Re: Proposed amendment to bylaws to allow non-member directors

[Frederic Muller]

OK. So you made me feel there was no risk to answer something I didn't 
want. From my experience (it initially told me I chose something not 
available) the Yes/No is the answer to that question which doesn't 
appear anywhere, and then clicking on it adds it to preferences


And then the next screen confirms you vote yes or no to the question. So 
I voted, and hopefully what I wanted ;-)


Thank you for your help.

Fred


On 5/10/22 20:41, Andrea Veri wrote:

Frederic,

if you start the voting session from scratch, you just select the option 
you want to vote for (either yes or no) and that automatically gets 
added under Preferences, the next section will also show what you voted 
for in order to confirm your selection.


Thanks,

On Tue, May 10, 2022 at 3:38 PM Frederic Muller <mailto:fr...@gnome.org>> wrote:




On 5/10/22 20:14, Arun Raghavan wrote:
 > On Tue., May 10, 2022, 9:10 a.m. Andrea Veri, mailto:a...@gnome.org>
 > <mailto:a...@gnome.org <mailto:a...@gnome.org>>> wrote:
 >
 >     Frederic,
 >
 >     unfortunately we had to re-use the voting system we use which is
 >     mainly focused on Board of Directors elections. Let me
explain how
 >     it works:
 >
 >     1. Under candidates, you will find a list of 2 items, "yes"
and "no"
 >     2. For either yes or no to end up in your preferences list, you
 >     mainly need to click on either yes or no, you should expect
to see
 >     your final choice under Preferences and the option you didn't
select
 >     under Candidates
 >     3. While you can theoretically select both and have both options
 >     added to preferences, it's preferred to only select one single
 >     option and confirm
 >
 >     Please let me know if that made things clearer for you, thanks!
 >
 >
 > Just to add to this, since I had this question (which was
answered in
 > the final screen) -- the selection is to answer the question: "do
you
 > support the proposed modification to allow non-member directors".
 >
 > Cheers,
 > Arun

Right! But I am unclear on how to get there... so whether I chose
yes/no
I get to that final question? Since I can't see what's in
preferences it
doesn't seem obvious what the yes/no selection do...

Fred
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Cheers,
Andrea

Principal Systems Engineer at Red Hat,
GNOME Infrastructure Team Coordinator,
Former GNOME Foundation Board of Directors Secretary,
GNOME Foundation Membership & Elections Committee Chairman

Homepage: https://www.dragonsreach.it <https://www.dragonsreach.it>

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Re: Proposed amendment to bylaws to allow non-member directors

[Frederic Muller]

On 5/10/22 20:14, Arun Raghavan wrote:
On Tue., May 10, 2022, 9:10 a.m. Andrea Veri, > wrote:


Frederic,

unfortunately we had to re-use the voting system we use which is
mainly focused on Board of Directors elections. Let me explain how
it works:

1. Under candidates, you will find a list of 2 items, "yes" and "no"
2. For either yes or no to end up in your preferences list, you
mainly need to click on either yes or no, you should expect to see
your final choice under Preferences and the option you didn't select
under Candidates
3. While you can theoretically select both and have both options
added to preferences, it's preferred to only select one single
option and confirm

Please let me know if that made things clearer for you, thanks!


Just to add to this, since I had this question (which was answered in 
the final screen) -- the selection is to answer the question: "do you 
support the proposed modification to allow non-member directors".


Cheers,
Arun


Right! But I am unclear on how to get there... so whether I chose yes/no 
I get to that final question? Since I can't see what's in preferences it 
doesn't seem obvious what the yes/no selection do...


Fred
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Re: Proposed amendment to bylaws to allow non-member directors

[Frederic Muller]

Hi!

I am sorry to ... not understand how to vote. First the display is off 
on FireFox and the button or titles hide the selection, then I don't 
understand what the questions Candidates & Preferences mean.


Do we have a guide for dummies somewhere?

Thank you.

Fred

On 5/10/22 18:43, Andrea Veri wrote:

The Board has proposed the following change to the GNOME Foundation bylaws:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/Infrastructure/foundation-web/-/merge_requests/3/diffs 



The proposal is to widen the pool from which the Foundation can attract 
candidates to stand for election as directors, by allowing individuals 
who are not currently Foundation members to submit their candidacy for 
election.


This change is intended to bring new skills and experience into the 
governance of the Foundation. At present, Foundation membership is 
granted principally based on contributions to the GNOME project which 
means the process selects for skills already present in our community, 
such as software development, design, translation, documentation or 
engagement. Whilst we do have some members who also bring experience at 
fundraising, nonprofit governance and establishing partnerships with 
external organizations, they are in the minority. The Board would like 
to establish additional pathways to try and attract individuals with 
these skills into the Foundation.


The board has published some notes about the planned strategy for the 
upcoming year:
https://discourse.gnome.org/t/evolving-a-strategy-for-2022-and-beyond/9759 



And more details about the changes and how they support the strategy here:
https://discourse.gnome.org/t/updated-bylaw-amendment-allow-non-members-to-stand-for-election/9761 



Specifically:
     * The requirement that directors are Foundation members is removed.
     * The election process is changed such that no more than 30% of the 
board roles can be filled by directors who are not members at the time 
of the election. Should this happen the runner-up member candidate will 
be considered instead, similar to the existing affiliation limit. At 
present with a board of 7, this is a maximum of two seats.
     * Nominations are changed such that member nominees must be 
seconded by one existing member, and non-member nominees must be 
seconded by 5% of members, up to a maximum of 5.
     * Members who are standing for election cannot second other 
nominations.


In lieu of a Special General Meeting, this proposal has been put to a 
Written Ballot of the members.


