Re: Free Desktop Communities come together at the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 4:43 AM, john palmieri wrote: > > > On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 4:08 PM, Quim Gil wrote: >> >> So I guess there is no way back. >> >> Speaking clearly, I wonder what weight in people's opinions (in the >> polls and the board meembers) had the Qt branding in badge, towel, >> roll-up ad in the main entrance, etc. Many GNOME people said they >> didn't felt 'at home' in such context. But that is something easy to >> solve in future editions. > > For me that was a huge part of it (though I was not part of the final > vote). Some parts felt hijacked and need thought on how to avoid it in the > future. I still think there is value to co-locate but I personally felt > some of the pitfalls I wanted to avoid, such as identity issues got > steamrolled by those who had other agendas. Thanks, this helps understanding. The decision of putting Qt in the badge was made in little else than 2 lines of an email thread with the organizers, where GNOME, KDE and local representatives were involved. At that time I couldn't care less since sponsors logos in GUADEC badges hadn't ever been an issue. Can you recall whether there were sponsors logos in the badges you wore in previous GUADECs? I don't. The only discussion had been about the logo(s) to be put there. Nokia was deemed as too corporate. maemo.org is actually the logo of the Maemo (independent) community, as Maemo-the-platform has no logo currently. Having all three was not even proposed by us because it looked like willing to abuse with triple branding. This is why Qt was left. That logo in the badge was actually the most visible difference in the sponsors packs between cornerstone and Gold. Qt paid more than half of the Nokia bill so it actually made sense in those days. The problem was visible only when the conference had started and we were getting our badges, and we were just as unhappy that the little detail turned out to be an unforeseen problem. Solutions: design a badge according to your identity needs (e.g. one side GNOME and one side KDE, double paper people can fold to the side they will...) and share the samples on PDF among the organizers and sponsors with time to get feedback and make modifications. You can also make more prominent the conference & projects branding, and less prominent the sponsors branding since the average GUADEC / aKademy / Summit sponsor is quite flexibke compared to the sponsored packs detailed to the millimetre available in commercial fairs. Then there was the towel, which I found a funny surprise myself. If people has more problems of identity with a Qt beach towel than with a Google plastic bottle, that's another thing. :) Also people told me that they were expecting more Maemo iconography present. Well, if I tell you that we sent 3 roll-ups that the organization could only find few days after finishing the event, you will see that we are even less happy about that. Actually I found that gold and silver sponsors shouldn't have many reasons to be happy since their roll-ups were quite spread and relatively not-visible here and there. Solution: put all those banners and roll-ups in the entrance where the "Qt developer" roll-up was and everybody happy. Again, the average GUADEC/aKademy/Summit sponsor would be just as happy since we are all used to be more in the mood of collaboration and co-presence than in brand & product location battles. Have a floor plan where all the locations of banners can be seen. have drafts of the banners shared in advance so organizers and sponsors can get an idea and have a say. Nothing that could not be fixed in a second Summit and nothing a successful single GUADEC shouldn't do anyway. All this makes me think: have the sponsors of the Summit and the GNOME Foundation advisory board members been asked their opinions about col-location vs single conferences? I don't know for companies like Novell, Canonical or Google, but at least for Nokia it was easier to put up a bigger sponsorship budget having one bigger desktop conference in one go. Also why the Linux Foundation (Gold in GUADEC 2008) didn't come back in the Summit? Was this a consequence of the co-location or would have happened anyway with the Global Crisis? And Intel, and ARM...? Are there chances to get them back? And if so, would a co-location help or not? > If GNOME and KDE are going to > have a more united front it needs to happen slowly in an organic manner, not > abruptly with agendas. Speaking for myself and not the board I felt there > was an arrogance in some peoples thought that a co-located event was going > to happen again next year even before this year's was over. It made some > of the important details, such as the badges, fall by the wayside. I had > specifically stated in the initial meetings that I felt badges went a lo
Re: Free Desktop Communities come together at the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit
