Re: Running for the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors.
Hi, I'd also like to second Jeremy's nomination. I've worked with Jeremy in the past, and he brings a lot of experience and passion for FOSS and would be a great addition to the board. Thanks, -Jonathan On Fri, Jun 3, 2022 at 3:38 AM Jeremy Allison via foundation-announce < foundation-annou...@gnome.org> wrote: > Hi all at the GNOME Foundation, > > I would respectfully like to submit my candidacy for the GNOME > Foundation Board of Directors. I am the co-creator of the Samba Free > Software Project, and am employed as Samba maintainer by Google's Open > Source Programs Office. > > My vision for GNOME is the following. I often give talks at Free and > Open Source software conferences looking out onto a sea of glowing > Apple logos from MacOSX laptops. I'd really like to change that so > that most of these attendees are using a desktop built with Free and > Open Source Software technologies. I'd also like to see the same > change take place in companies and governments using desktop > technology. > > I believe that GNOME is the best chance for Free Software to make > this change and provide truly democratizing technology, accessible for > everyone. I have been a user of a Free Software desktop since the X > Windows days (pre-Linux and GNOME) and all my personal (and work) > machines run Linux desktops a full GNOME desktop, or a desktop based > on GNOME technology (Unity). > > We should also be mindful of the fact that any use of Free and Open > Source Software for users is better than none, and not be shy about > promoting the use of other Free Software desktop technologies such as > the KDE, or other Open Source desktops where it is clear that using GNOME > is not going to be an option. > > I serve on the Board of Directors of the Software Freedom Conservancy > (https://sfconservancy.org/) and on the Board of Directors of OASIS, a > non-profit creating and maintaining worldwide IT standards > (https://oasis-open.org). I am also on the GNOME Foundation advisory > board and on the Document Foundation (creators of LibreOffce) advisory > board. > > Whilst being a Google employee, I have a strong independent voice > outside of my employer, and believe in standing up for what is right, > not just what is convenient for corporate users of Free and Open > Source Software. > > I believe the right way forward for GNOME is in partnership with our > users, developers and financial backers to help create a strong > independent Foundation that will focus on improving GNOME and > advocating for the use of GNOME technologies everywhere that our > technology will help serve the public good. > > I have a long experience dealing with the sometimes thorny politics of > Free and Open Source Software, and would love to be able to use my > expertise to help the GNOME Foundation. > > I'm happy to answer any questions Foundation members may have about my > background and thoughts about the future of GNOME. > > Regards, > > Jeremy Allison, > Samba Team, > Google Open Source Programs Office. > ___ > foundation-announce mailing list > foundation-annou...@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-announce > ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections Spring 2009 - Preliminary results
On Wed, 2009-06-24 at 03:11 +0200, Tobias Mueller wrote: Candidates in order of votes received, with affiliations: Vincent Untz (60 votes) - Novell, Inc. Behdad Esfahbod(56 votes) - Red Hat Germán Póo-Caamaño (20 votes) - None Brian Cameron (19 votes) - Sun Microsystems, Inc. Jorge Castro (14 votes) - Canonical Ltd. Lucas Rocha(13 votes) - litl Srinivasa Ragavan (10 votes) - Novell, Inc. Diego Escalante Urrelo ( 8 votes) - None Hubert Figuiere( 7 votes) - None Og Maciel ( 4 votes) - rPath Inc If the results are not challenged, then the elected directors will be: Behdad Esfahbod Brian Cameron Diego Escalante Urrelo Germán Póo-Caamaño Jorge Castro Lucas Rocha Vincent Untz So, I don't really understand the details of the voting system, but wouldn't Srinivasa come in ahead of Diego based on the table above? Can someone explain this to me, at least. Thanks, -Jonathan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME and KDE to Co-locate Flagship Conferences on Gran Canaria in 2009
On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 14:10 +0200, Dave Neary wrote: I've been pushing the board to do the following: Shared: * sponsorship * registration accommodation recommendations * local team * organising resource infrastructure costs * Some social events Co-ordinated/negotiated/agreed: * Travel budgets * Target surplus and its distribution * Programme for shared sessions Separate: * GUADEC and Akademy programs/BOFs/meetings * At least one social event * Decision on sponsored attendees This doesn't sound like colocation, and sounds very much like the one conference that has two tracks. Colocation means (to me) that we are in the same city at the same time, and have the possibility for a couple events. I would rather see registration, and some of the resource costs per-conference, and especially sponsorship be per-conference. I'm pretty sure everyone's aware that the devil is now in the details, and there will be times when we are in conflict over some issues. I expect clearing up sponsorship and distribution of surplus will be the biggest one, and the one we most need to settle quickly. To my knowledge, Akademy runs at a loss, or no better than break-even, while GUADEC has allowed the GNOME Foundation to propose hackfests, fund speakers travelling to conferences, pay for the Boston Summit, fund the GNOME Outreach Programme: Accessibility, and more. Agree with this last statement a lot. I would consider that an institutional and structural advantage of GNOME, and I would really rather not see us give that up. Looking at the aKademy sponsorship list, I see significantly fewer sponsors, a smaller conference, and less money raised. It would be crazy to effectively cede a couple hackfests to KDE. I must admit, I am pretty disappointed that the board did not really discuss this prior to putting out the call for bids (or even accepting any) and only now are we trying to figure out what we have agreed to. As you said, the devil is in the details, but these are some really big details! Thanks, -Jonathan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Foundation Budget for 2008
