Re: A question for the candidates
On Fri, May 25, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Allan Day allanp...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, Thanks to all the candidates for stepping forward. It's fantastic that you are interested in doing this important work. A question for you: Sometimes it can feel like the Board of Directors is a bit divorced from the rest of the GNOME project. Is this a problem, in your view? If it is, what do you think can be done about it? Thanks! Allan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list Hi Allan, Thanks for the great question. Before I give you an answer, I would like to empathize what great work the board has been doing in the last years. From raising funds and our financial capital to organizing hackfests and events, as well as pushing for programs to get more contributors to GNOME, all this requires a big amount of dedication and discipline. So I think a divorce from the project is not the right description. That being said, I understand where you are coming from. From a personal point of view it seems to me that the board is so focused on *increasing* our financial and social capital, that sometimes *maintaining* the social capital is neglected. This leads to the observation of some that the board as an entity not directly involved with the community and community problems. To put it similar words to yours: It feels sometimes, that they are divorced from the community (not from the project) The board has been helping the community increase its social capital. Getting new contributors takes time and effort to get them integrated, this is where initiatives like OWP help alot. But the board needs to focus a bit of its time and efforts on *keeping* new and old contributors in the GNOME. This starts with the board getting involved in community related issues and help fascilitate solutions to ongoing disagreement. The board has been voted by the community, so I think they represent a subset of the community that we trust. Take the mailing-list from the last month. While some board members jumped in to help solve the disagreements, I think it could have been solved much quicker if the board had a meeting discussing the problem internally and studying a way to solve the issue at hand. As Bastien said before, it is not the board's responsibility to decide on technical issues, or what application gets in or not. However I think the board should step in when things seem to be rough and help *detect the source of disturbance in the force*. By stepping in I mean, suggest having a meeting, and then getting the parties involved to make a *clear* plan on how the problem can be solved. Ofcourse this can't be a long term responsibilty of the board. This is why if I am elected, I will push for the formation of a community task force, that would work on solving ongoing issues and negotiate between the parties involved, as well as maintain a healthy communication atomsphere within the community. KDE already does this pretty successfully with its community working group. This group is a point of contact for any community problem that might arise in KDE. They've helped solve quite a few problems, among them the split of KOffice and Calligra. Thanks to them they managed to keep both parties inside KDE and the bad press around it was kept to a minimum. It took quite some time but they managed to find a solution that worked for the whole community without too much damage. Cheers Seif ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: A question to the candidates
Hi Gil, Perhaps this link is relevant: http://makeplaylive.com/ I would add this questions to your thread: Do you think a similar venture for GNOME would make sense? How do you think this, or a similar project, can happen without leaving us bankrupt? Thanks! :-) Diego On Sun, May 27, 2012 at 4:21 AM, Gil Forcada gforc...@gnome.org wrote: Hi all, First of all thanks for running for this critical role on GNOME! My question is about hardware and contacts: The average user is not going to ever install its own operating system by itself, for them hardware and software come together and they die together, so a new version of Windows means a new laptop and so on, a new iPhone OS means a new iPhone hardware... So the crucial part here are ISV, contacting them, engaging with them and finally making them ship our great software to the end user. Is that something that you both find important and also will try to pursue if you are elected? Cheers, -- Gil Forcada [ca] guifi.net - una xarxa lliure que no para de créixer [en] guifi.net - a non-stopping free network bloc: http://gil.badall.net planet: http://planet.guifi.net ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: A question to the candidates