So I guess there is no way back. Speaking clearly, I wonder what weight in people's opinions (in the polls and the board meembers) had the Qt branding in badge, towel, roll-up ad in the main entrance, etc. Many GNOME people said they didn't felt 'at home' in such context. But that is something easy to solve in future editions. For the rest, I was personally moderately happy. Yes, lots of room for improvement but we know this is something expected in any first release. Actually many GNOME people that was not enthusiastic about a second joint summit mentioned that one of the problems was that the agenda didn't help meeting peers with similar interests from the other side. Something that could be achieved with a better organization of the agenda, based on this year's experience. The board knows well what GNOME and GNOME 3 need in the next GUADEC. Still, two things keep me worrying beyond any plans of organizing specialized hackfests: - So where is the right place to meet people and discuss topics relating to freedesktop.org in a wide sense, beyond the limited scope and participation of a hackfest? The Desktop Summit was a promising venue, now it's gone. Linux Plumbers is (logically) too close to the Kernel alone. Desktop Architects Meetings are as limited as hackfests. - And what is the relevance that "the desktop" alone (that is, purely what GNOME and KDE cover) is going to have in the next years as opposed to full operating systems / distros or the Linux Kernel and neighborhood. Sure, the current GNOME members feel attracted by the idea of going to the next GUADEC. But what about growing the interest of new developers, from the media, from sponsors and event organizers? It is hard already for a full co-located Desktop Summit and I believe it will be harder for separate GUADEC / aKademy. And then the practical details of organizing a conference. Organizing 1 event for both communities takes less efforts and less risks than organizing 2 separate events. Another way to put it: organizing a successful GUADEC takes the same effort or more than co-organizing a successful Summit. In this sense, one important opinion would be that from the potential organizers of a following edition next year. Did they show up? Did they have any preference for a co-located Summit or GUADEC or aKademy? -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Proposal: Desktop Search hackfest
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 2:28 PM, Dave Neary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi, > > Vincent Untz wrote: >> Btw, we need people to help organize the event, especially some local >> help to find a good place for this. Is there any volunteer? > > Didn't Quim offer sharing the CCC facility with the Maemo Summit? That > seems like a good idea to me. Place to hack is not a problem but place to sleep is. Please forward this message to the relevant people: fill https://wiki.maemo.org/Desktop_Search_Hackfest#Expected_Arrivals and departures asap. If people don't know for sure yet, guessing is ok. If some people want to arrive earlier and leave later this is also ok (as far as they do some hacking and not pure tourism). There are some apartments available some days and we need to figure out the exact need and availability. I will know tomorrow the plan of available apartments. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Proposal: Desktop Search hackfest
Hi, On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 6:07 PM, Quim Gil <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Proposal: Desktop Search Hackfest. Only a note to say that the proposal goes forward, more projects are willing to join (Strigi, Nepomuk) and http://wiki.maemo.org/Desktop_Search_Hackfest is the place to watch and ask more information. Thanks to everybody. Now we _just_ need to make it happen... -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Proposal: Desktop Search hackfest
Good, we seem to have a rough consensus. I have reposted the proposal to http://flors.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/proposal-desktop-search-hackfest/ for those not in the foundation-list. Since the people is spread in several mailing lists, you can use the comments or the wiki page proposed for coordination. Or whatever space you prefer. Quim ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Proposal: Desktop Search hackfest
Thanks all for the quick answers! On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 6:52 PM, Jamie McCracken <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I would prefer it if it was Desktop search and *Metadata* as the search > aspect is already well covered in Xesam but the use of a centralised > metadata is critical to having a well integrated desktop. The details are up to you guys. I have driven the idea until the point of proposing one broad topic and having some budget to cover it. I'm almost done. ;) To tell you the truth, now I'm more worried about the finantial details. Once the hackfest is confirmed with a rough estimation of the budget I will be able to make decisions on other Maemo Summit related costs. You could agree on a broad idea about the mission and objectives. This would help the right people to decide to come. Then we know more or less how many people from which origins we have, and we can make a rough estimation (by Friday?) -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Proposal: Desktop Search hackfest
Proposal: Desktop Search Hackfest. Calling to: Xesam, Beagle, Tracker projects and whoever else is involved. When: September 19 + the days the developers decide before & after. Where: Berlin. Why: The Board made a call to organize hackfest around events and the Maemo Summit has answered. Budget: Funded by Nokia within reasonable terms. But why? Ok, let me explain. We have some budget to sponsor participants to https://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo_Summit_2008 . We want to find a balance between Maemo community contributors, related upstream developers and core developers of the Maemo SW team at Nokia. We think organizing a GNOME hackfest is a win-win. Desktop search is an interesting area. Federico explained in GUADEC the problems of Oralia finding her stuff and there are many more things unsolved. It is becoming a critical area, considering that users are getting more volumes of data, more types of files and they have them spread through several devices and the Internet. We also find interesting to support areas that are not seen as "mobile only". There are many, and in fact mobile companies like Nokia are supporting the development of features and components that many people