Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2025/03/03/osi-board-elections-problems.html

I recently
announced that I was nominated for the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Board
of Directors as an “Affiliate” candidate. Many
irregularities have already occurred in this election cycle and I must
urgently draw everyone’s attention to them. And, to be sure I’m not
misquoted: no, I don’t think the election is “rigged”. Every
problem described herein can easily be attributed human error, and, as
such, I don’t think anyone at OSI has made an intentional plan
to make the elections unfair. Nevertheless, these mistakes and
irregularities (particularly the second one below) have led to an
unfair 2025 OSI Directors Election. I call on the OSI
to reopen the nominations for a few days, correct these problems, and
then extend the voting time accordingly.

(Recap on) First Irregularity

The first irregularity was
the miscommunication
about the nomination deadline (as covered
the press.
Instead of using the time zone of OSI’s legal home (in California, or the
standard FOSS community deadline of AoE (anywhere on earth) time), OSI
surreptitiously chose UTC and failed to communicate that decision properly.
According to my sources, only one email of 3(+) emails about the elections
included the fully qualified datetime of the deadline. Everywhere else
(including everywhere on OSI’s website) published only the date, not the
time. It was reasonable for nominators to assume the deadline was
US/Pacific — particularly since the nomination form still worked after
23:59 UTC passed.

Second Irregularity

Due to that first irregularity, this second (and most egregious)
irregularity is compounded even further.
All
year long, the OSI has communicated that, for 2025, elections are
for two “Member” seats
and one “Affiliate”
seat. Only
today (already 70% through the election cycle) did
OSI
(silently) correct this error. This change was made
well after nominations had closed (in every TZ). By
itself, the change in available seats after nominations closed makes
the 2025 OSI elections unfair. Here’s why: the Members and the
Affiliates are two entirely different sets of electorates.
Many candidates made complicated decisions about which seats to run
for based on the number of seats available in each class.
OSI is aware of that, too, because (a) we told them that during candidate
orientation, and
(b) Luke
said so publicly in their blog post (and OSI directly responded to Luke
in the press).

If we had known there were two Affiliate seats and
just one Member seat, Debian (an OSI Affiliate) would have
nominated Luke a week early to the Affiliate seat. Instead,
Debian’s leadership, Luke, Fontana, and I had a complex discussion in the
final week of nominations on how best
to run
as a “ticket of three”. In that discussion, Debian
leadership decided to nominate no one (instead of nominating
Luke) precisely because I was already nominated on a platform that
Debian supported, and Debian chose not to run a candidate against me for
the (at the time, purported) one Affiliate seat available.

But this irregularity didn’t just impact Debian, Fontana, Luke,
and me. I was nominated by four different Affiliates. My primary pitch to
ask them to nominate me was that there was just one Affiliate seat
available. Thus, I told them, if they nominated someone else, that candidate
would be effectively running against me. I’m quite sure at least one of
those Affiliates would have wanted to nominate someone else OSI had told them
they could easily elect both me and a different candidate
for two available Affiliate seats. Meanwhile, who knows what other
affiliates who nominated no one would have done differently? OSI surely
doesn’t know that. OSI has treated every one of their Affiliates
unfairly by changing the number of seats available after the nominations
closed.

Due to this Second Irregularity alone, I call on the OSI to reopen
nominations and reset the election cycle. The mistakes (as
played) actually benefit me as a candidate — since now I’m
running against a small field and there are two seats available. If
nominations reopen, I’ll surely face a crowded field with many viable
candidates added. Nevertheless, I am disgusted that I am
unintentionally benefiting from OSI’s election irregularity and I ask OSI
take corrective action to make the 2025 election fair.

The remaining irregularities are minor (by comparison, anyway), but I want
to make sure I list all the irregularities that I’ve seen in the 2025 OSI
Board Elections in this one place for everyone’s reference:

Third Irregularity

I was surprised when
OSI
published the slates of Affiliate candidates that they were not in
any (forward or reverse) alphabetical order — not candidate’s
first, last, or nominator name. Perhaps the slots in the voter’s guide
were assigned randomly, but if so, that is not disclosed
to the electorate. And, Who is listed first, you ask? Why,
the incumbent Affiliate candidate. The issue of
candidate ordering in voting guides and ballots has
been well
studied academically and, unsurprisingly, being listed first is known
to be an advantage. Given that incumbents already have an
advantage in all elections, putting the incumbent first without
stating that the slots in the voter guide were randomly assign makes the
2025 OSI Board election unfair.

I contacted OSI leadership within hours of the posting of the candidates
about this issue (at time of writing, that was four days ago) and they have
refused to respond nor have they corrected the issue. This compounds the
error, because OSI consciously choosing to list the incumbent
Affiliate candidate first in the voter guide on purpose.

