Re: Fwd: Question for the canditates
On 05/26/2011 01:49 AM, Andrea Veri wrote: I'd like to ask two questions of all the candidates please: 1) As GNOME has matured the number of officially supported language bindings has decreased. The quality and availability of various language communities own bindings has varied wildly to say the least. How would you work to improve this situation? 2) What are your own feelings on supporting fairly new languages and standards like Go and Perl 6? Like other candidates and as previously stated in my answer to Frederic Peters I don't think the foundation role is to dictate technical choices, but to assist those willing to contribute to GNOME in their contributions, as long as it is inline with the direction of the project or as a RD activity within GNOME. In fact how would you see the foundation pushing for those? Having the board directors write the code themselves? Force someone from company X to do it? Pay a consultant to write some code? Pushing for language support that no body is interested in (or has started to work on) would be an artificial push if no one join the effort. However, if there is a demand and someone interested in working on it the board should definitely help to encourage more contributors to get involved and support the project. I hope i have answered your questions. Thanks. Pockey Thank you all for considering my questions. Cheers, -Ali ___ membership-committee mailing list membership-commit...@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/membership-committee ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: question for candidates
On 05/26/2011 02:10 AM, Andy Tai wrote: As Fedora is the only current GNU/Linux distribution adapting GNOME 3.0 as the default desktop, how would you facilitate to make GNOME technologies to work well (meaning minimal local patching needed) on other GNU/Linux distributions like Debian, and such distributions which may work on components competing with certain parts of GNOME, such as Ubuntu? And how would you facilitate to make GNOME 3 run well on other free OS environments, especially the BSD based ones, like OpenBSD and FreeBSD? And how would you facilitate collaborations with Ubuntu, especially, despite the different viewpoints of developers on issues like GNOME Shell vs. Unity? Actually OpenSUSE has also released a version of their OS with GNOME 3.0 as default and Debian is actively working on supporting GNOME 3.0 as well. I also feel that most distributions nowadays are multi-desktop (Fedora, OpenSUSE, Debian, Mandriva, Magea, etc) and not GNOME, KDE or replace-your-preferred-desktop-here. Only the smaller ones, or specific companies chose otherwise. Apparently I have a different perception of what the GNOME environment is, but I am not a technical person. Now facilitating technological decisions means that we help with what the community has decided (as I mentioned it in my previous answers). At this stage no decision has been taken yet and whenever we (the community) decides to go either way, the way the foundation facilitates those is by supporting hackfest, conferences, GNOME Users Days, release parties or whatever activity can help promoting and improving a specific part of GNOME. Should the foundation be able to raise more funds (and this is one of the purpose of the foundation, a lot more than making technical choices) we could decide to recruit a developer to help with a specific project. However which project would be decided to support is really up to a consensus and the various priorities we may have. Maybe long term support could provide more value than supporting other kernels. And this is just an example. I hope I have answered your question. Thank you. Pockey -- Andy Tai, a...@atai.org mailto:a...@atai.org, Skype: licheng.tai Year 2011 民國100年 自動的精神力是信仰與覺悟 自動的行為力是勞動與技能 ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Candidates question: Contributor agreement
Given that we already have a policy on copyright assignments[1], I wondered what is your position regarding contributor agreements[2]? Should the board do something with contributor agreements and if so, what should be done? [1] https://live.gnome.org/CopyrightAssignment [2] e.g. http://lwn.net/Articles/442782/ and http://www.harmonyagreements.org/ -- Regards, Olav ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Candidates question: Contributor agreement
On 2011-05-26 at 12:01, Olav Vitters wrote: Given that we already have a policy on copyright assignments[1], I wondered what is your position regarding contributor agreements[2]? Should the board do something with contributor agreements and if so, what should be done? as a developer and maintainer that has fought for two years to remove the copyright assignment (and a contributor agreement) on a project I worked on from within the company I work for, I can only say that we should have the same position on both. contributor agreements are just a diet copyright assignment; they introduce a barrier to contribution, and an asymmetry on the work of people helping a project. the only barely acceptable kind of contributor agreement is the one where one end is firmly held by a non-commercial entity; but even then the barrier to contribution can become too high. many new contributors arrive to a project because they have a small itch to scratch; if they have to send paperwork to fix their small issues you're effectively adding stop energy. so my personal stance on the matter is that both are generally wrong, with contributor agreements being only slightly less wrong and only in certain cases. ciao, Emmanuele. -- W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.name B: http://blogs.gnome.org/ebassi ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Questions for all board candidates
