Category: Foundation

TDF Membership Committee announces the PRELIMINARY results of the elections for the next Board of Directors at The Document Foundation.

The number of TDF Members who voted is 120, from a total amount of 211 eligible voters. This means that 91 TDF Members did not vote. The Membership Committee would like to thanks all the voters, as the elections are the most significant time of the year for TDF Members, because they can decide about the project’s governance.

Based on the PRELIMINARY results, the following candidates are elected as members of TDF Board of Directors, in order of preference:

Full Members:

1. Thorsten Behrens
2. Paolo Vecchi
3. Jan ‘Kendy’ Holešovský
4. Emiliano Vavassori
5. Caolán McNamara
6. Cor Nouws
7. László Németh

Deputies:

1. Gábor Kelemen
2. Ayhan Yalçınsoy
3. Gabriel Masei

Results were calculated using the same tooling and rules of previous elections, based on the single transferable vote (STV) voting system and the Meek algorithm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_single_transferable_votes). The software used is OpenSTV (https://github.com/Conservatory/openstv).

The Membership Committee agreed on the ranking of the first six candidates, but is still discussing about the last four candidates.

Unfortunately, given that there are 10 candidates and 10 seats, OpenSTV 1.7 does not provide more than one round to rank all candidates that have not reached the threshold, and considers all candidates as elected. For more details, see: https://elections.documentfoundation.org/results.php?election_id=14. The Membership Committee will investigate this further, and will update TDF Members and the general public as soon as possible.

Before the results can be considered as final, we have the challenge phase from Wednesday, December 15, to Monday, December 20, at midnight CET (UTC+1).

TDF Members are invited to check their votes as explained after the voting, by using the anonymous token received at that time (each voter has received a different token, and is the sole owner of that token). Election results to verify are available here: https://elections.documentfoundation.org/votes.php?election_id=14.

If you have any questions or if you think that there were irregularities during the vote, please get in touch with the Membership Committee AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, and in any case no later than Monday, December 20, at midnight CET (UTC+1), using the email address elections@documentfoundation.org.

For reference, details of the whole election process have been outlined in the first announcement: https://listarchives.tdf.io/i/tFJzSYUUGcSjf0c0NtNiEOou.

With elections for The Document Foundation’s Board of Directors running, the Membership Committee is planning to conduct a live Q&A session with the candidates.

The sessions are not mandatory (the candidates can decide whether or not to attend), and TDF members can send the questions to be asked during the live session in advance to this address (which reaches the Membership Committee in private). The Committee will collect questions together, for easier moderation of the sessions.

Then, the sessions will take place in the week between the end of the nomination phase and the start of the votes. Membership Committee members will join the sessions and act as facilitators between the candidates and the local communities.

The Membership Committee would like to give the opportunity to members to have sessions not only in English, and even if only the members send in questions, the live sessions will be open to everyone.

If we get agreement with the candidates attending the sessions, we would like to also record and make available the recordings on PeerTube and YouTube.

Stay tuned to this blog for more updates!

Marina Latini, on behalf of the Membership Committee, writes:

On October 18, we officially announced the upcoming election for the next Board of Directors of The Document Foundation, the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice.

As per § 7 II of our statutes (binding German version and non-binding English translartion) the Board’s term lasts two years. The current Board started its duty on February 18, 2020. Therefore, the old Board remains in charge until the end of February 17, 2022, so the new Board will be in charge the day after that, which is February 18, 2022.

That upcoming term will then (regularly) end on February 17, 2024, so the next election of the Board of Directors will take place before.

As per § 6 III, only members of the Board of Trustees of The Document Foundation, as well as current members of any of its bodies, are eligible to be elected into the Board of Directors, and the election is prepared and supervised by the Membership Committee (§ 7 II).

The active electoral right is reserved to those who have been members of the Board of Trustees before this announcement (§ 7 II).

§ 6 III also states that members of the Board of Directors or their deputies may not be members of the Membership Committee and vice versa. This means that current members of the Membership Committee are eligible to be elected, but with the acceptance of their new role they lose their current role in the MC. For clarification, they have to step down from the Membership Committee, with effect no later than to the beginning of the new term of the Board of Directors, the minute before accepting to become a member of the Board of Directors.