don't even see as mobile related since they find them in their PCs and laptops. Desktop search affects everybody, even if it's perhaps more demanding in mobile devices (less processing power, different form factors, probably different input methods, surely less patience from the user on-the-go ---> higher chances to FAIL). In the GNOME family this is a delicate topic: ask the Beagle, Tracker or Xesam hackers why. Yet there must be a possibility to find a common mission and specific objectives for a Hackfest. The first Desktop Search Hackfest ever? Each project can find also the time to meet and get some progress in their own areas. It is up to the developers to define the goals of the hackfest. Maemo has some developers working on Tracker and they like the idea. It has been discussed briefly in the gnome-movile-devel list and at least Behdad and Vincent agree (in fact this was their idea, I was proposing a Tracker hackfest but the Desktop Search idea is cooler). We are looking for more opinions and support for a consensus. The time runs fast and September is around the corner. Feedback welcome NOW! -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ 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, Jul 15, 2008 at 8:41 PM, john palmieri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The one thing we have made clear to our Advisory Board is we do not want > this to be an excuse for companies to invest less in either events. That > would be disastrous. Sure, but who talked about getting less corporate money? In fact it would be reasonable to get more since in terms of marketing and awareness (GUADEC + aKademy) > GUADEC + aKademy Let's look at the numbers. GUADEC and aKademy have very similar sponsorship schemes, which is unsurprising considering that both marketing teams have been collaborating on this topic since 2006. See http://dot.kde.org/1205342263/ (I could only find GUADEC 2008 brochure in an attachment). GUADEC Cornerstone = aKademy Platinum = 25.000€ Gold is same in both = 15.000€ Silver is same in both = 5.000€ aKademy has also Bronze = 1.000€ Do the math and put 3 levels at 50.000€, 30.000€ and... 5.000€ Looking at the past editions of both events, reasonable candidates for a Gold are Nokia, Novell, Canonical the Linux Foundation and perhaps Google. One of them to be pushed to the top level. There are some GUADEC silvers that could be tempted to upgrade to gold. The current Silvers come mainly from the GNOME side, which makes sense due to the decentralized corporate nature of the GNOME project. This is why I'm suggsting to keep Silver at 5000€ or do an upgrade to 6000€ at most in exchange of a much higher visibility. In fact many of these companies work on components compatible with KDE technologies and/or in the freedesktop.org domain. It would be also reasonable to think that more silvers might appear since we are getting more new ones in every GUADEC and most of the current sponsors repeat. The whole mobile stuff might bring new names e.g. those around the LiMo foundation. Conclusion: same or more money to be invested with less organizational costs (thanks to sharing instead of doubling overheads) --> more money to sponsor contributors from more remote places and work better on the social side of the events. > This is not a joint event. The GNOME Board and KDE eV > agreed on this with the understanding that we are co-located, not one > conference. Some details can be shared but most of it should be treated as > we just happen to show up at the same time and place. Its buisness as usual > for the most part. If we wanted a joint conference we would have just > thrown a Freedesktop.org event. For what we have seen in this thread there are some coincident opinions among the coordinators of GUADEC 2006 and 2007 + the main hunter of sponsors and keynotes in the past years (Baris is excused for being afk). There must be something to consider here. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ 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, Jul 15, 2008 at 2:22 PM, Paul Cooper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi John, > > On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 07:05 -0400, john palmieri wrote: >> The idea is that they are two separate events with the exception of a >> room reserved for freedesktop.org and other crossover talks. Also >> keynotes should most likely be joint as well as the after parties. >> Everything else should remain separate as to not drastically change >> the culture of each event. When it comes to the program, in fact we are talking about joint bug sessions + specific tracks. The sensible approach is: some keynotes to be decided in common (Like e.g. Linus Torvalds in the opening session and Richard Stallman in the closure). Some other chosen by each side. "Track owners" could work out their own selection process. freedesktop.org tracks don't necessarely mean all together since they might be just as technical and focused to especialized audiences. On the other hand, you might have tracks based on topics like location, touchscreen UI, widgets and etc interesting for both audiences regardless of the specific technologies underneath. Then surely you have many topics interesting only to GNOME or KDE members, but still you will find an "aKademy attendee" interesting in that specific "GUADEC session" at that time of the day and the other way round. In practice this means that participants will have access to almost all areas and sessions, having probably the same fee scheme. Which means a common registration process, something really boring to setup that brings more or less the same critical work for 400 or 1000 people. Accounting. You definitely want a single professional accountant service and a single bank account, independent from the GNOME and aKademy