Fourth Irregularity

It’s (ostensibly) a good idea for the OSI to run a discussion forum for
the candidates (and kudos to OSI
( in
this instance, anyway ) for using the GPL’d Discourse software for the
purpose). however, the requirements to create an account and
respond to the questions exclude some Affiliate candidates.
Specifically, the OSI has stated that Affiliate candidates, and the
Affiliates that are their
electorate, need
not be Members of the OSI. Yet, to join the discussion forum,
one must become a member of
the OSI! While it might be reasonable to require all
Affiliate candidates become OSI Members, this was not disclosed until the
election started, so it’s unfair!

Some already argue
that since there is a free
(as in price) membership that this is a non-issue. I disagree, and
here’s why: Long ago, I had already decided that I would not become a
Member of OSI (for free or otherwise) because OSI
Members who
do not pay money are denied voting rights in these
elections! Yes, you read that right: the election for OSI
Directors in the “Members” seat literally has a poll
tax! I refuse to let OSI count me as a Member when the class of
membership they are offering to people who can’t afford to pay is a
second-class citizenship in OSI’s community. Anyway, there is no reason
that one should have to become a Member to post on the discussion fora
— particularly given that OSI has clearly stated that the Affiliate
candidates (and the Affiliate representatives who vote) are not required
to be individual Members.

(Keep in mind too that nonprofits gain power in lobbying and other similar
efforts by being able to saying We have N members.
It’s actually somewhat sneaky to make people become “free” OSI
Members merely to post on a discussion forum. This was an issue I was
planning to raise with the Board if elected (although, at the time of
launching my candidacy, was not urgent, but now has become such). I am
familiar with this inappropriate maneuver, in part due to the AARP in the
USA. Most people join the AARP to gain discounts on various services, but
then the AARP claims in lobbying that they represent the interests of all
these “members” — most of whom joined to get discounts on
services, not because they support the AARP’s political agenda. Similarly
here: I suspect that most OSI “free” Members probably merely
joined to comment on a thread or two on the discussion forum; not
necessarily because they are giving a mandate to OSI’s current
activities. )

Fifth Irregularity

This final irregularity is truly minor, but I mention it for completeness.
On the Affiliate candidate page, it seems as if each candidate is only
nominated by one affiliate. When I submitted my candidate statement, since
OSI told me they automatically filled in the nominating org, I had assumed
that all my nominating orgs would be listed. Instead, they listed only one.
If I’d known that, I’d have listed them at the beginning of my candidate
statement; my candidate statement was drafted under the assumption all my
nominating orgs would be listed elsewhere.

OSI: either reopen nominations or just forget the elections

Again, I call on OSI to correct these irregularities, briefly reopen
nominations, and extend the voting deadline. However, if OSI doesn’t want to
do that, there is another reasonable solution. As explained
in OSI’s by-laws
and elsewhere,
OSI’s Directors elections are purely advisory. Like most
noprofits, the OSI is governed by a self-perpetuating (not an elected)
Board. I bet with all the talk of elections, you didn’t even
know that!

Frankly, I have no qualms with a nonprofit structure that includes a
self-perpetuating Board. While it’s not a democratic structure, a
self-perpetuating Board of principled Directors does solve the problems
created in a Member-based organization. In Member-based organizations,
votes are for sale. Any company with resources to buy Memberships for its
employees can easily dominate the election. While OSI probably has yet to
experience this problem, if OSI grows its Membership (as it seeks to),
OSI will sure face that problem. Self-perpetuating Boards aren’t
perfect, but they do prevent this problem.

Meanwhile, having now witnessed OSI’s nomination and the campaign process
from the inside, it really does seem to me that OSI doesn’t really take
this election all that seriously. And, OSI already has in mind the kinds
of candidates they want. For example, during one of the two nominee
orientation calls, a key person in the OSI Leadership said (regarding items
4
of Fontana’s
and my shared platform) [quote paraphrased from my memory]: If you
don’t want to agree to these things, then an OSI Directorship is not for
you and you should withdraw and seek a place to serve elsewhere. I was
of course flabbergasted to be told that a desire to avoid proprietary
software should disqualify me (at least in view of the current OSI
leadership). But, that speaks to the fact that the OSI
doesn’t really want to have Board elections in the first place.
Indeed, based on that and many other things that the OSI leadership has
said during this process, it seems to me they’d actually rather hand-pick
Directors to serve than run a democratic process. There’s no shame
in a nonprofit that prefers a self-perpetuating Board; as I said,
most nonprofits are not Membership organizations nor allow any electorate
to fill Board seats.

Meanwhile, OSI’s halfway solution (i.e., a half-heartedly organized
election that isn’t really binding) seems designed to manufacture
consent. OSI’s Affiliates and paid individual Membership are given
the impression they have electoral power, but it’s an illusion.
Giving up on the whole illusion would be the most transparent choice for
OSI, and if the OSI would rather end these advisory elections and just
self-perpetuate, I’d support that decision.