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