The voting session has opened and ballots will be sent during the next 
hour, more information can be found at:
https://vote.gnome.org/2022-05/index.html 



--
Cheers,
Andrea

Principal Systems Engineer at Red Hat,
GNOME Infrastructure Team Coordinator,
Former GNOME Foundation Board of Directors Secretary,
GNOME Foundation Membership & Elections Committee Chairman

Homepage: https://www.dragonsreach.it 

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Re: [Builder] Developer experience (DX) hackfest 2016

[Frederic Muller]

On 12/29/2015 01:47 PM, Richard Stallman wrote:
> I have doubts about that.  A URL might be better for a wizard, who
> could read it immediately rather than waiting for a response.
> However, for someone who is not a wizard, personal guidance from an
> expert is likely to be more helpful.  You can ask the expert to
> explain any point that you don't understand -- something that you
> can't do with a URL.
> 
> Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that the URL is more helpful
> than offering to put you in touch with an expert.  What's the right
> way to respond to something that is helpful but could have been more
> so?  "Why didn't you do it the other way?" seems ungrateful and
> nonconstructive.
> 
> I will ask them for a URL I could post.

Hi.

Ok I am replying because in many projects, not just GNOME, doing such a
thing with only Free Software is a challenge. Having a clear
documentation about it would definitely help everybody.

I am also interested to know about this and would love either a contact
point to generate a URL ;-) or a URL.

Thank you very much in advance.

Fred
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Re: Minutes of the Board meeting for April 30th, 2013

[Frederic Muller]

Hi!

I know it's been an issue for the past ... but it would really help all
foundation members if meeting minutes would be conveyed to the audience
in a much faster way. 3 months after the meeting is really late and very
little can be commented or asked from anyone.

Thanks.

Fred

On 23/07/13 17:00, Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
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Re: AGM Meeting: Proposal (on p.g.o)

[Frederic Muller]

On 07/29/2012 06:00 PM, Johannes Schmid wrote:

if we lost the talent for a laugh


As an avid planet reader I was very surprised to see the memes appearing 
and... didn't find them funny at all, or even relevant to the GNOME 
planet which as stated is a window into the world, work and lives of 
GNOME hackers and contributors.


Now we probably all have different kind of humor and it's going to be 
difficult to amuse everyone ;-)


Fred
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Board public IRC meetings - was (Re: A question for the candidates)

[Frederic Muller]

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
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Board meeting minutes - was (Re: A question for the candidates)

[Frederic Muller]

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
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Re: Board public IRC meetings - was (Re: A question for the candidates)

[Frederic Muller]

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
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Re: European bank account for donations

[Frederic Muller]

On 03/10/2012 03:41 PM, Frederic Crozat wrote:

Le 9 mars 2012 23:51, Luc Pionchon pionchon@gmail.com
mailto:pionchon@gmail.com a écrit :
 
  On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 22:36, Brian Cameron brian.came...@oracle.com
mailto:brian.came...@oracle.com wrote:
  
   Are any of GNOME's 3 sister organizations that have bank accounts in
   Europe a tax free charity currently?
 
  About French associations tax law, in a nutshell:
 
  GNOME-FR is a non-profit organization, so called association loi
  1901. As a non-profit organization, it is tax free. I am not sure
  what you mean by charity and how it translates into French fiscal
  system.

Charity is mean in the sense donations are deductible from your own tax.
GNOME-fr is not a charity in that sense, it would need to become a
association reconnue d'utilité publique, which is a lot of paper work
and budget .
--
Frédéric Crozat




Couldn't you guys hold the fund for a while and then do a 'group' wire 
transfer to the GNOME Foundation: at least that would lessen the 
individual donation cost by quite a lot.


Another way would be to keep those funds to be spent on GNOME Foundation 
expenses during GUADEC for example (or some GNOME Foundation sponsored 
hackfests in Europe).


Does this make sense?

Fred
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Re: GNOME.Asia 2012 Official Announcement

[Frederic Muller]

On 02/22/2012 08:48 PM, Chandni Verma wrote:

unfortunately many countries' bureaucrats fail to understand.


Just to mitigate that comment: a few years back I was informed about the 
number of visa issued in another Asian country to citizens of that 
country (not India - I think it can be applied a lot of countries in 
this region) to France and how many people came back:

visa isssued: 70,000
number of people who came back: 35,000

That means that 35,000 people had disappeared. They were living in 
France or Europe illegally and could have become forced workers (from 
hard manual labor, to sewing in underground illegal shops, or having 
been tricked by the sex industry or worse) or just had been 'abducted' 
and God knows what.


So with that in mind those bureaucrats are actually trying to protect 
people from being abused or ending up in terrible living conditions with 
very little hope to ever seeing their family and friends again.


When you fill a visa application you need to put the best effort 
possible to convince those bureaucrats you will come back no matter 
what, and can take care of yourself (and will not look for employment 
while in the country of destination). I've heard of a few rejections 
while doing Gnome.Asia from Asian people traveling to another Asian 
country and in all cases it was an obvious mistake on their part in the 
way they filled the application form (such as but not limited to: 
requesting double entry visa to attend a 1-time event, requesting a 
business visa for a 1 week event, etc). We have tried to assist people 
during their application but they often do not listen.


I hope this perspective will make you see the 'other side' of the visa 
story.


All the best.

Fred
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Re: Meeting Minutes Published - January 10, 2012

[Frederic Muller]

On 01/25/2012 01:54 AM, Emmanuele Bassi wrote:

* 2011: we spent $14,450 (USD), and received $12,766.


I am very surprised by those figures. I remember very well raising over 
$21,000 (USD) from Google, Novell, Mozilla and Oracle (in no specific 
order) and offering help several times on this list to help recover the 
funds. So is it a simple typo or have we failed to claim our sponsorship 
fees?


