[Foundation-l] Re: Resignation as CRO

Thu Aug 18 06:25:41 UTC 2005

I wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
> 
>>Why did this breakdown happen? Due to conflicts of personality and
>>goals, and in my belief, due to the fact that I *do* operate openly,
>>document what I do, and enter discussions -- and when I enter
>>discussions, refuse to just accept that someone else is correct based on
>>their position in the food chain or the volume of their voice.
> 
> 
> You operate openly do you? Perhaps it's about time then that you told
> everyone about the deal you did to obtain this position.

Well, my understanding was that it was a deal anyway. Apparently that
may have been a misunderstanding on my part, so I'll just state the
facts as I know them with little interpretation.

Erik was preparing to stand for the Board, but said that he would be
happy with an official position instead. If he was given an official
position, he wouldn't stand.

This put the elected board members into an ethical dilemma, since it was
in their interests to see that Erik did not compete against them. For my
part, I said that I would be happy for Erik to have an official position
and thus be kept off the board, as long as he didn't consider himself to
have any special power over the core MediaWiki development team.

Anthere didn't cave in, and argued against it internally, despite the
fact that she was most likely to lose her position if Erik ran. If it
was taken to a board vote there would have been two in favour and one
abstention, but instead they decided that the positions would be
announced as a decision of Jimbo, rather than a decision of the Board.

So I'm not sure why Erik was surprised that he didn't have the full
support of the Board, given that there was never a Board consensus.

-- Tim Starling