Do Recent OSM Elections Signal A Move Down A Slippery Slope?

by: Dave Huelsmann

25 Feb 2012

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As I discussed in this blog, OSM Don't Need No Stinkin Transparency, I had real concerns that one of the remaining two officers on the OSM board would be elected as President of OSM. Well, guess what? OSM managed to do one even better. They recently announced Paul Orwig was elected as President and Jacques Rentzke was elected as Vice-President. Apparently no Treasurer could be found among the existing board members so the COC has also announced:

The Board of OSM is pleased to report that the Community Oversight Committee (COC) has approved the extension of the board term of Ryan Ozimek to serve as interim Treasurer until one week after a new Treasurer has been elected, or April 30, 2012, whichever comes first.

Alice Grevet, Secretary, Open Source Matters, Inc.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Alice Grevet was elected as Secretary. That was a no brainer. She was doing all the work anyway.

In spite of the significant delays and roadblocks the Joomla! Community has experienced over the past couple of years trying to get board minutes and financial reports published for community review, the OSM board managed to move with all due speed to change the listing of board members to reflect the new positions. And, no, we still don't have a financial report reflecting at least the end of 2011. Nor do we have board minutes for January, 2012.

So what is the "slippery slope" here? It should be obvious to those who have been keeping up on these blogs. The two most likely to shut down discussion in JPeople!, the two most likely to condone continued secrecy of OSM business and financial transactions, the two most likely to condone the restructuring proposal and shepherd it through are the two members of OSM who were just elected to President and Vice-President positions in OSM.

We just went through two years of essentially no significant contributions from OSM under the leadership of Ryan Ozimek towards the support and caring of the development team. After all, that is the purpose of OSM you know.It is to remove from the development team any distractions from the business side of the project and to enable those devs to spend productive time on the project.

I have already described my concerns about the proposed reorganization in several blogs, this is just one - It's Probably Not Really A Conspiracy But ...

So, what are your thoughts? Has OSM moved to the brink of a greased cliff with their recent elections? Are we likely to see even more secrecy? Will this be good for the Joomla! project?

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Do Recent OSM Elections Signal A Move Down A Slippery Slope?
Saturday, 25 February 2012

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Dave Huelsmann

Dave Huelsmann was Treasurer of Open Source Matters, Inc. from 2008 to July, 2010 and Joomla Forum Global Moderator from 2005 to November, 2010. Now retired, he was a senior healthcare executive who managed large and diverse clinical laboratory, radiology, electroencephalography, and centralized patient transport operations/departments in both not-for-profit and for-profit companies throughout the United States.

Dave was a Navy Corpsman who served in Vietnam while attached to Seabee battalion
MCB-71.

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More in this category: « OSM Don't Need No Stinkin Transparency. New Regime - Same Old Tricks »

Comments

0 # Andrew Eddie 2012-02-25 15:36

My thoughts are that this is about the two people you personally dislike the most and the two that are most likely not to tolerate the way you like to handle disagreement. As for restructure, it's some thing I fully support in principle.

You might also like to update your blog about the interim treasurer. My prediction is you will not have anything nice, but neither relevant, to say about that as well.

I'd be interested to know what support and caring of the development team you were expecting. Our previous exchange indicated this is an area you knew little about nor had a pressing interest for. As a platform maintainer I have no complaints about OSM as a whole in that regard and certainly found Ryan to be an awesome ambassador for Joomla development particularly regarding the platform (he even led a workshop on it - that's about coding by the way).

0 # David Huelsmann 2012-02-25 16:47

Has nothing to do with whether I dislike them or not. Has to do with whether they support transparency. Their record clearly indicates that they do not.

I pointed out that Ryan Ozimek was the interim treasurer. Did you miss the quote by Alice?

So somehow you think I do not understand the real mission of the OSM board? Then you obviously have not been reading all of the blogs I have posted. Of course I do. I may not be a dev and am not qualified to be one, but I can certainly understand the primary purpose of OSM is to support them and not to control them by including them in their overall structure where they can dictate to them.

You can have whatever opinion you want of Ryan Ozimek. As I have said in earlier blogs, he can be a very good PR person but as a person who can lead OSM and the Joomla! project to new heights - not a chance.And he proved it.

So Andrew, please help me understand why you are spending so much of your valuable time defending OSM from my feeble comments? Seems a little over the top wouldn't you think? Or is it because my comments actually strike a chord with at least some members of the Joomla! Community? :eek:

0 # Andrew Eddie 2012-02-25 21:54

Criticising me for commenting is rather ironic given your criticality of people alledgedly shutting down discussions, and your call for transparency. If you don't want comments, turn the plugin off or don't blog.

Yes, I did miss it in Alice's quote. Mea culpa.

I have perused other articles and find nothing strikingly new - it's the same monologue, just a different title and graphic more or less. I don't see much point in commenting on old territory because the moment is lost. Sadly though, some, well ok one, or your arguments is well formed, but you spoil it with ad hominem snipes and slaps.

Anyway you mentioned development again. Don't mention development and I *might* not [censored] my ears up.

Sorry again, I did misread you - it was OSM caring for development "under" Ryan (not Ryan caring himself). I fail to see the relevance of "under Ryan", but even so, I still disagree that OSM has failed in its duty to support and care for the development team as you assert. There is room for improvement, but I think I'm a better judge of what those things would be and there is no way you could conclude "We just went through two years of essentially no significant contributions from OSM under the leadership of Ryan Ozimek towards the support and caring of the development team". You may honestly believe that (fine with me) but you can't convince me that you represent me in that comment as someone who's worked 9 years at the coal face.