I cannot comment on the previous year as I wasn't involved in the 
financing part but I do remember 2010 was more difficult in that respect.


Fred
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Re: Meeting Minutes Published - January 10, 2012

[Frederic Muller]

On 01/25/2012 03:43 PM, Germán Póo-Caamaño wrote:

On Wed, 2012-01-25 at 14:12 +0800, Frederic Muller wrote:


On 01/25/2012 01:54 AM, Emmanuele Bassi wrote:

 * 2011: we spent $14,450 (USD), and received $12,766.


I am very surprised by those figures. I remember very well raising over
$21,000 (USD) from Google, Novell, Mozilla and Oracle (in no specific
order) and offering help several times on this list to help recover the
funds. So is it a simple typo or have we failed to claim our sponsorship
fees?


The funds mentioned there are the ones that we effectively received
until September 2011.


Thank you for the clarification.

Fred
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FOG contact

[Frederic Muller]

Hi!

I' m trying to get in touch with whoever is in charge of Friends of 
GNOME subscriptions. I was told Emmanuele Bassi was but I haven't 
received any response to my email dated December 17th.


Is there an alias for such a request that would be the right place to 
ask questions?


I also checked on the FOG page but couldn't find any contact neither.

Thanks a lot.

Fred
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Re: GNOME Foundation budget (Oct 2010-June 2011)

[Frederic Muller]

On 08/04/2011 09:51 AM, Germán Póo-Caamaño wrote:
 This has been since November 26, 2004. GuideStar is the service we use
 for this purpose. It would be more constructive if you read the
 information properly to avoid arriving to misleading conclusions and
 spreading FUD.

I guess I was hit by the 'don't scroll down syndrome on a web page'.
Pointing me to that reference would then have been a nice answer to my
query (note that only 2009 is available on guidestar).

 
 And while you are promoting transparency, which I agree, it would be
 nice to have a finance report of GNOME.Asia.

We do have such documents. I think Barath provided the latest update to
the GNOME board with all the receipts as this year Novell helped us
advancing the money locally. So the GNOME board does have all the
relevant information (I don't, but I have a rough idea or our income,
spending and how much profit we made). I think Pockey also provided a
breakdown report to the board as well.

All the sponsors invoices were made by Rosana and funds transferred
directly to the GNOME foundation. I even offered to help following up
with unpaid invoices at the last report.

So what exactly do you need?

Fred
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Re: GNOME Foundation budget (Oct 2010-June 2011)

[Frederic Muller]

On 08/04/2011 07:47 PM, Frederic Muller wrote:
 note that only 2009 is available on guidestar

Actually that's wrong, I just checked and 2007 and 2008 are also there.

Fred
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Re: GNOME Foundation budget (Oct 2010-June 2011)

[Frederic Muller]

On 08/03/2011 02:24 PM, Germán Póo-Caamaño wrote:
 On Wed, 2011-08-03 at 13:45 +0800, Frederic Muller wrote:
 Ping?
snip

 would bring a lot more transparency and compliance to the GNOME Foundation.

 So can someone in the know point me to the right place or will answer
 my question?
 
 As I said previously, in the short term we will be able to add that
 information to the budget.
 

Why is it difficult to just give a rough number at end of our financial
period ('09 or '10) and be done with it for now?

The GNOME Foundation obviously hasn't complied to state laws for years
(by not making the required form available to the public) and you seem
to enjoy not answering foundation members as well. What about the
statement on our financial page:
For comments or questions on the data, please contact the GNOME
Foundation Board of Directors. 

I really feel there is an attitude problem with transparency and I am
sadden to see that you're reluctant to be transparent. I am therefore
requesting to the GNOME Foundation board to address this issue as soon
as possible and be in compliance with state and government regulation ASAP.

Now Google being my friend I found the 2009 Form 990 on guidestar.org
(you'll need to register to download it) and for those of us who are
interesting in the amount declared:
Line end of year (2009) - Net assets or fund balances reads:
U$304,834

If you add the U$252,099 profit from 2009-2010 and deduct the expected
loss of U$105,595 for 2010-2011 we should reach a balance of
approximately U$451,338 by end of September.

Thank you!

Fred
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Re: GNOME Foundation budget (Oct 2010-June 2011)

[Frederic Muller]

On 08/03/2011 08:41 PM, Karen Sandler wrote:
 On Wed, August 3, 2011 2:50 am, Frederic Muller wrote:
 
 Why is it difficult to just give a rough number at end of our financial
 period ('09 or '10) and be done with it for now?

 The GNOME Foundation obviously hasn't complied to state laws for years
 (by not making the required form available to the public) and you seem
 to enjoy not answering foundation members as well. What about the
 statement on our financial page:
 For comments or questions on the data, please contact the GNOME
 Foundation Board of Directors. 

 
 I'm sorry that you weren't responded to more quickly and were frustrated,
 and I hope you understand that, as Germán says, he is only a volunteer
 treasurer.

Dear Karen,

I didn't want to answer on this point but since you're emphasizing it
here are my thought on it: I am a volunteer myself and has run
GNOME.Asia Summit for the GNOME Foundation a couple of time and serve as
president on the board of Software Freedom International, another
non-profit registered in the USA. I do that as a volunteer and if I
didn't have the time or the professional skills to do it, then I should
leave my seat to someone who has.

Serving as treasurer for the GNOME Foundation (and board of director) is
a big responsibility and refusing to answer a simple question (how much
cash do we have), emphasizing it will be done later seems to me to be
a totally different issue. Serving as treasurer also means a certain
commitment to the task and stating you are just a volunteer as an excuse
maybe means that German should consider letting someone with more time
on his hands to do the job. But again this is a different issue and not
something I wanted to talk about (you did).