foundations. At the end of the event the result should be 0, or have a revenue to be split as agreed (see below). Social events, they tend to be better with more people. In some cases there are obvious limitations (you don't want a boat to sink with a representation of the best free desktop hackers inside). Call it "The Cute KDE Love Boat" or "The GNOME BareFoot Tanga Contest" and you will choose your audience. There is plenty of nights for everything. Sponsors. GUADEC has the initiative here moving much more support and budget than aKademy (which doesn't mean that they don't do amazing stuff with the budget they get). Looking at the names the answer is clear: Nokia, Linux Foundation, Novell, HP, Canonical, Google, Mandriva... You want a common pool. Increase the numbers for cornestone and gold since at the end most of the companies at that level are working with both events and likely will want to get the visibility of both communities. Keep the affordable Silver level as it is for those companies that have been silver until now in any of the events. My only serious concern about sponsors is how to make the back of the shirts not-ugly. ;) One delicate aspect might be how to share the resources for sponsoring participants and revenue, if any. Of course losses should be considered but a conservative business approach should prevent that due to the reasonable expecations to get sponsors. A solution could be that both organizers of GUADEC and aKademy in 2008 share the information on what have they got from sponsors and how much from that did they invest inviting participants. Find how the numbers correlate between both events and find the right % that would correspond to each. 50/50 is a nice number and something to consider, but at least until now the numbers have been (I believe) different and bigger in the GUADEC side. I'm sure the right peoplefrom both projects can agree on the right terms pretty easily. PS: Now I see Dave has sent an email getting into more details on separate sponsored participants etc. Yes, this is just common sense. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: yay canaries!
Hi Behdad & board, On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 5:11 PM, Behdad Esfahbod <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Unfortunately it turned out to be so. Needless to say, I did not mean > to offend anyone. And I apologize if I did. I'm sure you had no intention at all of offending but well, you did. Since it was unconscious it is good to discuss and move it to the consciousness. An advice for future years could be: - Don't be partial to any candidate if you are involved in the decision (Behdad did in this list - which is fine but then it would be good to stay out of the process). - Don't expose any candidate publicly, especially not with cheap stereotypes (I'm afraid you did, by tying Tampere and Coruña to popular non-excitement and also by connecting Gran Canaria to sol, playa y fiesta). - Explain the reasons why the winner won, and why the rest didn't. For what I remember your "survey" mentioned mostly beach and price of beer. No mention at all about Coruña or Tampere. - Invite the no-winners to resubmit next year, making clear that we want to have them on board. Do we need to remember how hard has been to get a single candidature in previous years? - Say a clear "Thank You" to all - probably GNOME's Rule Number One. > Each bid > has its own unique strengths, but in the end, we decided that the unique > opportunity of the Gran Canaria bid to reach out to Africa was something > we really want to explore. Like a good brother I'm not criticising the decision, but I recommend you not to put this argument upfront before prior investigation and concrete decisions made on that direction. In fact, this might be a problem as it was in Vilanova: plenty of requests for recommendation letters from African countries from which I count just a couple from Algeria and Morocco as legitimate - and they couldn't get the visa either. This took a lot of time and hassle, including calls and conversations with Spanish embassies in remote countries. At the end most of them were probably fake (and I don't blame them either, at the end borders are full of sad stories) The Canary Islands are one of the main gateways of immigration from Africa to the EU. In this sense is like a European military fortress, no matter zillion priviledged citizens fly there as tourists free as in speech and quite cheap as in beer. Africans with properties and a bank account won't have problems but considering their origins (e.g. South Africa) they will probably fly via Madrid, Paris or London anyway. All the rest will need a lot of help from the organization to get a visa and a flight ticket. Fyi there are direct flights to Gran Canaria from Cape Verde, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal and Western Sahara. Working out something with computer science faculties in Casablanca, Marrakesh and Dakar seems like the first thing to try if we really want to play the African card beyond the good intentions. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Akademy+GUADEC *2009* Hosting Proposals
On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 5:44 AM, Germán Póo-Caamaño <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The price of the water is irrelevant if we see the large numbers. > Using the information given in the bids (not biased): Thank you very much Germán! Now we start having a good comparison on what has really an impact in the organization and execution of the event. Hopefully the speakers of each candidature can help fine tuning these numbers and other valuable aspects behind them. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Akademy+GUADEC *2009* Hosting Proposals
