Q&A for openSUSE Board elections

Our openSUSE Chairman has some questions for the candidates for the openSUSE Board. My answers are here:

1. What do you see as three, four strengths of openSUSE that we should cultivate and build upon?

1) Fantastic coherence in the community
2) Great products with collaboration all over the world
3) Quality

2. What are the top three risks you see for openSUSE? (And maybe ideas how to tackle them?)
1) Dependency on SUSE (humans and financials)
Background: I was asked really often at open source events how another company can sponsor openSUSE. We had to say that it would not possible because all of our money is going via a SUSE credit card and the money would be lost (same with the GSoC money, which has to be transferred to other organizations because of this issue). No company wants to pay Open Source Developers with such a background of an open-source project. Therefore, most openSUSE Contributors are working for SUSE or SUSE Business Partners. This topic popped up more than 3 times during my last Board Membership (really created by SUSE employees each time!).
Solution: Creation of the foundation! I had to suggest this solution more than 3 times before that was accepted by SUSE employees in the Board. I told about all the benefits how we can manage our own money then, receive new sponsors, SUSE can use more money for their own, SUSE can sponsor us continuously and we would be able to receive more Contributors.

2) openSUSE infrastructure in Provo
Background: I am one of the Founders of the openSUSE Heroes Team and was allowed to coordinate our first wiki project between Germany and Provo. The openSUSE infrastructure is in Microfocus hands and they need very long to respond on issues and we are not allowed to receive access as a community. Additionally, SUSE is not part of Microfocus any more which makes it more difficult to receive good support in the future.
Solution 1: Migration of all openSUSE systems from Provo to Nuremberg / Prague (perhaps missing space?)
Solution 2: Migration of all openSUSE systems from Provo to any German hosting data centre with access for openSUSE Heroes

3) Bad reputation of openSUSE Leap & openSUSE Tumbleweed
Background: We are the openSUSE project with many different sub-projects. We don’t offer only Linux distributions, but we are well known for that and most people are associating us with that. I had given many presentations about openSUSE during my last Board Membership and represented us at different open source events. The existing openSUSE Board does not do that very much. They have another focus at the moment.
Solution: We need more openSUSE Contributors representing openSUSE and I can do that as an openSUSE Board Member again. After that, we can be one of the top Linux distributions again. 😉

3. What should the board do differently / more of?
The existing openSUSE Board is working mostly on the topic with the foundation. That is good. Thank you! But the role of a Board Member contains the representation of the community, too. We would have one less risk with that.

4. If you had a blank voucher from the SUSE CEO for one wish, what would that be?

I wish the start financing of the foundation for openSUSE. Both sides will profit from that. 🙂

5. What is your take on the Foundation? What do you consider a realistic outcome of that endeavour? (And if different, what outcome would you like to see?)

The Foundation is a benefit for SUSE and openSUSE (see risk 1). SUSE can support and contribute to us continuously. The difference is that we are open for other sponsoring companies then. Google Summer of Code money can be used for Travel Support. We can say how much money can be used for every openSUSE event/ Summit (without any eye on the situation of SUSE). We can manage that all for our own. If we can accept more companies as sponsors, SUSE can invest the saved money into the own company or in other open-source projects. We become more open and that is a reason for companies to invest money into jobs as Open Source Developers for us. So the community can grow with more companies as sponsoring partners.

Running for the openSUSE Board again or: reelect (Sarah);

I was in the openSUSE Board for 2 years in the past and I have enjoyed this time to bring along the openSUSE project.
I want to run for the openSUSE Board again after a short break about 1 year. I am happy that the existing openSUSE Board has proceeded my idea with the foundation so successfully. But I would be happy about being allowed to finalize this/ my topic together with the other Board Members as my old idea.
Additionally, I have watched the decreasing reputation. Public representations of openSUSE have been missing by the openSUSE Board in the last year. I would increase that on the same way I have done that at our university.

My main activity at openSUSE is the Coordination of the global Localization Team besides my studies. However, that is not the sole task. I contribute to QA, give presentations, update the wiki (English and German) and create PRs on Github. I would be able to contribute some code as a Computer Scientist, too. But SUSE does not want to see any Computer Scientists from our university. Therefore, my focus is on improving our study plan with open source development.

I love to represent openSUSE. So I have decided to run for reelection. 😉

Do you want to know more about my goals and thoughts? You can find more about my goals for these openSUSE Board elections on my openSUSE Board election platform.

  • Email: sarah.kriesch@opensuse.org
  • Blog: https://sarah-julia-kriesch.eu (my blog)
  • facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahjulia.kriesch
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-julia-kriesch-16874b82
  • Connect: https://connect.opensuse.org//pg/profile/AdaLovelace
  • I wish all candidates good luck, and hope that we‘ll see lots of voters!

    Running for the openSUSE Board again…

    One period is more quickly left than you can imagine and I am running for re-election for the openSUSE Board!
    My name is Sarah Julia Kriesch and I am a work experienced Student in Computer Science at 2 universities.
    I am completing my Study Abroad Semester at the University of Bristol at the moment and I have a running IT project at my home university Nuremberg Institute of Technology Georg Simon Ohm. In addition, I am working as a Student Research Assistant at my home university.

    A lot has happened in the last years and I try to combine my studies with openSUSE Contributions as best as possible. I am the Founder of the Working Group Open Source  at the Faculty of Computer Science of the Nuremberg Institute of Technology. We offer workshops in Linux and Open Source bi-weekly. These are open for Students by other Faculties, too. I am the Educator for our Orga Team with Linux Trainers. We have presentations and workshops in cooperation with openSUSE every semester. I want to forward such Open Source education everywhere in Germany.

