beyond UX, this is even more important as it has impact on priorities there.
So much for my nitpick. I’ll add some more generic thoughts hopefully on the next weekend.
Best,
Bjoern
(*) put in quotes here, as it is really hard to get a grep on who the “users” as a group and their desires are. Everyone can claim to be a “user” or even a “possible future user, if you just fix my pet bug”.
(copying my message from TDF-internal, which was written before I read the messages on this thread, sorry!)
I find this initiative to be somewhat problematic.
First, this is an initiative of the board, not - if I understand correctly - a joint initiative of the board and the staff. It is also intended to be a document which the board will draft and adopt, thus imposing it on staff.
This kind of action would seem to agree more with a situation in which staff members exceed the bounds of their legitimate activities, disrespect the board and the trustees, counter adopted board decisions etc. Is this the situation the board wants to address? If so, we have not heard the state of affairs in the TDF described this way; if not - why should this not be a joint initiative, to be adopted after staff approval as well?
This question becomes even more poignant when we peer inside the board. This was not a unanimous decision; rather, it seems to have been “factional”: 4 board members support, 2 members oppose including Paolo; and I am guessing - correct me if I’m wrong - that we are seeing the same factional divide of Thorsten, Cor and perhaps others on one hand, and Paolo and Emiliano on the other hand. This means that the “coalition” faction could not convince the “opposition” faction that this initiative is merited.
Finally, and even though I have personally avoided getting into the “meeting about the staff” discussion thread (for reasons) - it is a leader of the coalition faction who has been criticized for inappropriate conduct in that context. With this being the case, I would expect the process of regulating board-staff relations to be supported by sufficient “buy-in” from both board factions and from staff, for it to be pushed forward.
Hi Eyal,
[EyalRozenberg] EyalRozenberg
https://community.documentfoundation.org/u/eyalrozenberg
July 19(copying my message from TDF-internal, which was written before I read the messages on this thread, sorry!)
( the messages here are definitely interesting wrt your questions ).
I find this initiative to be somewhat problematic.
First, this is an initiative of the board, not - if I understand correctly - a joint initiative of the board and the staff.
Correct.
It is also intended to be a document which the board will draft and adopt, thus imposing it on staff.
It is the boards responsibility to take care for a good environment etc for the staff. And if you read the resolution and answers to questions, the only conclusion is that the intention is to allow full involvement
from also members of staff in creating the document.
This kind of action would seem to agree more with a situation in which …
This are questions that I suggest not to discuss at the moment. You can find abundant examples also on public fora/lists, of tension, although that is fragmented, possibly one-sided.
Therefore goal of the resolution is have a process that is open, respectful. And to work on improving, starting with gathering what you think that a board-staff-relation document should include. Or not. And
what others find on that.
From your questions, it is clear that you have clear ideas. Please do write those as clear as possible and send them in.
Then in a later phase, let’s have the discussion.
This question becomes even more poignant when we peer inside the board.
The board seeks consensus usually. Failing that, the conclusion is that the information and arguments that people have, do not convince the others. Nothing more, nothing less.
Finally, and even though I have personally avoided getting into the “meeting about the staff” discussion thread (for reasons) - it is a leader of the coalition faction who has been criticized for
inappropriate conduct in that context. With this being the case, I would expect the process of regulating board-staff relations to be supported by sufficient “buy-in” from /both/ board factions and from staff, for it to be pushed forward.
I don’t agree with some of your descriptions in the above.
Apart from that: please do let the process ‘speak’, the input of people, their ability to listen and engage.
Cheers,
Cor
The decision also mentions to get feedback from the Advisory Boad. Find below feedback from Matthias Kirschner, President of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), which he gave during yesterday’s Advisory Board call. I share it here with his explicit consent, as he is not subscribed to the mailing list himself.
- What is the problem that should be solved with this?
- From my experience, you need enough resources to work on such a topic.
- Advise not to do that if you do not have enough time from the ED (e.g. a time when the ED is involved in fundraising or other larger topics)
- Clarifying the relationship between staff and volunteers, or decision makers and staff, can become quite emotional very quickly
- If then you don’t have enough resources to take this into consideration, and make sure all sides feel they are heard, you can hurt community quite a lot
- If you ask for opinions, there will be reactions
- when I heard this, there were alarm bells
- Advise to ensure enough resources, to have time to work on that
- Assume Florian would be quite involved, offer to talk with him about this
- Be careful with this, on staff side has lots of influence on their jobs, currently looks like “let’s have a round of feature requests” but less how to do things
- This topic is a lot about culture, often unwritten rules and very difficult to describe how things to work
- There will most likely be strong emotions, be prepared for
- you need time available, lots of work popping up for your ED, ensure time is available, people must be sure you take them seriously in this discussion
During the call, Matthias also supported the idea that the outcome of the discussion could be there is no need for such a policy actually and things could be achieved in a better way.