 
 I'm obviously not on the board (and also new here) but I wanted to respond
 because you mentioned being out of compliance with state laws. I believe
 the form need only be made available on request in order to meet the state
 requirements. While you definitely requested an important piece of
 information, you didn't specifically ask to see the last 990 or the form
 1023, both of which would overall have less relevant financial information
 than what was circulated by Germán (even if the 990 had an ending
 balance).Many nonprofits choose not to put their 990s up on their websites
 and are not in violation of state laws to my knowledge. California does
 make form 990s available directly on their website without registration,
 but those forms are often not the best way to see the financial position
 of a nonprofit anyway because of the reporting format. So long as a
 nonprofit provides the forms when asked (they don't have to do it
 instantly and can also charge a reasonable fee for doing so), they are in
 compliance with the rules.  I think GNOME seeks to do better than that,
 which is why the more detailed information was circulated to members.

I wasn't requesting this form, please do not 'misquote' me. I was
highlighting government regulations (IRS website should be a good
reference no?) which says  An exempt organization must make available
for public inspection its exemption application. It does not stipulate
how to do it, it just says we have to do it. And so I showed how others
are doing it and said maybe we should do the same.

Now failing to get a crucial information about the budget and our
financial status (how much do we have, so we know how much we can spend)
and feeling the reluctance to supply such information which I am sure
German have on his mind even if approximate (and some other people who
also didn't respond) I thought it was important to remind the board that
we are not complying to government regulations by not supplying those
forms (through whatever mean) as well.

Anything else in your email is twisting my request or justifications
about not doing the right thing for the GNOME Foundation.

I am sure all GNOME foundation members expect us to be a transparent
organization (it was pretty clear from the questions during the board
elections this year) and this is something we need to work on.

Sincerely,

Fred

 
 I'm glad that you found the information you wanted ultimately and thanks
 for the suggestion to publish the 990s and to improve the budget report.
 
 karen
 
 
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Re: GNOME Foundation budget (Oct 2010-June 2011)

[Frederic Muller]

Ping?

From http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=135008,00.html
An exempt organization must make available for public inspection its
exemption application. An exemption application includes the Form 1023
[...].
In addition, an exempt organization must make available for public
inspection and copying its annual return. Such returns include Form 990
[...].

Form 1023 page 10 clearly stipulates 'Cash' among other lines in the
Asset sections, so does Form 990 (in a different page).

I've been looking at the foundation website and can't find any of this
information available. I think something like this
http://www.councilofnonprofits.org/financials

would bring a lot more transparency and compliance to the GNOME Foundation.

So can someone in the know point me to the right place or will answer
my question?

Thank you.

Fred



On 07/29/2011 09:44 AM, Frederic Muller wrote:
 So yes, my question is how much do we have in the bank then? Without
 that figure it's hard to tell what's the real status.
 
 Thank you.
 
 Fred
 
 On 07/29/2011 03:09 AM, Stormy Peters wrote:
 Hi Fred,

 Is your question, do we have enough money in the bank? If so, the answer
 is yes. :)

 We always keep a reserve, a nonprofit best practice. We also try to
 spend what we bring in each year towards supporting our mission and
 goals. So as Germán says, the overspend is money that was already
 budgeted for those things from money we raised last year.

 Best,

 Stormy

 2011/7/28 Germán Póo-Caamaño g...@gnome.org mailto:g...@gnome.org

 On Thu, 2011-07-28 at 23:09 +0800, Frederic Muller wrote:
   Hi!
  
   Thank you for the detailed updated report. I see a lot a red but
 can't
   find the balance from 2010. Is the situation very worrying
 (-$107K or
   -$105K end of September) or do we have a lot of cash?

 Hi Fred,

 The original plan (Proposed budget) includes some expenditures we did
 not do last year and that were moved to this fiscal year.  For
 instance,
 $50,000 on Mobile, ~$30,000 on Women's Outreach Program, ~$10,000 on
 Marketing, ~$5,000 on a11y.  So, that explains the plan for the
 current
 year to be negative (that you can see on the sheets 'Budget' and
 'Real
 +Proj').  You can compare it against the final budget for the last
 year

 http://foundation.gnome.org/finance/gnome-foundation-budget-2010-final.ods


 On the other hand, there are some red figures in the 'Waterfall'
 sheet.
 In the case of 'Expenses' a red number means we have spent more
 planed
 until June. In the case of 'Income', a red number means we have
 received
 less than expected until June.

 The 'Real+Proj' sheet shows what we have spent and what we expect for
 the following months per item.  That said, we need to work on
 Friends of
 GNOME.

 --
 Germán Póo-Caamaño
 http://people.gnome.org/~gpoo/ http://people.gnome.org/%7Egpoo/

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Re: GNOME Foundation budget (Oct 2010-June 2011)

[Frederic Muller]

So yes, my question is how much do we have in the bank then? Without 
that figure it's hard to tell what's the real status.


Thank you.

Fred

On 07/29/2011 03:09 AM, Stormy Peters wrote:

Hi Fred,

Is your question, do we have enough money in the bank? If so, the answer
is yes. :)

We always keep a reserve, a nonprofit best practice. We also try to
spend what we bring in each year towards supporting our mission and
goals. So as Germán says, the overspend is money that was already
budgeted for those things from money we raised last year.

Best,

Stormy

2011/7/28 Germán Póo-Caamaño g...@gnome.org mailto:g...@gnome.org

On Thu, 2011-07-28 at 23:09 +0800, Frederic Muller wrote:
  Hi!
 
