My reflection from yesterday's @linuxaustralia#AGM - you can't make things a priority for an organisation unless prioritisation involves dedicating resources to that priority.
If there are no additional resources, and other things are not de-prioritised, then you cannot logically make something else a priority.
There is a "red line" on organisational capacity - if things get added to the list of priorities / tasks, then either something else drops below the line, or more resources are required to deliver those priorities.
@jpm this was more a case of folks wanting an entirely volunteer organisation to do more and more without identifying where the resources would come from to do the more and more.
@KathyReid@jpm@linuxaustralia You are 100% mistaken. It was actually a case of a person trying to offer to do a thing for an organisation, but first asking to see if the organisation thought it would be a priority they wanted to pursue. However because a lot of the people in that organisation are really burnt out, and because they made the assumption that it was a person trying to get them to do another thing when they have no more spoons, they voted down the motion designed to find out if the association thought it was a priority worth pursuing because no one asked the person proposing the thing if they would do the thing before they voted against it.
@KathyReid@jpm It is also worth noting that the thing the person was proposing to make a priority was the very thing that the organisation was set up to advocate that others should do, but that the organisation is not presently doing itself.
You were advocating for 3 things in the AGM. Firstly, that LA should place more onus on using Free and Open Source software. Secondly, that the platforms we use should have more focus on accessibility, as denoted by the big deal you made of not being able to increase Zoom chat text size. Thirdly, to create an academic journal for open source things.
The motion that was moved and defeated was around prioritising the use of Free and Open source software. I agree, the organisation is set up to promote and advocate for this. However, and as I pointed out at the AGM, this requires significant resources. The motion made no estimate and no accounting of the resources required, and what would need to be deprioritised to make this a priority. As I stated, this is why I opposed the motion. A logical next step here would be for a volunteer, perhaps yourself, to investigate and evaluate what's required to "make this a priority".
Your approach yesterday was antagonistic rather than collaborative. You've got multiple people offside, who are now much less likely to support your viewpoint and assist in helping to make the change to want to see happen. People who have been putting in dozens of hours a week for years to LA. You shot yourself in the foot in terms of political capital.
Making change isn't just logical - it's political. It's about convincing people and catalysing action, not just saying "you're a bunch of hypocrites".
Honestly, I'm surprised and disappointed. You're better than this.
@KathyReid@linuxaustralia Your comment about my "making a big deal" about not being able to increase text size in Zoom is an excellent exemplar of how Linux Australia is doing at accommodating disability. I needed to increase the text size because I had great difficulty reading the chat despite employing accessibility options on my own computer. I should have expected nothing better after my advocating for better support of disabled people to help them participate at Everything Open was met with "we don't have the resources for that".
As I said before, I was going to offer to investigate exactly what needed to be done to get Linux Australia to be using 100% open source, but the motion was voted down without anyone even asking me if I would do anything. At the very least this is a procedural failure. The chairman put the motion to a vote without the discussion being complete. A point which another attendee made at the time.
I can understand how people in an organisation set up to promote open source might feel attacked when a member of the organisation asks them why they aren't in fact using open source software for the activities of that organisation. However I did not say "You're a bunch of hypocrites" which your toot portrays as a direct quote but is in fact a misrepresentation. I did say it was hypocritical of the organisation to advocate for open source but to not use open source itself.
The fact remains that they voted down a motion asking them to make it a priority to do the core thing the organisation purports to support. If they are angry about that then that is way more about them than about my approach. I was offering to help the organisation live up to its principles and, not only was my help not accepted, but now you are patronising me in public. This is a strange approach for an organisation that says it will support people to do things if they step up.
The fact that Linux Australia even considered using Zoom, a known data security risk and a complete trash fire of a company, for their AGM is a massive prioritization of convenience over principle, and a really bad look. And I do not apologize for calling them out on that.
I 100% don't care about political capital. I care about doing things for the community. That is why I gave my time and organised OSDC. That is why I presented at LCA. That is why I have gone on the session selection committee whenever I was asked. That is why I was offering to edit an open journal at the AGM, an offer which was also not taken up. If multiple people are offside because I offered to help the organisation not be hypocritical and to be more accessible to disabled people then this is clearly not an organisation I want to be a part of.
@Ooze@jpm I'm not in a position to give a full catalogue of all the software that @linuxaustralia uses, but I do know that:
Website uses WordPress, CiviCRM for Membership with LA-commissioned software for the voting system, that was made open source for others to use. Backended on to open source database, hosted on Linux.
Conference software uses Symposium for speaker and proposal management, from memory. This is open source software.
Conference video capture uses HDMI2USB from memory. Conference video stored both online on LA servers in open source format and on YouTube - different audiences. But I could be wrong there, I'm not close to it.
Where we have run hybrid conferences, we have used the Venueless software, which is open source, however paid for the software solution to be externally hosted and supported - don't know the costings off the top of my head, but low-mid 00,000s for 3-day conf? which has to be built into project budgets, and requires additional volunteers to support.
LA mail is moving to a hosted solution from memory.
The Zoom solution choice was litigated at the AGM - but basically it's the only one that works across platforms and is reliable with the feature set needed to remain compliant with the NSW Fair Trading Act, under which LA is constituted as an incorporated association.
LA uses Google Docs for a lot of functions. An alternative here might be NextCloud, but moving over is a huge undertaking... and requires volunteer resources ....
What would it take LA to be fully open source in terms of resources and volunteer hours? I think that's a reasonable question here.
@KathyReid@jpm@linuxaustralia This is what you should have said to me at the AGM instead of just saying that LA had no resources to do anything and voting the motion down.
I know a lot of open source software is used by LA. But, as an organisation whose whole purpose is to advocate for open source, LA should be leading the way and using 100% open software, not playing catchup.
@KathyReid Given that any given item will also take more time/people/stuff than originally estimated, the actual red line is higher up the list than you think.
Though we are starting to get into the territory here of conflating priorities (things we want the organisation to achieve) with tasks (stuff that people have to do in service of a priority)
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