1.) For incumbents, have you missed any meetings? What is your % of missed vs attended meetings and why? For new challengers, how much time can you dedicate to working on the board each week? How do you plan on spending that time? 2.) Other open source / free software projects run their meetings in the open via IRC (such as Fedora's FESCO I believe). Would you consider that, and if not, what about recording how board members vote on a given topic. This includes +1 / -1 / abstains and perhaps give a small comment on any -1 or abstain. In my opinion, as an open foundation, the transparency of the board is absolutely critical _where possible_. Leaders should always set the example for members. Thankyou for your time and consideration. -- Jeff Schroeder Don't drink and derive, alcohol and analysis don't mix. http://www.digitalprognosis.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: [question to candidates] GNOME OS
Andy: On 05/26/11 04:51, Andy Wingo wrote: You just used the name Richard Stallman as a token for this argument is invalid. You then proceeded to call someone stalinist; was it Richard? Was it GNOME OS proponents? Unclear. This was a poor attempt at humor, I guess. With my words I was only trying to discourage a divisive attitude such as Richard sometimes seems to when he talks about GNU/Linux. I clearly failed miserably. In any case, it's quite offensive, especially coming from a member of and candidate for the board. Apologies, I did not mean to offend. Brian ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Candidates question: Contributor agreement
On Thu, 2011-05-26 at 12:01 +0200, Olav Vitters wrote: Given that we already have a policy on copyright assignments[1], I wondered what is your position regarding contributor agreements[2]? Should the board do something with contributor agreements and if so, what should be done? [1] https://live.gnome.org/CopyrightAssignment [2] e.g. http://lwn.net/Articles/442782/ and http://www.harmonyagreements.org/ Like copyright assignments, contributor agreements create an artificial barrier to entry for contributors. That's reason enough for me to oppose contributor agreements for any module in GNOME Core. Frankly, I find the attitude behind many contributor agreements to be disingenuous and, frankly, a bit insulting. It's like saying That's a cute patch, now let the grown-ups get back to the real work. If that's how you treat your outside contributors, then you'll only ever get small contributions. Many of our most successful projects are developed by people from different companies, and people with no affiliation. That's how we should strive to work. And that doesn't work when one company says This is *our* project, but we'll let you work on it. I've been maintaining Yelp for eight years. Some of the earliest work on Yelp was done by Red Hat employees. Would I be doing all the stuff I'm doing if I'd had to give all my work to Red Hat? Almost certainly not. -- Shaun ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Questions for all board candidates
On Thu, 2011-05-26 at 05:43 -0700, Jeff Schroeder wrote: 1.) For incumbents, have you missed any meetings? What is your % of missed vs attended meetings and why? For new challengers, how much time can you dedicate to working on the board each week? How do you plan on spending that time? As a freelancer, How much time I can spend depends on whether I have an active contract. I expect that I'll be able to put in a full day's work each week at a minimum, sometimes more. Of course, as with any GNOME contributor, there will be a trade-off with my regular development and writing work. I'd like to spend much of that time talking to the people who can get GNOME into the hands of users, as I talked about in my candidacy statement. Reaching out to them, pushing GNOME, listening to their concerns, and putting them in touch with developers and other community members when necessary. I've never served on the board before, so I don't know all the things that need to be done regularly. This will be a learning experience for me, as I'm sure it was for every first-time board member. 