2012/5/27 Gil Forcada gforc...@gnome.org: Hi all, First of all thanks for running for this critical role on GNOME! My question is about hardware and contacts: The average user is not going to ever install its own operating system by itself, for them hardware and software come together and they die together, so a new version of Windows means a new laptop and so on, a new iPhone OS means a new iPhone hardware... So the crucial part here are ISV, contacting them, engaging with them and finally making them ship our great software to the end user. Is that something that you both find important and also will try to pursue if you are elected? With the provisio that the board doesn't actually have a say in the technical direction. For GNOME OS to become a success we definitely need to get ISVs on board. To do that though we still have a long way to do. We will need a compelling, well documented SDK, development tools (MonoDevelop e.g. would be a nice place to start) and likely a whole bunch of additional tools like emulators. Aside that we'll need a means of deployment such as an app store and good packaging tools (glick and bockbuild seem close to being able to provide this, I know Banshee has used it to create deployable bundles on Linux and OS X). Relying on GNOME OS to package and make available every single application on a scale that can compete with the iOS App Store or Google Play would simply be madness so enabling ISVs to do that, and do it easily, would definitely be needed. This is going to be radically different from the model we are used to and I suspect we will have a lot of learning to do as well as some new friends to make to succeed. I think we still are years from deploying GNOME OS in any state that ISVs will be able to work with, but we can cultivate relationships already and get input as well as help to build all the foundations. So yes, I would start talking to select ISVs to get buy-in for deploying on GNOME as well as input to the kind of tools they would like to see. ISVs are also not just going to deploy on GNOME OS but across a range of systems and luckily we have friends that have experience with these challenges such as Xamarin, I think it would be wise to learn from them how to form a strategy that will ensure success long term. We are still a long way from competing with Android or iOS in this respect and I think it is to early to start a massive push. I would also happily raise funds to run more hackfests towards building the required foundational elements. I think it is important that we get an idea of what exactly it will require of us to become big players here and how we can get there. I think this is the most exciting part of GNOME right now and I would love to invest myself in making it happen to the full extend of the boards mandate. It's going to take years but I think GNOME is in a great place to offer a superior experience to users and ISVs alike. - David Cheers, -- Gil Forcada [ca] guifi.net - una xarxa lliure que no para de créixer [en] guifi.net - a non-stopping free network bloc: http://gil.badall.net planet: http://planet.guifi.net ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: A question for the candidates
I'm going to reply here, because I really don't know how to answer the original email. On Fri, 2012-05-25 at 18:33 +0100, Allan Day wrote: Bastien Nocera had...@hadess.net wrote: ... Sometimes it can feel like the Board of Directors is a bit divorced from the rest of the GNOME project. I don't quite understand the question. The Board is not where technical decisions are made, it's not where applications or new dependencies are made. Yet it is still a governance body, and it is the only democratic one within GNOME. Only the Board can actually claim to represent the GNOME community. As the only democratic governance body in GNOME, I absolutely agree that, if push comes to shove, it's the board's responsibility to make the final decisions. But the board intentionally does not want to have to involve itself in most decisions. The board empowers other groups like the release team to work with the community and make decisions. If there is a serious dispute, then the board needs to act. But we should strive to have a working community where the board doesn't need to act. What were your expectations of the Board doing, and that they don't deliver on? My question was not guided by personal expectations. I'm interested in how the Board can enhance our community. I suppose I don't see the problem on this end, and if you don't have any personal expectations, it's hard for me to know what to address. I think the board members are largely active in the community in one way or another. I do think we could do better at being seen *outside* our community. We need to work better with partner organizations and vendors. We really ought to have good working relationships with companies that can put GNOME devices into users' hands. Why do you think the Board of Directors is divorced from the project? I personally don't hear or see very much of what the board gets up to, and I don't feel like Foundation membership provides me with much in the way of additional influence. As a member of the board, you might be in a position to change that. If membership of the GNOME Foundation starts and ends with an annual vote, then it doesn't mean very much. If it is synonymous with membership of our community, and if it enables me to have a relationship with GNOME that I couldn't otherwise have, then it means a great deal. Is that something you care about? I tried for a while to continue the regular Foundation meetings. You were one of the very few people that regularly attended. Unless we had an interesting agenda item (e.g. future of the Desktop Summit), people didn't attend. I assume it's because they didn't have anything pressing to say. That's OK. I didn't have anything pressing to say either. In terms of what membership gets you, we've been trying to tie more privileges to Foundation membership, in part because it means we have more consistent rules for who can get what. I don't like looking at Foundation membership as something distinct from community membership. The Foundation is the community. We're just required to have a formal membership process for voting to abide by the laws that let us keep our non-profit status. -- Shaun ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: A question to the candidates