On Wed, 2008-03-12 at 17:22 +0100, Dave Neary wrote: Friends of GNOME: community contributions have been ridiculously low for the past 2 years since we have not pushed them. This can be a source of problems for us if we get audited by the IRS, since we don't have enough community funding to justify our 501(c)3 status right now. I suggest overhawling FoG, figuring out how to set up annual subscriptions and establishing donation levels, and doing a big community fundraising push. Just a quick comment: While we should definitely push for more FoG contributions, I don't believe we actually have 501(c)3 issues with our current source of funding. I am happy to double check with the accountant though. Thanks, -Jonathan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Thu, 2007-11-29 at 15:54 +0100, Dave Neary wrote: Luis Villa wrote: Jeff has ably debunked this particular fiction already in the thread, and more generally ably debunked the FUD that Novell somehow controls the Foundation. As to the rest, I have better things to do with my life than to debunk the rest of boycottnovell post-by-post. Now what could possibly be better than that? boycottboycottnovel.com is still available! -Jonathan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Board Member Application Mini-HOWTO
On Wed, 2006-11-15 at 00:19 +0100, Quim Gil wrote: This sounds as a strong argument. I wonder if we could get a general agreement on the fact that board members could request refund of these calls. We totally can. I don't think anyone asked this year. Or if they did, they didn't ask loudly enough. (-; Thanks, -Jonathan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Required: Administrator for the Foundation
*shrug* Online banking is a new feature for this bank. We told them we were planning on switching banks if they didn't support Firefox or other browsers, and they said that they would look into it. I wouldn't expect them to support it overnight, and given the expense of switching banks, I wouldn't want to switch immediately. I don't know what a 'reasonable time' is for this, but we are probably just approaching it. Additionally, if you recall, the original purpose of this thread was to help find an administrator for the GNOME Foundation. I would expect the new admin to switch banks if we can't use Firefox or epiphany, but we're not exactly operating on all cylinders right now. Thanks, -Jonathan signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Required: Administrator for the Foundation
On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 23:18 -0600, Mark Galassi wrote: Federico 10. Be computer literate. Preferably Linux literate. I hope that it will be a firm requirement that only free s/w be used to run the Foundation's administration. I know you are only talking about literacy, not what tools will be used, but I think this is a good moment to state that if we start hiring non-free-sw-hackers to do this kind of work, we should insist that they use free tools. I still remember my sadness when I worked for Cygnus and saw that the non-developers did not use free s/w across the board. Right now, we use free tools to run almost all the foundation's books. We use gnucash, abiword, glabels[1] and gnucash for the bookkeeping. The GNOME tools are more than adequate to handle the Foundation's needs. We do have a vmware instance to run Internet Explorer just for online banking. No one on the board is happy with this situation, and we're planning on switching banks over this issue. Thanks, -Jonathan [1] which is a really nice and underpromoted program. Many kudos to the authors for doing such a slick job on this application. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Questions to answer
On Sat, 2005-11-26 at 11:22 -0500, Richard M. Stallman wrote: Many of the candidates have identified software patents as a major threat. Would GNOME like to help in the campaign against the new IPR enforcement directive in the EU? A prominent link to FFII's page about this would be pretty effective, and easy to do. I see no reason why we wouldn't. Thanks, -Jonathan signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Questions to answer