2.) Other open source / free software projects run their meetings in the open via IRC (such as Fedora's FESCO I believe). Would you consider that, and if not, what about recording how board members vote on a given topic. This includes +1 / -1 / abstains and perhaps give a small comment on any -1 or abstain. In my opinion, as an open foundation, the transparency of the board is absolutely critical _where possible_. Leaders should always set the example for members. Is there a real problem with transparency? The board does send minutes of all meetings. Reading the minutes (which I usually at least skim), I don't get the impression that the board takes official votes on everything they discuss. You can only record people's votes if they vote. Introducing more procedure could just bog everything down. I do think phone meetings are usually more productive that IRC meetings. Discussions just move faster. I certainly don't want to come in as a first-time member and tell the board it needs to change how it works. That said, if our community thinks there's transparency problem with the board, then that's a serious issue we need to address. I'm just not going to commit to a specific solution right now without a better understanding. -- Shaun ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Questions for all board candidates
Le jeudi 26 mai 2011 à 05:43 -0700, Jeff Schroeder a écrit : 1.) For incumbents, have you missed any meetings? What is your % of missed vs attended meetings and why? For new challengers, how much time can you dedicate to working on the board each week? How do you plan on spending that time? I don't think that the time spent is a good measurement. I prefer to use achievements. We all know people that spend 80h/week at work, saying all the time that they are busy and, in the end, don't achieve anything (or annoy those who want to achieve something). On the other hand, I know some people who always look relax and you never see them actually working (or rarely). But they have an amazing track of achievements. If elected, I will have the chance that working on the foundation will be compatible with my job. I don't plan to count the hours, I will concentrate on getting things done. 2.) Other open source / free software projects run their meetings in the open via IRC (such as Fedora's FESCO I believe). Would you consider that, and if not, what about recording how board members vote on a given topic. This includes +1 / -1 / abstains and perhaps give a small comment on any -1 or abstain. In my opinion, as an open foundation, the transparency of the board is absolutely critical _where possible_. Leaders should always set the example for members. Board members are elected representatives. They don't take decision for themselves, they are the voice of the people who voted for them. As such, I believe that any formal vote/decision of board members should be made public. If some opacity is required, it should be well defined and for a given time. Or at least, it should be justified. Lionel ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Questions for all board candidates
Jeff: On 05/26/11 07:43, Jeff Schroeder wrote: 1.) For incumbents, have you missed any meetings? What is your % of missed vs attended meetings and why? For new challengers, how much time can you dedicate to working on the board each week? How do you plan on spending that time? Overall, attendance has been quite good on the board over the past year. I think this board has been more active than past boards I have served on. Since Stormy left her position as ED, the board has naturally been under pressure to keep the momentum going. I missed 3 (out of 23) board meetings and 0 (out of 5) advisory board meetings in the past year. One missed meeting I could not attend since I was on a plane to GNOME.Asia on 8/19/2010. Most board members missed at least one meeting in the past year due to time zone conversion confusion, and it happened twice to me. 2.) Other open source / free software projects run their meetings in the open via IRC (such as Fedora's FESCO I believe). Would you consider that, and if not, what about recording how board members vote on a given topic. This includes +1 / -1 / abstains and perhaps give a small comment on any -1 or abstain. As GNOME Foundation secretary, I have worked hard to make sure that GNOME Foundation board discussion with useful links are included in the minutes. When a vote is controversial, I have tried to provide details. The fact that you see so few notes about -1 or abstain votes is more because the board tends to be in agreement on most matters. In my opinion, as an open foundation, the transparency of the board is absolutely critical _where possible_. Leaders should always set the example for members. I think that the level of transparency has been good. If people think there are any particular issues, lets talk about them and figure out how to improve things. Some private meetings are necessary to deal with some things, such as employee or advisory board relations, non-for-profit tax status, etc. The GNOME Foundation has been running regular public IRC meetings to discuss community concerns. Often the agenda is empty, as it is at the moment: http://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minutes#Foundation_IRC_Meetings You are right that many of the things that the board works on are things that would be better managed more publicly by committees or teams, such as the Release Team, the Marketing Team, and the Travel Planning Committee. The board recognizes this and is currently working to set up a new Events Planning Committee and better formalize the GUADEC planning committee. This should help. When people notice that topics are being discussed at the board level that people think should be better discussed at a wider level, then we normally talk about them on this mailing list or at the next IRC meeting. Join us, it would be great to get more community involvement and help. * When: Wednesday, May 18th, 14:00 UTC * Where: irc.gnome.org, #foundation * Next Meeting: Wednesday, June 1st, 14:00 UTC * Agenda: http://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/MeetingAgenda Brian ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Candidates question: Contributor agreement