1 Like
The decision also mentions to get feedback from the Advisory Boad. Find below feedback from Cornelius Schumacher (KDE), which he gave during yesterday’s Advisory Board call. I share it here with his explicit consent, as he is not subscribed to the mailing list himself.
- asking for policy on interaction/cooperation always is a warning sign
- interaction is mostly about culture and trust, less about process, procedures and policies
- you have CoC and CoI policy in place, which every organization has, that’s the basics
- this sounds like you look for much more than that
- an example of a policy in mind you try to model here? what is the trigger for creating this kind of policy? how do you envision the end result? anything you try to mimic there?
- you are seeking for open input for board-staff policy, result not determined yet
- make sure not having such a policy is a possible option as outcome of the input generation phase
- could turn out there’s no need for such a policy, but better ways to accommodate the needs
I do share Matthias and Cornelius views which, even without having had the opportunity to follow the discussion within the board, very quickly spotted some of the obvious issues.
The objections raised are spot on, were easily predictable and should have been taken in consideration well before sending out the vote. Unfortunately only 2 directors felt that a different approach was needed.
I did question the logic of going out with this proposal as well, as it means everything and nothing and distract the board and the community from dealing with other issues and clearer goals which are also overdue.
I hope the board will not wait for the process described in this vote to finish before starting to act on the concerns I raised and the actual resolution of the issues involving the staff which start from the board itself:
Hi Paolo,
my reading (and also my impression in the call yesterday) was more a cautioning, plus suggestions for best practices, on how to approach this topic.
One question:
Would you also see a ‘no policy’ as a legitimate outcome of the ‘staff protection policy’ discussion?
Best, Thorsten
moved all discussion (back) here
Let’s keep Asking your input! for the input.
Reading all judgment and thoughts, I have no doubt that you all have ideas for the process to write the policy/document/…
thanks!
Hi Florian, all,
[floeff] floeff https://community.documentfoundation.org/u/floeff
July 20The decision also mentions to get feedback from the Advisory Boad. Find below feedback from Cornelius Schumacher (KDE), which he gave during yesterday’s Advisory Board call. I share it here with his explicit consent, as he is not subscribed to the mailing list himself.
Thanks for sharing.
During the meeting we talked about his ideas. And in the following I add what I brought in during the meeting (and possibly some extra).
- asking for policy on interaction/cooperation always is a warning sign
Fully agree. No time to lose, I would say.
- interaction is mostly about culture and trust, less about process, procedures and policies
Sure. Yet processes and procedures should be designed with in mind that they support (growing) the culture that we need.
- you have CoC and CoI policy in place, which every organization has, that’s the basics
- this sounds like you look for much more than that
It serves a different purpose yes.
- an example of a policy in mind you try to model here? what is the trigger for creating this kind of policy? how do you envision the end result? anything you try to mimic there?
Nothing specific in mind. I have ideas that I will post on the Input-topic.
And - reading all judgements on the idea alone… I expect others to have clear opinions too on what a ‘policy’ should or should not do/help/provide. Share it!
- you are seeking for open input for board-staff policy, result not
determined yet
Indeed!
- make sure not having such a policy is a possible option as outcome of the input generation phase
- could turn out there’s no need for such a policy, but better ways to accommodate the needs
"I don’t consider that at all impossible. However, I expect that is fully depending on a clear, open process with full support, honest engagement, of all involved.
So consider this to be an invitation "
Cheers,
Cor
Hi Florian, all,
Florian Effenberger wrote on 20/07/2023 11:52:> Hello,
The decision also mentions to get feedback from the Advisory Boad. Find
below feedback from Matthias Kirschner, President of the Free Software
Foundation Europe (FSFE), which he gave during yesterday’s Advisory
Board call. I share it here with his explicit consent, as he is not
subscribed to the mailing list himself.
Thanks for sharing.
During the meeting we talked about his ideas. And in the following I add what I brought in during the meeting (and possibly some extra).
- What is the problem that should be solved with this?
Anyone reading on board-discuss will understand there are problems we need to solve.
I encourage people noticing or being involved, to give input on what guidelines, procedures, … etc they consider useful to prevent or, if things get complicated, resolve.
- From my experience, you need enough resources to work on such a topic.
- Advise not to do that if you do not have enough time from the ED (e.g.
a time when the ED is involved in fundraising or other larger topics)
As said during the meeting: the board is actively involved.
- Clarifying the relationship between staff and volunteers, or decision
makers and staff, can become quite emotional very quickly
Sure. Therefore we aim for an open, fair process, where everyone has the honest opportunity to feel heard and being taken serious.