  Thank you for the detailed updated report. I see a lot a red but
can't
  find the balance from 2010. Is the situation very worrying (-$107K or
  -$105K end of September) or do we have a lot of cash?

Hi Fred,

The original plan (Proposed budget) includes some expenditures we did
not do last year and that were moved to this fiscal year.  For instance,
$50,000 on Mobile, ~$30,000 on Women's Outreach Program, ~$10,000 on
Marketing, ~$5,000 on a11y.  So, that explains the plan for the current
year to be negative (that you can see on the sheets 'Budget' and 'Real
+Proj').  You can compare it against the final budget for the last year
http://foundation.gnome.org/finance/gnome-foundation-budget-2010-final.ods

On the other hand, there are some red figures in the 'Waterfall' sheet.
In the case of 'Expenses' a red number means we have spent more planed
until June. In the case of 'Income', a red number means we have received
less than expected until June.

The 'Real+Proj' sheet shows what we have spent and what we expect for
the following months per item.  That said, we need to work on Friends of
GNOME.

--
Germán Póo-Caamaño
http://people.gnome.org/~gpoo/ http://people.gnome.org/%7Egpoo/

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Re: GNOME Foundation budget (Oct 2010-May 2011)

[Frederic Muller]

On 07/04/2011 12:12 PM, Germán Póo-Caamaño wrote:

On Mon, 2011-07-04 at 11:53 +0800, Frederic Muller wrote:

Hi Rosanna and German!

I see that only U$12766 has been collected out of the ~U$23K+ (forgot
the exact amount). Do you need help collecting what's missing or is it
just not in the spreadsheet yet?


I think you mean GNOME Asia.  In 'Real' you will see what we actually
received, not what we have invoiced.   In the particular case of GNOME
Asia, in 'Real+Proj' you will see an expected income (we invoiced them,
and we expect to receive the funds by then) and a different total.

Also, the spreadsheet does not include the transactions of June.  Once I
have them, we will see.

Thanks for keeping an eye on it.

Yes sorry, that's what I meant: GNOME.Asia. So my question was whether 
you needed help on the follow up with the sponsors. If you do just ping 
me and I will contact them to see why it's taking so long.


Fred
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Re: GNOME Foundation budget (Oct 2010-May 2011)

[Frederic Muller]

Hi Rosanna and German!

I see that only U$12766 has been collected out of the ~U$23K+ (forgot 
the exact amount). Do you need help collecting what's missing or is it 
just not in the spreadsheet yet?


Thanks.

Fred



On 07/04/2011 11:32 AM, Germán Póo-Caamaño wrote:

Foundation members,

I have uploaded an updated budget for the current fiscal year.  It
includes the our income and expenses from October 2010 to May 2011 and
the expectations from June to September.

You will the information available at:
http://foundation.gnome.org/finance/gnome-foundation-budget-2011-may.ods

Also, it is a good moment for teams and local groups to plan activities
(hackfests, events, infrastructure, etc.) for the next fiscal year (that
start next October).

Regards,




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Re: desktopsummit registration forces gnome users to have a kde identity

[Frederic Muller]

What a nice answer... The problem is not about growing up but about 
preserving the GNOME identity.


I would appreciate if the desktop summit organizing committee could 
consider the request from the GNOME foundation members, and take this 
seriously.




On 03/10/2011 02:52 PM, Kenny Duffus wrote:

On Thursday 10 March 2011 08:04:10 Frederic Muller wrote:

Hi again,

I would also report that as a bug, as it was raised yesterday during the
gnome foundation meeting. Forcing GNOME users to register at
identify.kde.org is something desired for a joint conference.



it is just an LDAP server. grow up


Maybe using the drupal built-in account management seems a more fair way
to handle the issue.



the sysadmins decided to use this for increased security and reduced
maintenance


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Re: desktopsummit registration forces gnome users to have a kde identity

[Frederic Muller]

On 03/10/2011 11:03 PM, Dave Neary wrote:

At the time, there were two choices: require everyone to create a Drupal
account just to register for the conference, or use the authentication
system which KDE already had in place.

After some discussion, for the sake of expediency (this is an existing,
well tested authentification system, and many of the conference
attendees have accounts on it already) the KDE identity LDAP server was
used for authentification.

Some concerns were raised, and one potential solution suggested by one
of the KDE admins (Jeff Mitchell) was to use OpenID or something
similar, to allow people to authenticate with whatever service they
already had an account for.


It seems that there are 2 options and the identify.kde.org choice was 
taken out of convenience for one party. Why not chose the neutral option 
being fair for both sides instead and avoiding the issue of GNOME asking 
it's user to register at identify.kde.org instead?


That's seems to be a much more logical choice, no?

Thank you.

Fred
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GNOME mobile and Limo Foundation - was (Re: Meeting Minutes Published - February 1st, 2011)

[Frederic Muller]

On 02/17/2011 10:50 PM, Andrew Savory wrote:

That's a good summary. I worked hard to help prepare the business case to 
justify continuing involvement, but I was not involved in the final decision 
making process. I'm personally sorry that our involvement with GNOME was so 
brief and that we did not have a chance to really fully engage with GNOME. On 
the plus side, we did manage to secure $10k from LiMo to GNOME for the 6 months 
we were advisory board members, so it's not all bad! I hope those funds can 
help GNOME go from strength to strength.


Dear Andrew,

Did the Limo foundation have any specific expectation? I know that a few 
of us are definitely into mobile and would like to see GNOME more 
successful on this front.


You're also well aware that most of us are volunteers or paid developers 
to work on specific tasks. Sometimes clarifying what one expects can 
wake up hopes and motivations among us (and our employers).


Maybe we could work toward some specific goals in the coming 12 months, 
which could make the Limo foundation reconsider its involvement with the 
GNOME project.