hi Olav, On Thu, 2011-05-26 at 12:01 +0200, Olav Vitters wrote: Given that we already have a policy on copyright assignments[1], I wondered what is your position regarding contributor agreements[2]? Should the board do something with contributor agreements and if so, what should be done? First let me say that I believe that contributor agreements and copyright assignment, in practise, tend to be functionally equivalent. For this reason, I think they deserve equal treatment. I think our current policy on copyright assignment is excessively wishy-washy. I'd actually be in favour of a new policy: No. External dependencies are one thing, but I feel very strongly that any sort of legal agreement as a precondition to participate in the development of software that is considered part of the GNOME project is completely unacceptable. There are two reasons for this: First, GNOME is a community project. It belongs to the community. I fundamentally disagree with any company ever having exclusive rights over 'their corner'. It's totally incompatible, in my opinion, with the very concept of a true community free software project. Second, I think that having a legal document as a barrier to entry to contribute to GNOME (or part of it) is undesirable. One of the best things about our project is the low barriers that typically exist between different modules. Our commit access reflects this philosophy: it's easy to get in, and once you're in, you're in. Erecting artificial barriers would very much be moving backwards here. Cheers ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Candidates question: Contributor agreement
Olav: On 05/26/11 05:01, Olav Vitters wrote: Given that we already have a policy on copyright assignments[1], I wondered what is your position regarding contributor agreements[2]? Should the board do something with contributor agreements and if so, what should be done? I am proud to say that over the past few years The GNOME Foundation has gotten several modules to drop their frivolous demands for assignments by applying pressure in this area. The GNOME Copyright assignment policy is clear that while we generally oppose them, still any situation must be considered on a case-by-case basis. So, whenever there is an issue, we still need to discuss it and this often takes time. Brian ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Questions for all board candidates
hi Jeff, On Thu, 2011-05-26 at 05:43 -0700, Jeff Schroeder wrote: 2.) Other open source / free software projects run their meetings in the open via IRC (such as Fedora's FESCO I believe). Would you consider that, and if not, what about recording how board members vote on a given topic. This includes +1 / -1 / abstains and perhaps give a small comment on any -1 or abstain. In my opinion, as an open foundation, the transparency of the board is absolutely critical _where possible_. Leaders should always set the example for members. I do believe that privacy in board meetings has its benefits. It allows for discussion of sensitive topics where the personal privacy of another is concerned (hiring choices, reimbursements, etc). It also allows for frank discussion on public matters between members of the board. If the meetings were opened up to the public, these discussions would simply be driven to back-channels, and I don't believe that to be a net improvement. That said, the transparency of any elected body to its electors is important. The detailed minutes that we receive of each board meeting have been quite good and I believe this to be a sufficient mechanism. In essence, I have no problem with the status quo on this topic. Cheers ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: question for candidates
Andy: On 05/25/11 13:10, Andy Tai wrote: As Fedora is the only current GNU/Linux distribution adapting GNOME 3.0 as the default desktop, how would you facilitate to make GNOME technologies to work well (meaning minimal local patching needed) on other GNU/Linux distributions like Debian, and such distributions which may work on components competing with certain parts of GNOME, such as Ubuntu? And how would you facilitate to make GNOME 3 run well on other free OS environments, especially the BSD based ones, like OpenBSD and FreeBSD? I think everyone is encouraged to work towards making GNOME work to meet their needs, as with any free software. As long as patches can be kept manageable and under control, then I do not foresee any serious problems. And how would you facilitate collaborations with Ubuntu, especially, despite the different viewpoints of developers on issues like GNOME Shell vs. Unity? The GNOME Foundation already does work to encourage discussion between important contributors. There are a lot of topics to consider and discuss surrounding GNOME Shell and Unity and other technologies based on GNOME. I am sure this will be a big focus over the next year and beyond. At any rate, I think that Unity and GNOME Shell share enough infrastructure that there should be no serious concern that we will stop collaborating. Brian ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: question for candidates
