The first openSUSE board has been appointed a year ago and now the elections are starting. We have formed an election committee that is organising it.

How is the board organized?

The board consists of five members: the Novell appointed chairperson, two Novell employees and two non-Novell employees. All four seats will be elected this year.

Last year the complete board has been appointed by Novell, so this is now the first time the community elects its board.
The board is setup not as a government of openSUSE but more as ultimate escalation point, as a mediator and - I like Pascal’s usage of the word - as ombudsman, and also as a representative of the openSUSE community to speak on behalf of the community.

The board is not going to do any technical decisions about the project or guiding the openSUSE project in a specific technical direction unless it gets asked for this during mediation.

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