Kategorie: Freie Software

I was a (deputy) member of the board of directors (BoD) for about six years and decided not to run again for this body at the end of last year. I followed a lot of discussions and decisions of the board during this period.

At the time I decided to not run again for the board I reflected on the topic, if I should run for the MC (Membership Commitee) this summer and came to the conclusion that this is not appropriate. The MC is not only responsible for the decision on new TDF members and renewing membership. This is the role that the most people inside TDF already know. But the MC has also another important role. it is in some kind in the position of a supervisory board. It receives complaints against the BoD the Board of Trustees and initiates a possible impeachment process against the board of directors. The MC also represents the foundation in court and out of court against the BoD (see Par. 12 I of the statutes). The latter one  were the main reason for me to request a cool down period for myself [as an ex-(deputy-)member of the BoD] before I could run for another leading body of TDF.  I thought that such a cooling down period should be at least one year. But maybe two years are more appropriate.

In addition I think its role as  a kind of supervisory board should lead to a reflection, if it would be appropriate when members of the BoD and the MC would be personally or economical closely connected. It’s also a topic of rethinking, wether a member of the MC should be able to switch without a break into the BoD.

 

Im Zusammenhang mit der Betreuung der LibreOffice webseite für Extensions (Erweiterungen) und Templates (Vorlagen) habe ich vor einiger Zeit angefangen, eine kleine Dokumentation für den Bau von LibreOffice Extensions zu schreiben, die keine Zusatzprogramme enthalten, sondern weitere Inhalte für das Office-Programm ausliefern. Dies können beispielsweise weitere Grafiken, Autokorrekturen oder Farbpaletten sein. Die Dokumentation ist ein Projekt „im Fluss“. D.h., ich werde weiter an ihr arbeiten und sie ergänzen. Hier nun die aktuelle Fassung der Dokumentation. Sie enthält auch Links zu Beispielen für die Struktur entsprechender Extensions.

I read a tweet during the last days that a community didn’t stop during the weekend and that make me thinking, if such a tweet would evoke the impression that a volunteer in an open source project works all day and around the clock (24/7). I got this impression because there are some people during the last days that are posting impatient messages on the work done by others.

I myself decided to limit my volunteer work to a proper amount. I’ll not extend a long working day in the office with some volunteer work in front of computer. I think an open source project should avoid to set the impression that volunteers never have to relax, sleep etc., because this helps to keep active people healthy and keep the barriers for new volunteers lower.

I’m on vacation and take a brake from my volunteer work since the beginning of July. This brake will last at least for this month. I enjoy the current weather and the temperature in the office, when I got back to my payed day job ;-(. It’s about thirty or more degree in the rooms (and it seems that the conditions will last for about a week or more ;-(. No need to do some extra hours during the evening in front of a PC.
But it’s also not pleasant, if you read complaints like this on Twitter about TDF volunteer work and nobody stepped in: ‚(…)yet the official website for extensions is so buggy… I added an release and it wouldn’t turn up in hours.(…)‘. Make me thinking about my further volunteer work, in particular if you see in addition, that there is no line about your contributions (with investment of a lot of my spare time) in the annual report.