hi Andy, On Wed, 2011-05-25 at 11:10 -0700, Andy Tai wrote: As Fedora is the only current GNU/Linux distribution adapting GNOME 3.0 as the default desktop, how would you facilitate to make GNOME technologies to work well (meaning minimal local patching needed) on other GNU/Linux distributions like Debian, and such distributions which may work on components competing with certain parts of GNOME, such as Ubuntu? And how would you facilitate to make GNOME 3 run well on other free OS environments, especially the BSD based ones, like OpenBSD and FreeBSD? From a technical standpoint, I believe these issues to be outside of the duties of the foundation board. Personally, I put a good deal of effort into insuring that our software ports to non-Linux platforms and I think that the effort is worth it. Just yesterday I was consulting with the OpenBSD project about how a change to GLib might effect them and I installed a Windows VM to check that the change didn't have a negative impact there. I'm willing to put the extra effort in because I don't believe that we gain a whole lot by ignoring other platforms. And how would you facilitate collaborations with Ubuntu, especially, despite the different viewpoints of developers on issues like GNOME Shell vs. Unity? I have a somewhat privileged vantage point here, having attending the past 11 Ubuntu developer summits. As far as I'm concerned, our projects have gone separate ways. There is no hope, at this point, for a Unity/GNOME merger or anything of the sort. I don't consider Unity to be part of GNOME in any way, nor do I think that it ever will be. I believe, though, that we still have responsibility to Ubuntu as a downstream project. They are a lot like Nokia was, in my mind -- using GNOME technologies to implement an alternate user experience. As users of our software, we should treat them well. One thing that very many people at Canonical have told me is that they are unsure about how the GNOME project views them and what they can expect from us. They are particularly unsure about if our developer platform is meant only for GNOME OS or if it welcomes outside uses and takes their needs into consideration. I think that as a project we should clarify our positions to them and our expectations of them. A lot of the damage coming from silly blog posts and comment threads is a result, partially, of unclear communication on our part. I think that the greatest advantage that we could gain from our relationship with Ubuntu at this point is their use and promotion of GNOME as a developer platform. Mark wants 200 million devices running Ubuntu -- a concern which probably isn't shared by a lot of GNOME hackers. Those 200 million devices will attract external developers, though, and if those developers are using the GNOME platform, I think we're all better off for it. Cheers ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: question for candidates
On Wed, 2011-05-25 at 11:10 -0700, Andy Tai wrote: As Fedora is the only current GNU/Linux distribution adapting GNOME 3.0 as the default desktop, how would you facilitate to make GNOME technologies to work well (meaning minimal local patching needed) on other GNU/Linux distributions like Debian, and such distributions which may work on components competing with certain parts of GNOME, such as Ubuntu? And how would you facilitate to make GNOME 3 run well on other free OS environments, especially the BSD based ones, like OpenBSD and FreeBSD? Part of the reason GNOME 3 isn't on many distros yet is just that it's new. Many of them will pick it up in time. That's fine. If there are technical issues, then I encourage the developers of those platforms to talk to our community. Or better yet, be a part of our community. I don't think this should have to involve the board. Maybe we can do something to reduce friction, but I don't know what exactly. Developers will work on what they want to work on. And how would you facilitate collaborations with Ubuntu, especially, despite the different viewpoints of developers on issues like GNOME Shell vs. Unity? I think it's important to make a distinction between the GNOME desktop environment and the GNOME developer platform. Ubuntu decided to create their own desktop environment. They built it off of the GNOME platform, and that's great. We should encourage other users of our developer platform to work with us on the bits we share. XFCE uses a lot of our platform as well. We should talk to them too. If Ubuntu wants to a support a GNOME remix (as they do for KDE, XFCE, etc), then we should support that. But we need to focus on the distribution channels that are going to get the GNOME desktop to users. -- Shaun ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Fwd: Question for the canditates
