Minutes of openSUSE Board meeting 2022-02-28

Present: Axel, Gerald, Gertjan, Maurizio, Neal, Syds
Guests: Ariez, bittin, Doug, Emily, Sasi

Minutes of recent meetings

Doug liked a couple of posts from the openSUSE Twitter account that referred to Ukrainian leaders.
Another community member approach him and asked to remain neutral.
Doug notes "there are things we as a community should stand for."
Gertjan, Syds,...: "openSUSE should be about inclusion; we do not want to exclude people."
Maurizio: "As a board we should represent everybody."
A number of board members indicate they struggle how to best handle this situation.
Sasi suggests to take a stance for both Ukrainians and Russians; it's quite important to differentiate between political identities of a country and the people living there.
Gerald references on a "A note on principles ..." mail last year which got mixed responses.
Mau is in favor of a message of solidarity
"So, shall we send a public message?"
...long discussion...
Agreement to primarily issue a statement when events like these encrouch on our project/community.
Agreement that there's a difference between personal opinion and actions vs those of projects.
Rough consensus to not send a generic statement at this point while definitely keeping an eye on the situation.

How to go about groups using the openSUSE name but not following our guiding principles?
Example: In 2020 a Polish Telegram group was created
- Sasi was very excited originally.
- The groupd quickly died down due to disagreement.
- One person got banned for sexual orientation, others stigmatized.
- Just one admin.
Agreement: There should be no group under/using the openSUSE flag not complying with our guiding principles.
Challenge: Guiding Principles are not very specific ...
Gerald believes we can enforce trademarks to expell/shutdown/... groups
AI: Gerald will check with SUSE Legal
Next steps?
- Start working on a Code of Conduct with help of the community.
- We do not need to change the Guiding Principles to implement a Code of Conduct.
- But we can consider adjusting the Guiding Principles to be explicit about being open and welcoming versus discrimination.
- AI: Mau and Gertjan to have a look.