Dear Mozilla Governance,
a while has gone by since my initial post[0]. Since there was no
reaction, I am wondering whether this is the appropriate place to
discuss this matter. It raises the question how Thunderbird governance
is "embedded" into Mozilla governance. On this subject, a former
Thunderbird Council chairman, Kent James, once wrote[1] (quote): "There
needs to be some mechanism for a rogue council to be replaced, but that
can be done by the parent organization in the rare cases that it is an
issue (Mozilla for us, Apache for their subprojects)."
Here a summary where I think the Thunderbird Council operated outside
the rules, some of which it set itself:
1) Council term already expired earlier this year.
2) According to published guidelines, the Council is not processing any
CPG reports. To my knowledge after 4.5 years on the Thunderbird Council,
"CPG Violations <violati...@thunderbird.net>" has not existed until very
recently and no guidelines exist for the Council to process such reports.
3) Even if the Council were authorized to prosecute CPG infringements in
the Thunderbird Community, it's questionable whether it would have the
power to exclude Mozilla contributors from Mozilla systems like Bugzilla.
4) When dealing with alleged CPG infringements, the Council is, in this
case, witness, prosecutor and judge all at the same time.
5) The Thunderbird Council has a so-called Code of Conduct. It calls for
four unanimous votes[2] to exclude a member. This was not followed.
6) The Council even went so far as to strip Thunderbird module
peer-ship[3] which seems unprecedented.
Thank you for your time,
Jörg Knobloch.
[0] https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.governance/c/RQHR3eFAYZ8
[1] https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/tb-planning/2015-November/004161.html
[2] If an issue is determined to be irreconcilable, the council may cast
a vote to speak out a warning to the offending council member. The vote
follows the normal voting process including a second of motion, but must
be conducted under participation of all council members aside from the
offending council member. The voting result must be unanimous, with a
council of 7, 6 members must vote YES. Council members that have
gathered 3 warnings are subject to an additional exit vote, where the
council will vote on either suspending council activity for a set time
frame, or excluding the member from further council work.
[3]
https://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php?title=Modules%2FThunderbird&type=revision&diff=1230238&oldid=1228813
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