On Wed, 2011-05-25 at 19:49 +0200, Andrea Veri wrote: Forwarding to foundation-list two questions we received from Ali-Reza Anghaie. Please don't add membership-committee@g.o as CC, follow-ups should be kept on -list. Thanks. Andrea -- Forwarded message -- From: Ali-Reza Anghaie a...@packetknife.com Date: 2011/5/25 Subject: Question for the canditates To: membership-commit...@gnome.org I'd like to ask two questions of all the candidates please: 1) As GNOME has matured the number of officially supported language bindings has decreased. The quality and availability of various language communities own bindings has varied wildly to say the least. How would you work to improve this situation? the only thing that the board can do is to try to get other translations teams (Launchpad, others) to contribute to GNOME, although not sure if that would increase the number of supported translations 2) What are your own feelings on supporting fairly new languages and standards like Go and Perl 6? that's a technical issue ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Two Questions for the Board Candidates
First: Since the issue of divisive attitude[s] such as Richard sometimes seems to [promote?] when he talks about 'GNU/Linux' came up, I'd be interested to know what, if anything, candidates for the Board propose to do to address the ongoing waste of time and energy in the community over trivia like Linux versus GNU/Linux, free versus open source, and the like. This extends to things like litmus tests on mailing lists derailing discussions into observations about which email clients or operating systems participants might be using at the time they post, for example. Attempts to divide the community and delegitimize individuals and their viewpoints are common, and becoming increasingly so in the past few years. Bad feelings have driven many away from the level of involvement in the community they've previously had. Do candidates see this as a problem? Do they have any proposals for addressing it? Second: Do candidates have any view as to how the disastrous attempts at engagement by GNOME with the mobile space might be improved on? The GNOME Mobile and Embedded Initiative went nowhere, and arguably handed the mobile device space to Google and Android by forfeit. Since that time, there have been various attempts to get community-based, mainstream open source onto mobile devices, all of which have pretty much died. The sole remaining effort seems to be MeeGo, and GNOME has no apparent direct involvement there. Do candidates have any thoughts on the future of GNOME with respect to the mobile space? It's the fastest-growing portion of the general computing device market, and the main platform choices are proprietary or as good as. One of the issues raised by Canonical with respect to the GNOME 3 shell for Ubuntu was that it wasn't felt to be as appropriate for tablets and the like as Unity... Thanks for any responses. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: question for candidates
2011/5/25 Andy Tai a...@atai.org: As Fedora is the only current GNU/Linux distribution adapting GNOME 3.0 as the default desktop, how would you facilitate to make GNOME technologies to work well (meaning minimal local patching needed) on other GNU/Linux distributions like Debian, and such distributions which may work on components competing with certain parts of GNOME, such as Ubuntu? And how would you facilitate to make GNOME 3 run well on other free OS environments, especially the BSD based ones, like OpenBSD and FreeBSD? I don't see this as a problem now, there are several distros out there and patching GNOME's upstream source to adapt it to a specific distribution will just create disparity. Why GNOME should patch its sources to facilitate Debian and not Mandriva or vice-versa? Many Ubuntu / Debian / Fedora developers are also GNOME developers and that's the best way to improve GNOME's integration within every single distribution and flavour. Everyone is free to apply its minimal distro-specific patches as long as those don't interfere with other GNOME components and modules. I would throw the ball to the Release Team once again since this is more a technical issue than something to be discussed within the Board. (the Board do have its role in this specific case as well, which is approving and finding the needed economic resources to organize events, hackfests, release parties that could help and sponsor improving user's experience on a specific part of GNOME) And how would you facilitate collaborations with Ubuntu, especially, despite the different viewpoints of developers on issues like GNOME Shell vs. Unity? Ubuntu decided to diverge from GNOME and built its own desktop environment. While you can agree or not with this, we can just take note and move forward improving GNOME 3 day by day, week by week and year by year to make it as much awesome as we can. If Ubuntu will ever decide to build a GNOME flavour of its OS (which should happen with the next release cycle) we will be there to give our support: people will be able to touch with their hands how great GNOME 3 is. [1] cheers, Andrea [1] http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/opensource/how-gnome-3-is-besting-ubuntu-unity/2551 ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Questions for all board candidates