On Mon, 2005-11-21 at 20:26 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 1) Why are you running for Board of Directors? What will you do more or better than previous years Boards have done? Why am I running? Because I need the exercise. (-: More seriously, I am running because I am passionately involved in GNOME and Free Software, and want to help it succeed. I aim to help create a great Desktop, and I can contribute positively to the board. 2) How familiar are you with the day-to-day happenings of GNOME? How much do you follow and participate in the main GNOME mailing lists? Very. I follow mailing lists, planets, and irc. I also have good relationships with a lot of people in the various GNOME sub-communities, and follow what they are working on. 3) What sources of funds do you as a candiate try do establish? And what will you spend it on? Not counting revenue from the shop and Friends of GNOME. Think more like the recent move by Mozilla or a subscription based bounty system. (olafura from gnomedesktop.org) I think that looking for general revenue for GNOME is the wrong approach. While we have had a lot of luck raising general purpose funds with the Friends of GNOME program, we have had even more luck raising money for specific purposes. One of the initiatives I would drive the on the board this year is a fund raising drive around our ISV platform. There is a heck of a lot of external interest in seeing this move forward, and I believe we can do a good job. 4) Gnome is mostly a european and US based project, but seems to have some following in Latin America and India. How will you as a candidate grow the contribution base, especially in Asia, Africa and South America? (olafura from gnomedesktop.org) These are two different questions, so I will answer them separately. I actually have a feeling that GNOME has a healthy presence in those regions. We should definitely encourage the work done locally there, and the board has previously sponsored flying people to Latin America. Or in general what would you do to increase community participation in the GNOME community and GNOME elections? Make sure that people know that the GNOME foundation is relevant to them. One of the strengths (I feel) of the GNOME community is that we are diffuse, and thus you do not have to be part of the 'core' group to do something interesting. There are a lot of other projects that have a lot of life and momentum on their own. If we can prove to them that we're relevant to their efforts, they'll join. Also, we should hold an annual membership drive. 5) The board meets for one hour every two weeks to discuss a handful of issues. Thus, it is very important that the board can very quickly and concisely discuss each topic and come to consensus on each item for discussion. Are you good at working with others, who sometimes have very differing opinions than you do, to reach consensus and agree on actions? How flexible is your time; can you dedicate extra time one week and less the next? I have the time to work on the board, and have done so in the past. It would be part of my job at work to make sure that the board functions well. 6) Do you consider yourself diplomatic? Would you make a good representative for the GNOME Foundation to the Membership, media, public, and organizations and corporations the GNOME Foundation works with? I try hard to be diplomatic, and I hope others think of me that way. 7) What do you see as current threats to the future of a complete Free Software desktop? And what would you like the GNOME Foundation to be doing to address these issues? Lack of execution and focus. We have put ourselves in a great position to become the premiere desktop -- we now need to follow through! I am really quite optimistic about our chances, though. The other major threat to a Free Software Desktop is Software patents. That is a big issue that all free software projects need to work on together. 8) What one problem could you hope to solve this year? The very first problem that the board is going to have is that of staffing. Since Tim has moved on, we are going to need to hire someone immediately to take care of the administrative details. Having been involved with a large number of hires at Red Hat, I am qualified to do this. Additionally, we need to push our ISV platform. This is one of the biggest issues facing us, and as big an effort as getting GNOME 2.0 out was. We should start another group to work on this (similar to the release team) and for this to be a big project-wide initiative. 9) Please rank your interests: a. GNOME evangelizing to government, enterprise, small business, and individuals b. GNOME marketing and merchandising of branded items nationally and internationally c. GNOME legal issues like copyright and patents d. GNOME finances and fund raising e. Alliance with other organizations. These are all
Re: [Fwd: Re: Beginning of the 2005 GNOME Foundation elections]
On Wed, 2005-11-16 at 08:39 +0100, Anne Østergaard wrote: Could we please have a full list of all the candidates who actually announced there candidacies for the GNOME Board of Directors within the time limit? Hi Anne (and others), For a number of reasons (totally unrelated to Jeff), the current board contacted Vincent a couple days ago to ask him and the elections committee to keep open the nomination period. We have an additional announcement that is relevant to the elections, and felt like it would affect people's decision to run. It was poorly executed, as we wanted to send out both mails yesterday and didn't manage to. Thanks for your patience, -Jonathan signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Petition for referendum
On Wed, 2005-09-28 at 21:32 +0200, David Neary wrote: Hi, I would like to propose reducing board size to 7 people. The board do not want to decide on this reduction, but will respect the decision of the membership by referendum. However, the board didn't agree on even having a referendum this evening (this is the problem which reducing board size will fix). That's not a fair characterization, Dave. We can't come to consensus that shrinking the board is a good idea, and told you to go ahead and propose the referendum so we could discuss it on foundation-list. And if the point of such shrinking is to remove dissent (or the possibility of dissent), it seems an even worse idea. We only had eight people at the meeting today, afterall. Thanks, -Jonathan signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