On Sun, 2012-05-27 at 11:21 +0200, Gil Forcada wrote: Hi all, First of all thanks for running for this critical role on GNOME! My question is about hardware and contacts: The average user is not going to ever install its own operating system by itself, for them hardware and software come together and they die together, so a new version of Windows means a new laptop and so on, a new iPhone OS means a new iPhone hardware... So the crucial part here are ISV, contacting them, engaging with them and finally making them ship our great software to the end user. Is that something that you both find important and also will try to pursue if you are elected? Hi Gil, I find this extremely important. It's what I talked about when I ran for the board last year. Clearly, not much has happened since. I do want to help make this happen, but I'm not sure where to begin. And I don't want to make promises I can't keep. -- Shaun ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Facilitating the Integration of Free Software into Academic Courses (was Re: Questions for the board election candidates)
The GNU education team looked at software-carpentry.org and reported important flaws. They use the Mac and Windows platforms, and they include flash videos in their web pages. These work directly against users' freedom. At the philosophical level, they are in the open source camp. They use the term open source, and their ideas are the open source ideas too. They don't say a word about software freedom. I think their actions are a reflection of their views. It is possible to agree inwardly with the ideas of software freedom but present only the open source ideas in one's discourse. This is what Stormy says she does. However, most of those who say open source are saying what they really think. You can find hundreds of projects which develop a program that is free, but base their actions on open source ideas, and make secondary decisions in a way that works against software freedom. Mozilla and OpenOffice are two examples. Whatever your thoughts may be, what you say makes a difference. Inward support for the free software ideas won't lead others if you don't show it in your words (and actions, of course). When we work to get academic activities involved with GNOME, let's take care to lead them away from the path software-carpentry.org chose. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: A question for the candidates
Bonjour :) On 25.05.2012 09:21, Allan Day wrote: Sometimes it can feel like the Board of Directors is a bit divorced from the rest of the GNOME project. Is this a problem, in your view? If it is, what do you think can be done about it? I wouldn't say I see a divorce. I'd say it feels a bit sluggish, based on what others already said: late minutes or lack of visible response. And yes, it is unpleasant if one doesn't know what is happening and thus being able to take influence. So I would try to have the minutes sent around ASAP. But as far as I could see, nobody was suffering enough yet to publicly ask whether it'd be possible to make things more (timely) public. Generally though, I consider it to be a good thing if the Board is not terribly visible as I consider the Board as something that keeps the community (and thus the Foundation) alive and moving and as long as it doesn't need to stir things up, it's running well, I'd say. Cheers, Tobi ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Board of Directors Elections 2012 - Voting Instructions sent
Bonjour, On 28.05.2012 03:13, Behdad Esfahbod wrote: After entering my creds I get: The election is not properly set up. Aye, my bad *blush* Fixed. Thanks for reporting. Cheers, Tobi signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Questions for the board election candidates
On 2012-05-27 00:44, Stormy Peters wrote: I try to avoid these conversations because I think there are lots of over generalizations, stereotypes and emotions. I just want to say that I generally use the term open source *and* I believe in many of the values attributed to free software. I don't believe that using different terminology makes us as different as some portray. I agree with this, in that I also think that folks in practice use the terms interchangeably, sometimes even when talking wholly about the ideals of freedom. I hate for us to get distracted too much arguing about terminology (as Joannie says), but I do think there is an important discussion about the importance of freedom to GNOME and the role of the GNOME Foundation in promulgating freedom. As a charitable nonprofit, I believe our existence must be based in the ideals of software freedom and our mission and public good are totally related to those ideals. (For example, we're not a trade association.) I think that in order to be true to our nonprofit mission, GNOME itself must be committed to freedom. karen ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Board public IRC meetings - was (Re: A question for the candidates)