On 2011-05-26 at 05:43, Jeff Schroeder wrote: 2.) Other open source / free software projects run their meetings in the open via IRC (such as Fedora's FESCO I believe). Would you consider that, and if not, what about recording how board members vote on a given topic. This includes +1 / -1 / abstains and perhaps give a small comment on any -1 or abstain. In my opinion, as an open foundation, the transparency of the board is absolutely critical _where possible_. Leaders should always set the example for members. the current minutes for the Foundation Board meetings are sent to this very list, in a very timely and professional fashion. the minimal delay is due to the necessary editing: the Board, while representing an open project, has its own need for temporarily keeping some information to the community at large. it's completely understandable, and nothing to be scared of. also, not every issue discussed is solvable with a vote; and even when it is, recording who voted (or not voted) what and why might do a disservice to the Board and the community in general. a secret ballot is a perfectly legitimate democratic practice, even for representatives of a community. we should not maintain our representatives to a higher standard than we do ourselves; *everyone* should lead by example, and put the greater good of the community and the project as a whole first. the Board members are part of the community, literally: we elected them from our midst, and they don't cease to work within the community once they are in office. holding them to a higher standard usually allows some rationalization for us when we're not living up to the same standard, but it's a disingenuous thing to do. the bar should be set high for everyone, and everyone should try their best to clear it — be them Board members of Foundation members. ciao, Emmanuele. -- W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.name B: http://blogs.gnome.org/ebassi ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Candidates question: Contributor agreement
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:01 AM, Olav Vitters o...@vitters.nl wrote: Given that we already have a policy on copyright assignments[1], I wondered what is your position regarding contributor agreements[2]? Should the board do something with contributor agreements and if so, what should be done? Personally I don't like them, they are a barrier. I support our current position on this. That said, as Brian points, we should try to dissolve any barrier we encounter along the way, as people like Emmanuele have been doing. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Question to candidates: on-line services
On Fri, 2011-05-27 at 00:27 +0200, Gil Forcada wrote: Hi members, Everyday more and more services are offered on the cloud and there's also initiatives powered by Free Software (tomboy on-line...). One of the main problems for Free Software projects providing cloud services is the hardware/administration/connection expenses which are mostly a no-go for a Free Software project without any backing from a big corporation. As a member of a the future board will you look for ways to promote and look for resources to offer these free software cloud services? Maybe part of a funding campaign (be a Friend of GNOME and have a Tomboy on-line account for free). Yes. :) I think we all recognize that we need to integrate with more online services. We don't need to provide them all, but we should provide some. For things we don't provide, I think we should do what we can to pressure service providers to respect users. At the very least, users need to own their own data, and be able to get it without restriction. We don't have to do this alone. I think Tomboy Online is awesome. I think we should provide more online services ourselves. I also think there's nothing wrong with charging money for providing a service. Maybe the foundation can't do it as a non-profit. Maybe we need to have a commercial front as well. I don't know. But it's something we should all talk about. -- Shaun ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Questions for all board candidates
