Well known, high contributors were removed

Which was never part of the suspect. But the reasons which leads to the decision can surely be communicated, or?

The reasons for the decision have been communicated.

I believe it’s a matter between the former trustees and the MC so I’m not sure why you want to open the discussion in a public channel when you know that the former trustees know very well how to make their voice heard directly or indirectly.

Hi Paolo,

Could you point us to the current bylaws? I always thought we didn’t have any, to this point?

Best, Thorsten

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Officially we don’t have them but I was pointing at the initial logic and spirit of the statutes that, IMHO, should help in understanding and dealing with this matter.

Let me help with the requests for the reasons the MC gave to push me/others out.
I think these are useful to get the relevant questions listed - of course with reference to our rules, the statutes.

Subject: Re: [tdf-membership] [TDF Membership] Application of Cor Nouws was not approved
Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2025 12:19:18 -0300
From: Gustavo Buzzatti Pacheco gbpacheco@libreoffice.org
Organization: The Document Foundation
To: cno@nouenoff.nl
CC: membershipcommittee@documentfoundation.org

Hi, Cor!

Please confirm if we can use this email for our communication. If you prefer to use a different email, let us know.

The MC reviewed your technical contributions and the management decisions made during the 2022-2024 term of the BoD, as highlighted in the 2022 and 2023 audit reports.

The MC’s conclusions were already shared when the 2023 audit report was published:

The auditor gave only a “modified audit opinion”. This means that the auditor found some problematic items during the audit. (page 4)

The auditor concluded that “there is still the possibility that the foundation’s non-profit status could be revoked”. (page 5)

This “could cast significant doubt on the Foundation’s ability to continue its activities and that constitutes a going risk jeopardising the future of the foundation”. (page 5)

The reason is “the foundation would probably have to make high tax and/or penalty payments if its non-profit status were to be revoked”. (page 5)

The auditor concluded there was a “misuse of funds” in the amount of EUR 20,599.62 (page 4)

The auditor identified as “other offence” that the former board had contracted a new law firm “to provide advice that did not serve the foundations’s statutory purpose” (page 9)

The auditor also referenced the result of the previous audit for the year 2022 on the section “Reference to other circumstances” mentioning issues in tender contracts, and trademark licenses free of charge.

As a result, “may therefore have been a misuse of funds in previous years” (page 6).

This already means that a “final appraisal, whether the continued existence of the foundation could be guaranteed, is not possible” (page 6).

This is related to the potential loss of non-profit status which “would result in additional tax payments and penalties” (page 6).

Given your involvement and responsibility in the decisions that led to the unacceptably serious situation TDF faces today, that can damage the foundation, the MC has decided to not renew your membership.

The situation doesn’t allow another decision by the MC.

Best,
Gustavo

On 27.12.2024 14:16, Cor Nouws wrote:

Dear people,

This mail is a huge surprise!
Can you pls inform me:

  1. what did you do to confirm my contributions to the project?
  2. whom did you contact to validate my application and how many members
    have you contacted to validate it (statues 10.2).
  3. Bugzilla alone shows 300+ contributions from me the past half year;
    and the design mailing list shows that I have participated meetings
    frequently.
  4. Can you please correct the decision?
  5. what is the process to appeal the decision?

Thanks,
Cor

*)
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/buglist.cgi?chfieldfrom=-180d&chfieldto=Now&email2=cno%40nouenoff.nl&emaillongdesc2=1&emailreporter2=1&emailtype2=substring&known_name=cno_comments_last7days&list_id=1823878&product=LibreOffice&query_based_on=cno_comments_last7days&query_format=advanced

TDF does not currently have any bylaws (what is in the wiki is archival). The only normative text is the Statutes. They are clear that inducting Trustees is a seperate process to passing judgement on their actions.

While naturally I appreciate all the time you are taking to reply to every message, this is an MC matter and my request for them to verify they are adhering to the Statutes remains.

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So - it is entirely possible that this is/was another instance of a bug in the MC tooling - one of these was reported by a friend, and as far as I know was being looked into. My hope is that staff and MC members can together expedite investigation of this confirmed failure - which sounds superficially very much like Bjoern’s experience.

It would be -really- good to have some transparency from the MC on this previous case as well: how is the investigation proceeding? what facts have been determined? what steps are pending to ensure that the tooling behaves as expected?