    Our IT project is a migration of our Linux Laboratory from Ubuntu to openSUSE Leap. We automate that with Salt and that all have to work with Kerberos authentication. So our Students are able to use their AD accounts and special sums have to be debited against our student cards for printing with Kerberos tickets then. We are working in cooperation with SUSE here.

    I have occupied myself with different units in Bristol. I have HPC, Embedded & Real-Time Systems, Security and Sustainability. I am glad to be allowed to combine a part of my exam in Sustainability with openSUSE. I wanted to create a project plan to improve our Sustainability for my next period in the openSUSE Board. My election pledge is the switch from DVDs to USB flash drives in the marketing material.

    My efforts within openSUSE is mainly an education part at our university to receive new openSUSE/ Open Source Contributors and being active as an Advocate at different conferences and expos. I have switched from Germany to the United Kingdom for this semester. This year I will return to Germany. Another role is the Global Coordinator Localization incl. German translations and the Wiki.

    Going forward and joining Germany again, I want to concentrate more on the well-being of the openSUSE Community. You don‘t receive new Contributors if you don‘t have the correct climate in the community and some would be unsatisfied. I want to build that on the introduction of the Board publicity by our elected Board Members in the last year. That would improve the collaboration and respect within openSUSE.

    I am much obliged to be an elected Board Member for 2 years. I appreciate receiving your votes for a second term.

    Thank you in advance!

     

     

     

     

     

    Running for the openSUSE Board

    Hi! I‘m Sarah Julia Kriesch, 29 years old, educated as a Computer Science Expert for System Integration, and currently studying Computer Science at the TH Nürnberg.

     

    Introduction and Biography

    I am a Student at the TH Nürnberg, Student Officer for Computer Science (Fachschaft Informatik) and a Working Student (Admin/ DevOps) at ownCloud. I changed from working life to student life this year. I have received the scholarship „Aufstiegsstipendium“ (translated „upgrading scholarship“) for students with work experience by the BMBF.

    I have got 4 years of work experience as a Linux System Administrator in the Core System Administration (Monitoring) at 1&1 Internet AG/ United Internet and as a (Managing) Linux Systems Engineer for MRM Systems (SaaS) at BrandMaker. MRM Systems are systems for project management in marketing (Marketing Ressource Management Systems).

    I used SLES/ openSUSE during my German education of information technology for the first time in 2009. In the company I learned installations with YaST. I wanted to know more, which was the reason for going to conferences and expos. I tried to educate myself (with community support and vocational school) until the end of my 2nd year. oSC11 was the time stamp for meeting the openSUSE Community.  Marco Michna wanted to become my Mentor in System Administration and gave me private lessons until his death. I got a scholarship for further education (a free Linux training) by Heinlein. Both were a good base for starting in the job after the vocational training act.

    I wasn‘t allowed to contribute to openSUSE during my last year of education, because my education company didn‘t want to see that. They filtered Google after all contributions in forums and communities. That‘s the reason why I am using the anonymous nick name „AdaLovelace“ at openSUSE. I had to wait for joining openSUSE again until my first job where I worked together with Contributors/ Members of Debian, FreeBSD and Fedora.

    I started with German translations at openSUSE with half a year of work experience. Most of you know me from oSCs (since 2011). I was Member of the Video Team, the Registration Desk and contributed as a Speaker. Since 2013 I am wiki maintainer in the German wiki and admin there. Since 2014 I am an active Advocate in Germany. I give yearly presentations, organize booths and take part in different Open Source Events. As a GUUG Member (German Unix User Group) I asked for a sponsorship for oSC16. I hold my first (English) presentation about performance monitoring there then.

    This year I have joined the Heroes Team and the Release Management Team. I founded the Heroes Team with my friends during the oSC16 because of the spam in the wiki. I became the Coordinator for this project. I am Translation Coordinator now, too. I was responsible for the documentation of openSUSE Leap 42.2. So I wrote a lot in the English wiki this year. I was interviewed (as an Advocate) by the Hacker Public Radio at the FOSDEM 2016.

    Some of you know me from different mailing lists. That‘s the best way to reach me.

    I love openSUSE and pick up tasks, if I see something to do where I can help with my Sysadmin/ Coordination/ Documentation/ BPM skills. Free periods ( Monday & Tuesday) are reserved for openSUSE Contributions. If somebody asks me for technical help (unimportant whether programming, infrastructure or communication), I‘ll try to find a solution.  I learned to work agile (Scrumban in System Administration) which I want to transfer to my teams in open source projects.

    Issues I can see

    I want to improve the cooperation between openSUSE and universities/ TH Nürnberg as the founder of the Open Source AG there.

    openSUSE should be one of the main distributions on AWS (main AMI).

    The openSUSE Infrastructure should be easier to achieve for openSUSE admins, so that we can react on escalations very fast.

    Role of the Board

    My goal is to have happy customers and developers. That‘s what I want to achieve as an Advocate and (perhaps) as a Board Member in the future.

    We should live freedom in the community. Everybody should do what he likes. I don‘t like bossing. But I want to help in leadership with coordination and solutions where needed.

    Why you should vote me

    •  I am a geek(o).
    •  I like new technologies and learning.
    •  I know most important people in the community.
    •  I learned coordination in my first job, which I can use as a Board Member, too.
    •  I am educated by communities.
    •  I have got an education in information technology.
    •  I contribute to different parts of the project (technical and non-technical).
    •  I have got a big open source network (openSUSE, ownCloud, GUUG, …).
    •  I have got international work experience.
    •  I love openSUSE.

     

    Aims/ Goals

    We should improve openSUSE and hold the position of being one of the best Linux distributions.

    I want to be open for cooperation with other Linux/ open source projects.