I'm saying that because we are currently trying to get feedback on how 
to give more satisfaction to organizations using GNOME technologies and 
getting responses is not always simple.


This is of course one of the ideas to explore, we could also try to 
organize hackfests focused on mobile topics/development. Hackfests work 
very well with GNOME developers and yeld both interest, relevant crowd 
and great results.


As a side note we're organization a conference in Bangalore[1] (together 
with a hackfest) for the GNOME 3.0 release. Bangalore is one of the 
biggest software development of the world and maybe we could try to run 
a mobile session as well. I believe that with clear objectives we can 
get both the developers and the local community more involved in the 
mobile side of GNOME and kick start some of the exciting things the Limo 
foundation was expecting. I am definitely up to lead the effort 
(assisted by some of the GNOME mobile gurus) if someone from your side 
is interested.


Thanks a lot.

Fred

[1] http://www.gnome.asia - March 28 - April 3

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Re: How to open Gnome Malaysia Usergroup

[Frederic Muller]

On 01/26/2011 11:02 AM, Mohd Fazli Azran wrote:
[...]

Yep. We know in not good for us if the community keep having war but now
community are on sleep mode. I need to poke them all and create hype to
wake of all them.


[...]

Yes, we need GNOME, GNU, FSF or other related organisation to help us to
build good communication and keep the relationship. Although your word
some of it sound like indonesian :). Thank to you all


Dear Mohd (hope that's the right way to address you),

I'm just reacting to those 2 statements of yours within the context of 
that long exchange we've had.


I have been running and involved in user groups for quite some time and 
here is what I can offer as an advice:


1. you need to inspire your community, not create hype

2. getting businesses seems to be a major focus of yours, however 
businesses compete, they do not collaborate well in general. Inspired 
people on the contrary share ideology and do things beyond money and 
companies interests, because they believe it's the right thing to do and 
they have fun doing it. This is why it's called a user group, and not a 
business group.


3. you do not need GNOME, GNU, FSF: you can chose to be part of those 
communities and do what you believe should be done. A community is a 
flat organization where everyone is at the same level. We all do what we 
can at our level, and I would recommend you to do the same. This is the 
best way to strengthen the GNOME community. At this stage I wonder what 
else you need?


4. Getting involved in building a user group is easy (almost), you 
already have all the needed pointers: now you should lay out a plan and 
act upon it. From my experience a user group tends to cost time and 
money to its organizers, which seems to be what you lack of.


5. Having so many FOSS projects under one umbrella might not be the best 
way to attract volunteers and contributors: I would personally doubt 
about the focus of such an organization and be afraid to come to learn 
about GNOME and be told about ...Drupal.


6. What I've learned in my years as a contributor in the Free Software 
communities: when you want something to happen you need to start 
yourself and show the way, rather than expect people to do the work for 
you. People will usually have a different perspective and other opinions 
on how to execute. As a community leader your role is often to start and 
help combine all those energies towards a good direction for the project 
(not necessarily what you initially envisioned).


Those comments are really based on what I have learned and I hope they 
will benefit you and help you to get started. I have participated, lead 
and contributed to my local GNU/Linux User Group for years and I'd say 
it has been a wonderful experience. I've met great people, had fun and 
did stuff that I felt mattered. I hope you can experience the same as I 
did, or even more!


Good luck and let us know when you're planning on your first meeting!

Kind regards,

Fred
ps: also do subscribe to the gugmasters-list@ which is where GNOME User 
Group issues are being discussed.

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Re: Official announcement and invitation to GNOME 3.0 Hackfest and GNOME.Asia Summit 2011

[Frederic Muller]

On 01/23/2011 08:23 PM, Andreas Nilsson wrote:

On 01/22/2011 07:04 PM, Vincent Untz wrote:

Le vendredi 21 janvier 2011, à 23:41 +0800, Frederic Muller a écrit :

So Hackfest registration is happening here:
http://live.gnome.org/Hackfests/GNOME.Asia2011 , call for papers for
the conference is here http://live.gnome.org/GnomeAsia/CallForPaper
and conference registration will be opening soon.

What's the plan on the marketing team side? Do we have people who can
go? I didn't see any replies on marketing-list to the previous mails,
unless I missed something.

I think can go. Sounds fun.
- Andreas



Hey thanks!

Actually the initial plan was 5 days (plan from September), then after 
Gnome Bostom Summit we reduced to 3 days based on feedback from Jason 
and a few other people living in the US and for whom the whole trip 
would be a bit long. It turned out that the release team prefers 5 days 
so this is what we have finally chosen:
3 days + 2 optional days hackfest + 1 conference day. The first 2 days 
are actually the optional ones and happening in Intel office who 
committed for space for 20 people and the next 3 days are happening in 
the university (with as much space as we need) where the conference will 
happen as well. This way people attending 'only' 3 days can also take 
part in the conference and the little tour trip the following day all 
together.


We thought that would be the best comprise fitting everyone's wishes.

There is still one unknown parameter: an extra conference day. 
Considering we will have all those great people from marketing, release 
and maybe documentation (Documentation is having a hackfest in Toronto 1 
week before), one day conference is very short. So based on sponsorship 
revenues and talks submitted we'll try to get an extra day.


I hope this clarifies any misunderstanding. It is sometimes hard to go 
into all those details in public announcements. In anyone needs further 
clarification please do not hesitate to email us or drop by on 
#asia-summit .


Thank you for all the support and we really hope to see some of you in 
Bangalore!