On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 1:17 AM, Lennart Poettering <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Thu, 03.07.08 20:54, Quim Gil ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: >> Coping with parties every night is a problem for the economy of many. >> This was raised in previous editions and should be taken into account >> next year, no matter where. 3 sponsored social events with drinks >> reasonably covered + a couple of nights covered by a visit to the >> supermarket + a couple of nights actually sleeping well and drinking >> very healty water... Sounds like a plan? > > I somehow doubt that this works out. It didn't in Birmingham: some > people went out all the time because they had no problems affording it > in Birmingham -- Some people had to focus more on living from > Tesco. Claiming that this was a good solution is, uh, not really > understandable to me. I didn't, see above. I agree with you this is a problem and I'm suggesting to address it directly no matter where. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Akademy+GUADEC *2009* Hosting Proposals
Are you reading the (very good!) materials the three candidates have prepared? What makes the Boston Summit expensive is the travel (for Europeans) and accommodation (for everybody), but this is well covered by the three candidates. On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 6:30 PM, Lennart Poettering <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Are there even any direct flights to Tampere, except from HEL? Ryanair in Tampere operates to Frankfurt, London, Bremen, Dublin, Milan and to Riga. Blue 1 operates to Stockholm and Copenhagen. http://www.finavia.fi/airport_tampere-pirkkala?pg=5375 Food, at http://www.gnome.org/~behdad/akademy+guadec-2009-bids/finland/ there is a list of restaurants with many options starting from meals at 5€. Remember that Tampere is a city full of (public) university students, including Erasmus from all Europe. 5€ is a competitive price in the Spanish Summer, specially in the coast. Coping with parties every night is a problem for the economy of many. This was raised in previous editions and should be taken into account next year, no matter where. 3 sponsored social events with drinks reasonably covered + a couple of nights covered by a visit to the supermarket + a couple of nights actually sleeping well and drinking very healty water... Sounds like a plan? -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Akademy+GUADEC *2009* Hosting Proposals
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 4:29 PM, Murray Cumming <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'd want some reassurance about the accommodation. It can be insanely > expensive in Helsinki. Is there some place where lots of people can stay > cheaply. From the materials available at http://www.gnome.org/~behdad/akademy+guadec-2009-bids/finland/ 7 Accommodation and food There are numerous accommodation options near the meeting area. Accommodation in a nearby school will be arranged and this will be the lowest cost option. The Tampere Student Housing Foundation (TOAS) provides rentable student housing. In the summertime some of these houses work as a summer hostels. TOAS is able to provide us around 200 beds in the student houses. There houses will also be in the walking distance. The costs for these rooms will be low. Hotel Omenahotelli is one of the most cost-effective choices, there is accommodation for 400 people and it is within walking distance. The Sokos Hotel Villa can be found nearest to University of Tampere. Many other hotels are within a short walking distance. Please see the list of the hotels and the map of the area. Hotel prices in Tampere are availabe in the materials, ranging from Room from 71 €/night (1-4 people) to Single from 129 €/night if you are that type of guy. ;) Finland is not a cheap country but is not the crazy e.g. Norwegian thing. :) Tampere has average prices compared to the more expensive Helsinki. Food, beer, restaurants and stuff are also cheaper in Tampere for the same products. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Akademy+GUADEC *2009* Hosting Proposals
fwiw I'm staying silent because of this threeschyzofrenic feeling, having colleagues in the three proposals. I have no doubts the three teams have what it takes to organize this kind of event. I just want to be precise on something: On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 10:12 AM, Dave Neary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The Finland bid will obviously (?) have Nokia backing, so we should have > a good site, some people working to organise and have a very smoothly > run conference. They've done a lot of advance work, and Finland is a > solid (if slightly pricey) option. Nokia hasn't been involved at all in the Tampere candidature. All the merits belong to the http://coss.fi team, they have done a very good job defining an interesting offer in a city with plenty of available infrastructure in July and a Ryanair airport. As explained in their report, they get all the support from the local public institutions. The venue is a university and the team is independent. In terms of sponsorship, Nokia has been supporting GUADEC since 2005. This year with Trolltech inside is also sponsoring aKademy. I would be surprised I next year Nokia wouldn't be sponsoring the joint event, no matter where it happens. Of course the Nokians are interested about the idea of having a GUADEC+aKademy in Finland for the first time, but don't you think that they put ugly faces on the prospect of visiting Galicia or the Canary Islands. ;) -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for hosts for GUADEC 2009