- If then you don’t have enough resources to take this into
consideration, and make sure all sides feel they are heard, you can hurt
community quite a lot
Sure; so we’ll prevent that happening.
- If you ask for opinions, there will be reactions
We’ll kindly and politely guide the process.
First gathering input. Well, read the resolution - it is quite explicit in this regard.
- when I heard this, there were alarm bells
- Advise to ensure enough resources, to have time to work on that
See above.
- Assume Florian would be quite involved, offer to talk with him about this
See above.
- Be careful with this, on staff side has lots of influence on their
jobs, currently looks like “let’s have a round of feature requests” but
less how to do things
See the process in the resolution. Members of staff are of course invited.
- This topic is a lot about culture, often unwritten rules and very
difficult to describe how things to work
That sounds like valuable input for the work. Can you pls post that as such?
- There will most likely be strong emotions, be prepared for
See above.
- you need time available, lots of work popping up for your ED, ensure
time is available, people must be sure you take them seriously in this
discussion
See above.
During the call, Matthias also supported the idea that the outcome of
the discussion could be there is no need for such a policy actually and
things could be achieved in a better way.
I don’t consider that at all impossible. However, I expect that is fully depending on a clear, open process with full support, honest engagement, of all involved.
So consider this to be an invitation
Cheers,
Cor
Hi Thorsten, hi all,
Am 20.07.23 um 17:30 schrieb Thorsten Behrens via The Document Foundation Community:
thb
July 20Hi Paolo,
my reading (and also my impression in the call yesterday) was more a cautioning, plus suggestions for best practices, on how to approach this topic.
although I wasn’t in the AB meetingl but it looks as if were in different AB meeting. Or maybe you are not open for opinions and input which not in line with your own opinion and political (and economic) agenda.
One question:
PaoloVecchi:
I hope the board will not wait for the process described in this vote to finish before starting to act on the concerns I raised and the actual resolution of the issues involving the staff which start from the board itself:
Would you also see a ‘no policy’ as a legitimate outcome of the ‘staff protection policy’ discussion?
This shows nicely that you didn’t want an open discussion process. Your goal is clear. You want no matter what happens a board-staff-policy to push further on the members of TDF’s staff and shut them up, if they have a different opinion (from yours and the members of your ‘shadow-board’).
Regards,
Andreas
Hi Bjoern, everyone,
LibreOffice is not a product and the Document Foundation is not a entity (like a company) that provides a product
According to Wikipedia, “a product is an object, or system, or service made available for consumer use as of the consumer demand”.
The Document Foundation has always made available, since the beginning, a piece of desktop software targeted at end-users. TDF provides the infrastructure to build and distribute this software, so that regular users can benefit from it. Indeed, TDF’s own statutes say this, right at the start:
activities include the promotion and distribution of a repertoire of digital production and creativity tools
We we can split hairs about the exact definition of “product”, but from all the things we do (and what our statutes define), I think we can say we’re providing something effectively the same as a “product”
And that’s a good thing IMO! Over the years, talking to many contributors, I’ve noticed that one thing that motivates them, is that we work on LibreOffice, then make the final, polished, finished product/“thing” available to everyone. We’re proud to work on something that we can then recommend to our friends and family.
(And of course, the vast majority of donations to TDF come from end users downloading the software, so I think it’s vitally important that we continue to offer downloads from TDF in the future…)
Cheers,
Mike
1 Like
Indeed, but I do not see how a staff policy could solve these problems. The problems that appear from reading on board-discuss are clearly created by the BoD itself and its inability to resolve its internal dissensions, conflicts of interest, its inability to decide for the budget.
It is not by suggesting that imposing codified rules to the staff that you will solve these problems. In other words, the problem is the current BoD, not the staff, and, you the BoD have to change.
Hi Mike, all,
I think we need to reinvestigate some fundamentals for that, wrt to the goals of TDF. That takes time … and some digital ink. I did that here – in the end there is also a concrete proposal for an starting point on how to derive concrete action from those abstract ideas. Its not a turnkey solution yet, but rather a starting point for a discussion.
Best,
Bjoern
Taking the discussion from [VOTE] Reinstate the previous Rules of Procedure over to here:
That process literally says:
What experiences, wishes, hopes, goals are there, that should
benefit from guidelines, rules, procedures inthe to be written
policy?
Input is asked from members of staff, MC, Board of Directors, Board
of Trusties, Advisory Board, and the community.
How should the community give input if they don’t know about certain legal topics and events that are relevant for this? As the policy topic is now open here for feedback, how can we have a discussion about it? I’m interested to learn about the process the board had in mind.
Thanks,
Florian