Fred
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Re: Official announcement and invitation to GNOME 3.0 Hackfest and GNOME.Asia Summit 2011

[Frederic Muller]

On 01/23/2011 03:06 AM, Jason D. Clinton wrote:

On Jan 22, 2011 12:04 PM, Vincent Untz vu...@gnome.org
mailto:vu...@gnome.org wrote:
 
  Le vendredi 21 janvier 2011, à 23:41 +0800, Frederic Muller a écrit :
   So Hackfest registration is happening here:
   http://live.gnome.org/Hackfests/GNOME.Asia2011 , call for papers for
   the conference is here http://live.gnome.org/GnomeAsia/CallForPaper
   and conference registration will be opening soon.
 
  What's the plan on the marketing team side? Do we have people who can
  go? I didn't see any replies on marketing-list to the previous mails,
  unless I missed something.

Since the dates selected are the span of a work week I cannot go. The
scheduling reprecussions would be too difficult to absorb.

I would be happy to make myself available on Monday and Wednesday
evening on IRC, however.

If enough people can't make it and doing telepresence on a larger scale
makes sense, I would be willing to take a few days off work to make that
more productive. I don't think doing telepresence makes sense if there
is a conference as those who would be remote would likely reduce the
conference productivity as much as aid it due to synchronization overhead.


What about 3 days only, from March 30th to April 1st?
Fred
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Official announcement and invitation to GNOME 3.0 Hackfest and GNOME.Asia Summit 2011

[Frederic Muller]

Dear all,

We've finally finalize dates, website and announcements for the upcoming 
GNOME 3.0 Bangalore Hackfest followed by the GNOME.Asia Summit 2011. You 
can read the full announcement here 
http://gnome.asia/press/2011/announcement/ but in short we targeting to 
gather release, documentation and marketing people together to finish 
GNOME 3.0 under the same roof just before the release (April 6th is the 
release date), and using this opportunity to have the 4th edition of 
GNOME.Asia Summit just after in one of the software development centers 
of the world: Bangalore.


So Hackfest registration is happening here: 
http://live.gnome.org/Hackfests/GNOME.Asia2011 , call for papers for the 
conference is here http://live.gnome.org/GnomeAsia/CallForPaper and 
conference registration will be opening soon.


As a side note the Gnome foundation will be providing some goodies for 
people organizing launch parties for GNOME 3.0 wherever they are (that 
would be one week later), more will be announcement very very soon!


A big thank you to all the people involved and who have helped us here 
and there, and the prompt publication on www.gnome.org!


Fred

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GNOME 3.0 launch parties support from the GNOME Foundation

[Frederic Muller]

Dear all,

GNOME 3.0 will be officially released on April 6th 2011! Have you 
started to plan for your own GNOME 3.0 Launch Party in your region yet?


Here is the good news! For those organizing a launch party, The GNOME 
Foundation will give away some goodies (t-shirts, balloons, stickers, 
other stuff) to support your events. Registration is starting now and 
attribution will be on a first come first serve basis and within 
availability.


You can find more information about GNOME 3.0 at http://www.gnome3.org, 
more information about Launch Parties at 
http://live.gnome.org/ThreePointZero/LaunchParty, more information to 
prepare your own GNOME 3.0 party at 
http://live.gnome.org/ThreePointZero/LaunchParty/Resources and more 
information about the goodies at 
http://live.gnome.org/ThreePointZero/Goodies .


Should you have any question please use the GNOME User Groups mailing 
list at http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gugmasters-list or find 
us on GNOME IRC servers in #gnome-love channel.


Please help us spread the word and get a few launch parties in your 
area. Register and document your event at 
http://live.gnome.org/ThreePointZero/LaunchParty#Locations making sure 
you supply a valid email address.


Happy GNOME 3.0 Release Party!
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Re: How to open Gnome Malaysia Usergroup

[Frederic Muller]

Dear Mohd Fazli Azran,

I think you already have a lot of good suggestions and pointers to start 
your new project. I'll recommend an excellent howto on running GNU/Linux 
User Groups which can be applied to GNOME User Groups right here:

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/User-Group-HOWTO.html

You have about 15+ years of people experience in one single document 
about what and what not to do to make your group successful. you just 
need to apply some of the topics to be GNOME specific but overall a 
great start for your group.


See you soon either online or live!

Fred

On 01/20/2011 11:25 AM, Pockey Lam wrote:

Dear Mohd,

It's nice to see you so passionate about FOSS and GNOME!

You can find a lot of useful information about how to start and run a
local GNOME community at http://live.gnome.org/UserGroups

As Brian mentioned, gugmasters and GNOME.Asia groups [1] are the right
places for you to contact.

As a core member of GNOME.Asia [2] , our aim is to grow the GNOME
community in Asia. We have members from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India,
Vietnam, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, etc. it would be nice if we
can have representatives from Malyasia as well! We have been also
helping local communities to start and grow their GNOME communities, we
can definitely put you in touch with other Asian Gugs (GNOME User
Groups), please do subscribe to the two mailing lists [1] and we can
talk more over there!

[1] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-asia-list
[1] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gugmasters-list
[2] http://live.gnome.org/GnomeAsia
[2] http://gnome.asia

One more thing! As the next major release, GNOME 3.0 is coming in early
April, we highly encourage local communities to celebrate this big
release, more information can be found at
http://live.gnome.org/ThreePointZero/LaunchParty. By hosting activities,
it can definitely help to boost GNOME awareness and users locally as well.

There are indeed too much information to give regarding this topic and
we are all excited to see you joining us!

Cheers,
Pockey

On 01/20/2011 04:14 AM, Brian Cameron wrote:


Mohd:

Thank you for expressing an interest in setting up a GNOME Users Group.

Note that The GNOME Foundation has official User's Groups sign the
Trademark Agreement for Users Groups which you can find here:

http://live.gnome.org/Trademark

So, the first step would be to send bo...@gnome.org a signed copy of
the form if you find it agreeable.

