FSFE-in-2020: Who are we?

[Florian Snow]

Hi Mirko,


Mirko Boehm <mirko at fsfe.org> writes:
> I think we are getting numb to bullshitting. So let me rephrase this
> in simple speech: The FSFE-in-2020 ground to a halt because the
> decision makers (our GA and the president) did not prioritise it

I'm sorry, but that is not my impression at all.  The process had
serious flaws from the get-go.  The survey had no clear aim, multiple
major statistical issues and as such was unable to produce any sort of
reliable results.  Multiple people pointed out those flaws in the
beginning of the process, but they did not get corrected anyway by those
in charge.  The reason they gave was that this was only supposed to be
the beginning of the process and it would give a very rough overview
with a more refined process to be added later.

However, at some point, we received a "final" report for the process
that had a lot of claims in it that were not supported by the available
data at all.  By that point, the process had taken up considerable
ressources and so last year at the GA, we had to decide between
continuing the process by pouring more ressources on it and stopping it.
Continuing would have meant pretty much starting over because of the
huge flaws the process had.  We also still didn't know the actual goal
of the process, so we decided against it.

The restructuring was largely independent of the identity process.
There were two major obstacles there, though.  One was that there was a
pad with some notes on how to possibly restructure the FSFE, but the pad
had no obvious structure and no clear suggestions.  In preparation for
the GA, Matthias asked mutliple times for actual motions or suggestions
to be written, yet nothing happened.  My impression was that you, Mirko,
did not have the time to update the pad or something like that.  At the
same time, we had the problem of an abusive GA member and started to
worry more about simply increasing the size of the GA.

Happy hacking!
Florian