Thanks!

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That’s an archival page, not our community bylaws. And that document is quite contradictory to our current structure (which still has excessive centralization of power).

The MC has given no reason for two of the expulsions, and an invalid reason - in breach of the statutes of course - to the third.

@gbpacheco , @stragu , @bvarga91 , @jonatoni , @lpranam : I demand you renew their trusteeships, effective Jan 1st, immediately.

Our statutes demand that a hearing be held before a trustee can be expelled. But the MC did not hold such a hearing, nor did it even contact said members regarding its intent to expel them, or supposed expulsion-worhty charges against them. So, they have done nothing wrong which merits an expulsion, in the sense no process within the TDF has demonstrated any such wrongdoing. This like people who are tried in abstentia and punished - with some not even being told what they’re punished for.

I am astonished to see that requests, already made on tdf-internal, to return to calm and respectful tones are being completely ignored.

‘Can discipline in warfare more than fury’ (The Art of War, Machiavelli, 1519)

Thanks for joining the thread, Marco, I appreciate you offering to serve as an MC deputy. Please can you answer my earlier questions?

Many thanks!

Simon

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Having received essentially the same explanation from @gbpacheco as @cornouws has - I can safely say that the MC violated statute-mandated due process here.

There’s a certain irony in the fact, that recent actions by the board (denying @cornouws his role as elected MC member), as well as the MC (purging trustees without due process), are making a mockery of the statutes, and the rule of law - while accusing previous board members of comparable transgressions.

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Hi @Sweetshark, hi all,

could you please provide us with the answer to Florian’s question? I’m also interested to know about the meaning / translation of your sentence.

I tried to translate the term with dict.leo.org and got similar results to those, Florian got with DeepL:
'verbale Beleidigung",
‘Verleumdung’.

I think it’s important most likely also for others to get a clear answer what the meaning of this sentence and especially what the meaning of the term ‘slander’ is in German. I wonder why this answer has not been given during the last two days.

Regards,
Andreas

Hi @andreasma , @floeff ,

IANAL but “slander” has no specific German legal meaning, so you should not imply one in your translation. If that is not possible, it is not translatable.

As there are other ways than wrongdoing by a trustee (e.g. death, or stepping down like Italo will) to be removed from the trustees, its good to see Paolo understood his statement was overly generic and qualified it as such:

Best,

Bjoern

Hi @Sweetshark, @floeff, hi all,

I didn’t ask about a legal translation / meaning, but about the translation into German language. And I think Florian asked the same. I want to understand your sentence and especially the term ‘slander’, you used in that sentence.

It shouldn’t be too difficult for you to give me a translation, thus I could understand your sentence and its meaning (and maybe others too).

Regards,
Andreas

Thanks for joining the thread, Andreas, Since you are also an MC deputy, perhaps you can answer my earlier questions? It shouldn’t be too difficult for you to give me an answer and I know others here would be grateful.

Many thanks!

Simon

Hi Simon, hi all,

I’m sorry, but I have no permissions to answer your question.

But I think @Sweetshark will be able to give me a translation of his sentence

As I already wrote here I want to understand Björns sentence and especially the term ‘slander’ that he used in that sentence.

I’m looking forward to his answer.

Regards,
Andreas

Hi all,

with this I would like too:

  • revoke any accusation I might have made in this thread
  • resign from the TDF Board of Trustees, if applicable
  • resign from the LibreOffice ESC, if applicable

I have not enough time to follow TDF governance with the required depth these days and will stick to occasional code contributions instead.

Best Regards,

Bjoern

Holy @%#&, @Sweetshark ! I’m sorry I didn’t properly follow the entire thread until this point. This is terrible! You’re number 4.

Hi y’all,

since there’s still no answer from the MC on the question which (if any) process was followed here, let me add a little further wrinkle to this sad story:

At least the subset of the MC which was already serving in the previous 2022-2024 term (this includes @gbpacheco ) was well aware, how questionable this exclusion was handled - since they did the same in 2023, causing quite some internal ruckus ([DECISION] Revoke "Legal review of the MC decision" regarding a membership refusal is related).

The fact that apparently a majority of the MC members did not bother (it would have been trivial to hold at least a hearing), and in broad daylight violated the statutes & integrity of the foundation again - is quite revealing.

Best, Thorsten

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