Also the gugmasters mailing list is for people interested in GNOME
User's Groups, so it would be a good forum to join and discuss further.
Information about the list, including subscription information, is
here:

http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gugmasters-list
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gugmasters-list/

There is also a mailing list for GNOME users in Malaysia:

http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-my-list

Also, you might find the asia-summit-list to be a useful resource for
general Asian GNOME topics:

http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/asia-summit-list

Brian



I`m representative form Open Source Developer Club Malaysia (OSDCMY). We
are the local community in Malaysia that promote and market OSS to
Malaysia people. We now to ready to lead the OSS community in Malaysia s
now we start many project for OSS any link with may OSS community in
Malaysia like Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, FreeBSD, Joomla, Drupal and etc.

But in Malaysia i can see we not have any GNOME community. So think we
better start one and we can start 1st translation project. OSDC.My
already manage the biggest open source conference almost 2 years already
we call it Malaysia Open Source Conference (MOSC http://conf.oss.my).
We now are prepare to do our 3rd MOSC2011 for this years. Yeah need a
lot of work to do now. But at least we can make people interest about
OSS and perhaps we can be one of the contributor to the OSS community
around the world. If we not start now others will not start. I`m also
involve other OSS ambassador like Fedora, openSUSE  PCBSD and OWASP.
Hope GNOME ca help us how to start GNOME Malaysia. Thanks

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Best wishes for 2011

[Frederic Muller]

Dear all,

As we're already in 2011 on my side of the world I'd like to send my 
best wishes to GNOME and all of us. A lot of success and fun and 
everything else we can hope for.


Happy New Year!

Fred
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Re: CENATIC Report on the International Status of Open Source Software 2010

[Frederic Muller]

Such a report requires a lot of work to be able to cover the whole world 
accurately.


From looking at the Chinese section which is the region in the world 
I'm most familiar with I wouldn't trust the other sections: only 1 local 
GNU/Linux distribution is mentioned while China has at least 4 
commercial distributions (CS2C being the one getting the highest level 
of government funds in 2010 - Red Flag has IIRC only 7 devs working on 
Linux desktop if not less this year), the described state of 
penetration/usage is also not on par with the reality, and then a lot of 
local factors are not even mentioned leading to erroneous problem 
descriptions and conclusions (and the site of the Beijing LUG has been 
bilingual until 2 months ago, when I had to remove the Chinese version 
due to a DB upgrade issue - putting it back is on my todo list).


So overall quite disappointing on the only place I know.

Fred

On 12/25/2010 11:55 PM, Lefty wrote:

I agree. In fact, I'd like to see the full text of Mr. Stallman's essay on why 
software should be free included as well, so that readers will not be misled in 
any way, but will understand the full import of this distinction.

I especially enjoy the discussion of how software developers are grossly overpaid and 
should be satisfied with making a mere living so as to recapture the joy of 
accomplishment inherent in their work.

__
Sent from my Steve-Phone

On Dec 25, 2010, at 7:25 AM, Richard Stallmanr...@gnu.org  wrote:


Please do note that GNOME is a part of the GNU Project.
Describing it as open source, while not false,
is partly misleading.

--
Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org, www.gnu.org
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T-shirt contest and GNOME Friends promotion

[Frederic Muller]

Dear all,

I'm cross posting since I guess the 3 lists might reach different 
people. I would like to follow up on that last foundation IRC meeting 
and highlight one of the point we talked about: T-shirt contest and 
GNOME Friends promotion.


Each of us can do our little part and post a badge on their BLOG and 
user group, should it be a GNOME or Linux or Free Software User Group (o 
any other kind as long as it makes sense). We're aiming at getting 400 
new FoG as soon as possible (maybe we could pick a deadline).


Badges can be found at this page:

http://www.gnome.org/friends/promote.html

The other things which would be nice is to write a post and place it of 
the front page of your blog/user group about the T-shirt contest. This 
can definitely be a news for your group.


Following the IRC meeting 3 UG have already done. It's not much but it's 
a start. You can check those for reference:

User Groups
http://www.bjgug.org/ (in Chinese)
http://gnome.tw/project (in Chinese)
http://www.beijinglug.org/ (English)

(discussing with Phnom Penh LUG, Qingdao LUG and Moonos - a GNOME 
distribution)


Blogs:
http://pockey.dao2.com (on Planet GNOME)
http://fred.dao2.com (not on planet GNOME)

We've also discussed about creating some slides for UGs about GNOME in 
general and finding topics anyone could present. If someone is 
interest or has any existing content which could be adapted let's start 
 page below http://live.gnome.org/UserGroups .


One of the first idea what to present FoG and what The GNOME Foundation 
does with those founds, how it helps making GNOME GNOME . I think I 
unofficially got this one assigned to me. ;-) Any other innovative idea 
welcome.


Thanks a lot for your help, any small effort matters.

Fred
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Re: GNOME trademarks

[Frederic Muller]

On 12/08/2010 07:35 PM, Dave Neary wrote:

Hi,

Murray Cumming wrote:

http://www.gnomehazelnutfactory.com/


I don't believe there's generally any problem with two companies having
the same name for a product if those products are so different. If we
ever try to sell nuts then we may have a problem.


Of course there isn't - trademarks are limited to fields of use. We have
quite a broad field of use, but selling hazelnuts is not part of it :)

I just thought GNOME hazelnuts sounded cool :)

Cheers,
Dave.

Should we then attempt a partnership? For every bag of hazelnut they 
sell they can give away a free copy of GNOME, and for every GNOME 
Desktop we distribute we can give away a free bag of GNOME hazelnut?


:P

Fred
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