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 6:43 AM, Jeff Schroeder jschroe...@gnome.orgwrote: 1.) For incumbents, have you missed any meetings? What is your % of missed vs attended meetings and why? For new challengers, how much time can you dedicate to working on the board each week? How do you plan on spending that time? I plan to make all board meetings except when I'm on an airplane and I always try to schedule my travel around standard commitments. How much time I spend will vary week to week but I will respond promptly to my email and attend the meetings. I will also help lead and encourage projects - like the executive director search committee, the marketing team and hackfests. 2.) Other open source / free software projects run their meetings in the open via IRC (such as Fedora's FESCO I believe). Would you consider that, and if not, what about recording how board members vote on a given topic. This includes +1 / -1 / abstains and perhaps give a small comment on any -1 or abstain. In my opinion, as an open foundation, the transparency of the board is absolutely critical _where possible_. Leaders should always set the example for members. I would agree with recording how people vote. (Actually, I think it would be a good idea.) I think people should vote for people that represent them. Knowing how directors vote will enable people to approach directors and vote for the candidates that are right for them. A small comment would enable directors to explain their vote. Stormy ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Two Questions for the Board Candidates
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 11:38 AM, Lefty le...@shugendo.org wrote: First: Since the issue of divisive attitude[s] such as Richard sometimes seems to [promote?] when he talks about 'GNU/Linux' came up, I'd be interested to know what, if anything, candidates for the Board propose to do to address the ongoing waste of time and energy in the community over trivia like Linux versus GNU/Linux, free versus open source, and the like. This extends to things like litmus tests on mailing lists derailing discussions into observations about which email clients or operating systems participants might be using at the time they post, for example. I have taken an active role in moderating. I've sent private and public emails. Attempts to divide the community and delegitimize individuals and their viewpoints are common, and becoming increasingly so in the past few years. Bad feelings have driven many away from the level of involvement in the community they've previously had. Do candidates see this as a problem? Do they have any proposals for addressing it? I don't think people are trying to divide the community. I do think on mailing lists we don't all always have the best communication or attitudes but I think everyone is trying to do what they think is best. Second: Do candidates have any view as to how the disastrous attempts at engagement by GNOME with the mobile space might be improved on? The GNOME Mobile and Embedded Initiative went nowhere, and arguably handed the mobile device space to Google and Android by forfeit. Since that time, there have been various attempts to get community-based, mainstream open source onto mobile devices, all of which have pretty much died. The sole remaining effort seems to be MeeGo, and GNOME has no apparent direct involvement there. I think we need to come to agreement on what we want GNOME to be. I think the problem is that we had the desktop/technologies on one side and the mobile group on the other side. We need to all be working together on a common vision. There can still be a mobile mailing list but the technical discussions need to happen in the right project mailing lists and all the groups represented in the mobile mailing lists need to be part of those technical discussions. And we need a vision we can communicate to all the mobile players. I think the board can help drive the vision discussions with the community, the organizations that have been a part of GNOME for a long time and the new organizations that we'd like to work with. Stormy ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: question for candidates
2011/5/25 Andy Tai a...@atai.org As Fedora is the only current GNU/Linux distribution adapting GNOME 3.0 as the default desktop, how would you facilitate to make GNOME technologies to work well (meaning minimal local patching needed) on other GNU/Linux distributions like Debian, and such distributions which may work on components competing with certain parts of GNOME, such as Ubuntu? As a board member (and even if not a board member), I would listen to everyone's concerns and try to get the right people together to discuss them. Including people that are not currently involved with GNOME, if necessary. And how would you facilitate to make GNOME 3 run well on other free OS environments, especially the BSD based ones, like OpenBSD and FreeBSD? I think the first step is to define what is missing to make that happen. Is it a technical issue? A lack of desire on the OS side? A lack of interest on the GNOME side? Are they waiting to see what will happen? And how would you facilitate collaborations with Ubuntu, especially, despite the different viewpoints of developers on issues like GNOME Shell vs. Unity? By building better relationships between Canonical and the community. While I think many individuals have good relationships, the communities (Canonical GNOME) do not. I think relationships are built by spending time together so I'd encourage design hackathons, usability hackathons, meetings at UDS the Desktop Summit, etc. Stormy ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