On 05/28/2012 05:59 AM, Shaun McCance wrote: Unless we had an interesting agenda item (e.g. future of the Desktop Summit), people didn't attend. I assume it's because they didn't have anything pressing to say. I have made an effort to attend those meetings and my problems at the times were numerous: - meetings badly announced if ever. Maybe making use of foundation mailing list and planet gnome systematically would help to get more people) - agenda not defined and seldom in line with what the board was discussing at the time. Not getting board meetings didn't help for sure - when questions were asked we would usually get of is not here so we don't know or oh, this is confidential so we cannot tell you. Trust that after a while you quickly lose your motivation to attend. I believe IRC meeting are an important part of the board communicating to its community and an effort must be made to announce and run those meetings regularly. Adding items to the agenda that the board is working on at the time will also definitely help raise attendance as well. Just the feeling of one foundation member. Fred ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Board meeting minutes - was (Re: A question for the candidates)
On 05/28/2012 07:29 AM, Tobias Mueller wrote: ne doesn't know what is happening and thus being able to take influence. So I would try to have the minutes sent around ASAP. But as far as I could see, nobody was suffering enough yet to publicly ask whether it'd be possible to make things more (timely) public. Again I guess we were spoiled by former board secretary in the previous years who was automatically emailing the meeting notes 2 weeks after the meeting. This year (2011-2012) minutes were published as follows: - Meeting of July 26, 2011 - publish on August 23rd : 1 month later - Meeting of August 9th, 2011 - published on October 18th: 2+ month later (publish together with 4 other meeting minutes). I personally even thought meetings were not happening anymore and considering the reactions I get when asking questions to the board I have just given up on asking for the time being. Note that I feel sending minutes is a board problem and not necessarily the secretary alone. I believe in getting things done rather than blaming individuals. One question was eventually asked when getting those minutes and the answer was _topic_in_question_ should be marked as private - again a typical sorry we can't tell you answer which I got quite often during public foundation IRC meetings. So at this stage you may start to understand why some members of the community feel that somehow the Board of Directors is a bit divorced from the rest of the GNOME project whereas GNOME project can mean its own community. Your mileage may vary. Meeting minutes seems crucial to run a public discussion between the board and its members as Germán has highlighted and it's not because no one asked that no one thought it was not important anymore. I will just quote Randy Pausch from his last lecture to conclude (Randy Pausch style, not mine): When you're screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they've given up on you. Maybe that's something that both the current and new board should think about. Fred ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Board public IRC meetings - was (Re: A question for the candidates)
I meant not getting board meeting MINUTES below. Sorry. On 05/28/2012 11:44 AM, Frederic Muller wrote: On 05/28/2012 05:59 AM, Shaun McCance wrote: Unless we had an interesting agenda item (e.g. future of the Desktop Summit), people didn't attend. I assume it's because they didn't have anything pressing to say. I have made an effort to attend those meetings and my problems at the times were numerous: - meetings badly announced if ever. Maybe making use of foundation mailing list and planet gnome systematically would help to get more people) - agenda not defined and seldom in line with what the board was discussing at the time. Not getting board meetings didn't help for sure - when questions were asked we would usually get of is not here so we don't know or oh, this is confidential so we cannot tell you. Trust that after a while you quickly lose your motivation to attend. I believe IRC meeting are an important part of the board communicating to its community and an effort must be made to announce and run those meetings regularly. Adding items to the agenda that the board is working on at the time will also definitely help raise attendance as well. Just the feeling of one foundation member. Fred ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Board meeting minutes - was (Re: A question for the candidates)
hi; On 28 May 2012 05:03, Frederic Muller fr...@gnome.org wrote: On 05/28/2012 07:29 AM, Tobias Mueller wrote: ne doesn't know what is happening and thus being able to take influence. So I would try to have the minutes sent around ASAP. But as far as I could see, nobody was suffering enough yet to publicly ask whether it'd be possible to make things more (timely) public. Again I guess we were spoiled by former board secretary in the previous years who was automatically emailing the meeting notes 2 weeks after the meeting. This year (2011-2012) minutes were published as follows: - Meeting of July 26, 2011 - publish on August 23rd : 1 month later - Meeting of August 9th, 2011 - published on October 18th: 2+ month later (publish together with 4 other meeting minutes). yes, this is my definite fault. [just a bit of backstory, here, also to help out eventual other candidates in case I'm not elected] the meeting minutes are written down during the meeting itself by using a collaborative