On Sat, 2005-10-29 at 11:22 +1300, John Williams wrote: > > > Boards of non-profits: > > > -give legitimacy to the organization > > > -provide an overall direction for the organization > > > -liaise with other organizations > > > -HELP RAISE MONEY > > This is all good, and right on the mark, except for one thing. The > GNOME Foundation (and GNOME itself) is only accidentally a non-profit > making organisation. They key point in the problems that we face is not > that we are non-profit oriented it is: (ta-daaaaaaaah!) > > > A loose collaborative effort of volunteers, or at best weakly connected > network organisation.
That's the GNOME project. The foundation is an entity we created to help the project out in various ways. Nat > > > All our problems stem from this. All our strengths stem from this. We > need to stop applying standard business logic to the organisation of > ourselves. In particular, this relates to the planning function. The > point, of course, is that we can (almost) never tell someone to do > something. We have ask, cajole, wheedle, persuade, inspire and respect > ourselves into getting things done. (As an aside, this is way cool in > my book.) > > We do, however, need to start/increase applying standard business logic > to the relationship between ourselves and our customers (or > "stakeholders", if you really want to go all the way). That is the > function of the board, as outlined originally: to be the interface > between GNOME and the rest of the world. > > And probably not much more than that? > > Oh well, that's enough abstract academia for Saturday morning. Back to > the coffee! > > Ciao, > > John > _______________________________________________ foundation-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
