TL;DR jonathon (treasurer) was removed from the OpenCollective after they had a big argument with philm (project lead) over whether or not to authorize the purchase of a $2,000 laptop. After that jonathon posted his grievances on the Manjaro forum, to which philm responded by delisting the thread and removing jonathan as moderator of the forum.
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And in addition to everything you listed, they appear to have hidden the thread the treasurer made and removed their mod abilities to keep the complaint from being seen.
IS NOTHING SACRED ANYMORE?? Ugh. We should probly wait for a response from Manjaro, see their side of their story. Doesn’t look good though =/
Well, that really shows the integrity of a project lead, if they
- don’t follow an agreed upon policy and
- react to resistance of their misbehaviour by throwing the person out who are literally just doing their job.
Sure, it would be good to get the other perspective, but unless everything in this post is completely made up, I can’t imagine this being reasonable behaviour.
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I don’t see any sensible way to manage money in a “horizontal” but fair way
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Bummer, I guess that’s the end of using Manjaro for me.
It’s still not clear from the thread what happened, but even just the way the thread was handled really looks unacceptable based on what I read.
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I don’t entirely disagree, in the sense that I’m open to the possibility that they could come out with a statement that clears things up. But my approach is to disengage until such date as that occurs.
Transparency happened, because 2.000 USD in a business is not even a developer monthly salary. And if they must discuss for that it is a sign that money is not wasted in luxuries. I think that using internal affairs to attack any distro or business use is a nonsense.
Spending a small amount of money is not what makes something transparent. I’ve never heard that one before. Transparency is when you openly disclose information.
From my experience $2,000 counts as quite a lot. Professional institutions that I’m aware of require explicit approval for that kind of expense, and if spent inappropriately it’s something that can get you in a lot of trouble.
Lastly, unless more info came out or a new statement was made, this does not appear to have been transparent according to the normal definition. They hid the thread on their own forum without explaining why, then re-hid it without explanation, left a cryptic comment asking people to ‘calm down’ but without explaining what happened, and there were apparently wholly new charges discovered which had not been reviewed or disclosed, the exact opposite of transparent. And they appear not to have been consistent with their own rules. And they appear to have stripped their own former treasurer of mod ability so they couldn’t make the thread visible again.
These should all be alarming to anyone thinking of whether they can trust that their donation will be handled transparently, or according to their own stated policies, or whether they can be stewards of a healthy, vibrant community. Maybe they will have an explanation that shows respect to their community and addresses all concerns. But even the way they have handled the disagreement and (failed) to communicate to their community is disappointing.