editor, so that everyone on the meeting can actually review in real time what's being written (this also helps in case I could not hear or understand what was being said, or when I am talking about some topic/action item, in which case I cannot really take notes). after the meeting is over, the minute is published on the Foundation's restricted wiki space, for further review, in case I missed a private section, or I was being overzealous with one, as well as for clearing up some of the action items. after some time pass, the wiki page for the minutes is copied over to the public section of the Foundation's wiki space, and the contents are sent using an email. none of this is automated: Brian was just exceptionally good at sending out minutes every two weeks. :-) my main two issues as serving as secretary this year were being overzealous with people reviewing my note-taking (not a native english speaker, and the conference call phone line can be pretty messy at times), as well as reviewing the private sections. the first issue can be ascribed to me being in my first term; the second issue is the result of messing up a couple of times. I honestly didn't realize that there would be this many private discussions going on for multiple meetings. if somebody plans to be the secretary: be aware that it could happen. I personally even thought meetings were not happening anymore and considering the reactions I get when asking questions to the board I have just given up on asking for the time being. Note that I feel sending minutes is a board problem and not necessarily the secretary alone. I believe in getting things done rather than blaming individuals. again, it most definitely was my fault. One question was eventually asked when getting those minutes and the answer was _topic_in_question_ should be marked as private - again a typical sorry we can't tell you answer which I got quite often during public foundation IRC meetings. private topics surprised me as well; obviously, choosing the new ED has been a private topic in the past and even from the outside I knew that. I was unprepared at the time at the amount of sensitive topics that the Board is actually handling - it made me much more appreciative of the role of the Board. sadly, given the nature of these topics, releasing them in the public minutes (even after a longer embargo) may definitely not be possible; there are privacy concerns, as well as business concerns. other private topics have only an issue of timing: they could be moved to the public minutes after the discussion is over - though it'd require modifying the published minutes and then announcing the delta. Meeting minutes seems crucial to run a public discussion between the board and its members as Germán has highlighted and it's not because no one asked that no one thought it was not important anymore. I agree with you, and if I'm serving as secretary on the next term, I'll make a point of addressing my obvious shortcoming of this term. ciao, Emmanuele. -- W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.name B: http://blogs.gnome.org/ebassi/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Board meeting minutes - was (Re: A question for the candidates)
On Mon, 2012-05-28 at 06:06 +0100, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: On 28 May 2012 05:03, Frederic Muller fr...@gnome.org wrote: On 05/28/2012 07:29 AM, Tobias Mueller wrote: ne doesn't know what is happening and thus being able to take influence. So I would try to have the minutes sent around ASAP. But as far as I could see, nobody was suffering enough yet to publicly ask whether it'd be possible to make things more (timely) public. Again I guess we were spoiled by former board secretary in the previous years who was automatically emailing the meeting notes 2 weeks after the meeting. This year (2011-2012) minutes were published as follows: - Meeting of July 26, 2011 - publish on August 23rd : 1 month later - Meeting of August 9th, 2011 - published on October 18th: 2+ month later (publish together with 4 other meeting minutes). yes, this is my definite fault. [just a bit of backstory, here, also to help out eventual other candidates in case I'm not elected] the meeting minutes are written down during the meeting itself by using a collaborative editor, so that everyone on the meeting can actually review in real time what's being written (this also helps in case I could not hear or understand what was being said, or when I am talking about some topic/action item, in which case I cannot really take notes). after the meeting is over, the minute is published on the Foundation's restricted wiki space, for further review, in case I missed a private section, or I was being overzealous with one, as well as for clearing up some of the action items. after some time pass, the wiki page for the minutes is copied over to the public section of the Foundation's wiki space, and the contents are sent using an email. none of this is automated: Brian was just exceptionally good at sending out minutes every two weeks. :-) Indeed. That is the reason I blamed myself for not pestering for making them public (and not you). It was also your first term as director and secretary. If you become re-elected and keep the role as secretary, I will set a recurrent activity in my calendar to pester you every other week :-) -- Germán Póo-Caamaño http://people.gnome.org/~gpoo/ signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