In the last 2 years the project, under the governance of OSM-under-Ryan as you put it, has achieved: The Packt award and the successful release of 1.7 and 2.5, the move to Github, and the separation and release of the Joomla Platform, to name a few off the top of my head. Given that, please explain to me what development looks like when OSM does care for and support it since you claim it has not happened for the last 2 years.

0 # David Huelsmann 2012-02-26 09:12

Andrew: I do enjoy our little chats. Wasn't criticizing you for commenting. Just trying to understand why you seem to find these blogs worthy of your attention lately.

It seems to me that you give far to much credit to OSM for the achievements that you mention especially when you say "under the governance". Last time I checked, OSM does not oversee the operations of the development team - correct? After all, isn't that the point of the restructuring? I personally would award those accomplishments to the development side of the project.

Please enlighten me as well as any readers of these comments as to the specifics of what OSM can do to improve the support and caring for the dev team. Your suggestions may just be just what the OSM team needs to add to their goals for this year. :-)

0 # Andrew Eddie 2012-02-26 15:03

Dave, it was your initial comment, not mine. As I said, if you don't want people to challenge your opinion, maybe you should keep it to yourself. The bottom line is that I think OSM is doing as good a job if not better than when you were on the board which from memory received not dissimilar community criticism from that which you now present. A lot of it was hot air, but there were small truths that led to improvements - but they had as much trouble accepting criticism of their own actions as you seem to do (ironically you didn't have a problem with me defending your board back then). I think the same of this blog, it's mostly personal b[censored]er as a response to past personal wrongs that you have never resolved, but sadly the credibility of the small truths are diluted by the inert filler. Good luck with whatever it is you are trying to achieve here and trying to convince the people at the coal face contributing they should listen to you.

0 # David Huelsmann 2012-02-26 16:49

Andrew:

Your opinion and you are entitled to it.

My opinion and I am entitled to it.

In no case do I assume that you have a personal agenda or have suffered "personal wrongs" as you put it.

You should not assume the same of me.

I have no objection to you challenging my opinion just as you should have no objection to me holding such an opinion. Nor should you have major issues if you receive a little push back when your opinion doesn't seem to hold much water. It is a two way street Andrew.

You can certainly characterize the issues I have raised as "small truths ..,diluted by inert filler" but that won't change the facts. And the facts have been clearly pointed out on these pages. Many members of the community have experienced/not ed these same facts and are not deluded by those who would seek to minimize them.

The people I would like to convince to change are those on the OSM board who are being passively led like sheep and are not standing up to be heard. Those are the people who can make it right and who can assure to the Joomla! Community that their board (and it is their board) can function professionally to assure them of their board's trustworthiness and reliability. Not there yet unfortunately but could be. It wouldn't take much to make things right and to shut me up for good. You ought to encourage them to try it. The blueprint lies within these blogs.

0 # Andrew Eddie 2012-02-26 17:22

Right, so I'm entitled to my opinion, but it still makes you "right".

The problem with your logic is that if you are wrong, you will never be satisfied and it won't shut you up for good (your words). That the new President and VP are most likely to shut down a discussion is not a fact - that's speculation and as a former global moderator, one could make the same assertion about yourself given the same circumstances. That OSM made no significant contributions to the caring and support of development is just your opinion, not a fact (and actually you strangely dismiss your own argument in the 2nd to last comment, which I found odd).

I'm also the first person to admit I've made huge mistakes and errors of judgement in my time in leadership. What I don't see here is any compromise, nor any recognition that you also made mistakes (or tolerated them) while on the board yourself, yet you are quite prepared to judge them more harshly than you would like to be judged yourself. There were quite a few things I was dissatisfied with while on the LT from OSM as a whole and you as treasurer. There are still some things that could be improved, but I don't establish a vilification blog as a result.

I've tried to give you the grace of meeting you half way (when, honestly, nobody else could be bothered) and say I agree with the essence of some of your rants, but I'm not feeling the love in return. As you say, it's a two-way street but I think you want to take up both lanes.

Anyway, the way to shut me up is for you not to delve into matters of development to prop up your opinions. I take people spreading what I consider nonsense seriously.

0 # David Huelsmann 2012-02-27 09:09

Andrew:

Sorry but your claims of fact versus assertion just does not hold water for anyone who had to deal with what is now the new VP and President in conversations on JPeople!.

And, trying to attribute something imaginary to me really appears to be grabbing at straws as is suggesting that I must offer mea culpa's for unstated "mistakes" or tolerated mistakes while I was on the board before I am qualified to be critical of others.

I am really not interested in shutting you up. Based upon your apparent need to shut me up, I doubt that you would take any of the criticism's offered here seriously whether they stray into your development world or not. You can certainly continue to try to minimize what I consider contributions to OSM so that they may improve but as I have said before, the situations and issues that have been described are real and a number of others in the community are well aware of these issues as well.

Also as I have said repeatedly, it would take very little effort for OSM to correct the issues and move forward. One wonders why they don't bother. It would seem that they have the same attitude as you. Community member's issues with OSM just don't seem to matter. :-?

0 # Andrew Eddie 2012-02-27 15:30

I concede defeat. I have dealt with some tricky diplomatic situations before, but you are my toughest assignment yet (colloquially speaking of course, but feel free to twist it to your advantage) ;) From my point of view, I will just have to agree to disagree with you and be content to live in my own little deluded world as an active contributor and participant of the Joomla project. In the words of Cypher to Agent Smith, ignorance is bliss.

0 # David Huelsmann 2012-02-27 16:32

I will save a blue pill for you. :lol:

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