There is one more notable limitation: Per § 8 IV of the statutes, a maximum of 1/3 members of the Board of Directors is allowed to work on an employment basis for the same company, organisation, entity or one of its affiliate organisations.

Nomination of candidates fulfilling the above requirements, as well as self nomination is welcome. In total, at least seven Board of Directors members are required, and given there are enough candidates, up to three deputies can be elected (§ 7 II). As deputies are on duty quite often, we encourage many candidates to participate.

Re-election of current members of the Board of Directors is permitted (§ 7 II).

Please send nominations and self-nominations via e-mail to elections@documentfoundation.org (which reaches the Membership Committee in private) and at the same time to board-discuss@documentfoundation.org (which is a public mailing list).

We kindly ask nominees who would like to stand for election to provide a statement of up to 75 words – longer statements will be cut off at the maximum – on their candidacy as continuous text (so no bullet lists or multiple paragraphs). In addition, you have to provide and keep up to date your full name, e-mail address and your corporate affiliation, if any, or state the lack of an affiliation, and please announce that you will provide information on all future changes as soon as possible. Specifically, it is necessary to indicate all information regarding § 8 IV of the statutes.

Discussions with the candidates and questions to them as well as questions about the election should take place on the public board-discuss@documentfoundation.org mailing list. For details on how to use the mailing list, see here.

Eligible voters will receive further details via email prior to the start of election, including a summary of the candidates, details on how to access the voting system, and instructions on how to independently verify the vote count. Please ensure the Membership Committee has your recent and correct e-mail address on file. For questions, you can reach the Membership Committee in private at elections@documentfoundation.org.

Following the timeline set forth in § 7 II, requiring a 45 day advance notice, we hereby announce the following timeline for the election:

(00:00 is beginning of the day, 24:00 is end of the day)

1. Monday, 2021-10-18: announcement of the election; and start of the nomination phase
2. Thursday, 2021-11-25, 24:00 CET/UTC+1: end of the nomination phase (one week before the election starts, as per § 7 II)
3. Friday, 2021-12-03, 00:00 CET/UTC+1: official start of the election (at least 45 days after announcement of the election, as per § 7 II)
4. Monday, 2021-12-13, 24:00 CET/UTC+1: end of the election
5. Tuesday, 2021-12-14: announcement of the preliminary results of the election and acknowledgement of role
6. Wednesday, 2021-12-15, 00:00 CET/UTC+1: start of the challenging phase
7. Monday, 2021-12-20, 24:00 CET/UTC+1: end of the challenging phase
8. afterwards: official announcement of the final results
9. Friday, 2022-02-18: new Board of Directors officially in charge, and election of a Chairperson and a Deputy Chairperson from among its members

Live sessions with the candidates: Between the end of the nomination phase (Thursday, 2021-11-25, 24:00 CET/UTC+1) and the official start of the election (Friday, 2021-12-03, 00:00 CET/UTC+1), the Membership Committee will organise public – and if possible recorded – live sessions, where members of the Board of Trustees can ask questions to the candidates. Everyone, also non-members, is invited to join these sessions. We will also make available to the general public the recordings and the answers given.

Questions to the candidates: In addition, after the end of the nomination phase (Thursday, 2021-11-25, 24:00 CET/UTC+1), the Membership Committee will provide a set of questions to all the candidates. All candidates are kindly invited to send their answers, which will also be made available to the general public.

Be advised that the newly elected Board of Directors will only be in charge from February 18, 2022 on. The current Board of Directors will however include them in the decision making process, to ease up the transition.

Challenges to this announcement with respect to the deadlines outlined have to happen no later than seven (7) days after this announcement, via e-mail to elections@documentfoundation.org (which reaches the Membership Committee in private).

Challenges to the preliminary results of the election have to happen until the deadline set forth above, via e-mail to elections@documentfoundation.org (which reaches the Membership Committee in private).