FSF leadership

[Sven Brauch]

Hi,

yes, what Christian says is a maybe more elaborate phrasing of what I also 
wanted to say.

Greetings!

On 9/19/19 10:31 AM, Christian Loosli wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I mostly agree with Agustin and Jens:
> 
> I think that people should be elected into positions based on their
> suitability for that position, which means that things like sex, gender, race,
> cultural background, sexual orientation etc. pp. should neither be an
> advantage nor a disadvantage. Otherwise people with backward mindsets thinking
> that "$xy can't do $z" will go  "Oh, you only got into position $z due to
> being $xy", which doesn't help. Also worst case, but exaggerated, if indeed
> people are picked not based on suitability, you could e.g. pick someone for a
> communicative job that is rather introvert or someone for a finance job that
> doesn't like numbers, then people with the above mentioned mindset would feel
> that their odd views are even more confirmed, that $xy can't do $z.
> 
>  From a personal point of view, I e.g. do not think that someone from the
> LGBTQ+ spectrum would represent me any better on a board. What is important to
> me is that I feel welcome and an not harassed  / discriminated due to that.
> 
> And that is what we need to achieve: our community needs to be inclusive and
> welcoming, so we shall not tolerate discrimination based on sex, gender,
> cultural heritage etc. pp.
> When we have a diverse base, chances are obviously high that people elected
> into positions have all kind of different backgrounds.
> 
> And that is what I think we need to recommend to other communities, so that
> FOSS as a whole is a place where everybody feels welcome and nobody suffers
> from discrimination based on who they are.  On the other hand, I do not feel
> that we are in the position to make strong pushs or even build up public
> pressure when it comes to elections and choices of other organizations.
> I don't know how FSF elections internally work, but if we map it to KDE, I'd
> see it as very awkward if an external organization would interfere with our
> board elections and say  "You should pick candidate $x or you must add
> candidates $y and $z".
> 
> tl;dr: I think we need to ensure that both we and FOSS has a diverse, broad
> base and work on issues preventing that, not interfering with other
> organizations elections and processes.
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Christian
> 
> Am Donnerstag, 19. September 2019, 04:59:09 CEST schrieb Valorie Zimmerman:
>> As many of you know, Richard Stallman has stepped down from the FSF.
>> However, his supporters on the FSF Board remain. The FSF is on our Advisory
>> Board, according to https://ev.kde.org/advisoryboard.php
>>
>> Accordingly, I would like us (the KDE Community) to advise them to
>> diversify their Board, as RedHat has done here:
>> https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/open-letter-free-software-foundation-board-di
>> rectors. If we cannot do this as a community, I would like to ask the Board
>> to do this on our behalf.
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>> Valorie
> 
> 
> 
>