On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 5:30 PM, Dave Neary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Quim Gil wrote: > > On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 12:42 AM, Dave Neary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Amsterdam > >> Frankfurt > >> Paris > >> Brussels > >> Geneva > >> Milan > > > > Helsinki, anyone? > > Are you feeling like becoming our first recidivist? I wouldn't be the first one helping out in more than one GUADEC and I'm definitely not proposing to coordinate a second one. Helsinki is not a bad place for a joint GUADEC/aKademy. Being in Summer, you can hack during the "day" (and that's about 20h) and sleep all night long. ;) It would be nice to have some local guy i.e. Linus Torvalds for the opening keynote... -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for hosts for GUADEC 2009
On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 12:42 AM, Dave Neary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Amsterdam > Frankfurt > Paris > Brussels > Geneva > Milan Helsinki, anyone? -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for hosts for GUADEC 2009
Cool! Proposed location for the first joint GUADEC/aKademy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_Center_of_the_Earth ;) (Alternative, sunny locations come to mind though) On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 9:43 PM, Hubert Figuiere <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Note also that Summer is probably the > worst period to get cheaper travel, so all in all it seems to be made to > prevent people out of Europe from attending en masse. Note also that Summer is probably the best period to get one week off for students, and also for professionals. There are other possible gaps in the calendar (Christmas, Easter) but you would get the same high season prices. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: time to (re)consider preferential voting?
On Feb 17, 2008 1:47 AM, Shaun McCance <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Maybe I'm the only one, but I don't really see the point. Normally people have preferences over candidates, even between the ones getting their votes. Proposing a preferential system makes sense. > For the board elections, we are electing seven people, > and we each get to cast up to seven votes. I don't > think we've ever seen the list of candidates unfairly > cut due to non-preferential voting. I bet many of us vote _strongly_ for certain candidates and are happy to vote _also_ others. In case of close results (and we had them around the 7th position in the last years) this system might give preference to those candidates _strongly_ supported by a sector of the membership, probably in exchange of candidates voted by many, although not that effusively. Perhaps this gives better chances to commited newcomers or specialists in a single area. I think all in all would help having more radical changes from board to board if there are interesting newcomers. > Any preferential voting systems is going to make the > voting process more difficult. If I had had to order > my votes in previous elections, I'm sure it would have > been mostly arbitrary. If it's not solving any real > problems, why bother? I don't think many people has the same opinion over the seven candidates is voting. Even if it wouldn't make that difference in the final results I think it's worth using it. It makes you think more about who are you voting and who you really want to see in the board. I don't see the big effort of doing this once a year... -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: time to (re)consider preferential voting?
On Feb 16, 2008 5:53 PM, Luis Villa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > whether or not this is a good idea. +1 As exposed in the past, I believe any form of preferential vote is more suitable for the GNOME Foundation elections than the current system. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Re-considering expectnation web service
Sorry, I understood Expectnation solved the issue of the registration payments and related accounting. This is one of the main pita and critical areas organizing GUADEC. For Vilanove we developed a custom made application that made the trick at some extent but was really hard to be reused in further events. If the registration payments are problematic to handle in Turkey a possibility would be to handle them in the USA directly through the Foundation, perhaps with the exception of Turkish participants that could use an internal channel to avoid moving money accross the borders. The event organization relies mostly on the money from sponsors and the registratioon bit hasn't been critical in the past years afaik. If this bit is solved then all the rest can be solved either improving the current Drupal website or interfacing with preexisting modules/apps used by linux.conf.au or whoever willing to collaborate (in Vilanova there was some discussion about using the soft developed for the W3C activities but after some mails nothing happened at the end. Baris, your list of features can we accomplished with Drupal alone. Some of them might require some extra work but as someone said perhaps it can be contracted if you don't find any volunteers. Or you can always drop the extra improvements that are not that essential and concentrate on the couple of things that really matter. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Re-considering expectnation web service
On 12/29/07, Edd Dumbill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > It's all proprietary right now. Open sourcing is a possibility for the > future, but it's not likely to happen in 2008. Is expectnation then more or less as proprietary as the software powering Sourceforge, Launchpad, the Google or Yahoo! services? Fine with me, specially if it's good and by using it we might be helping Edd getting a sustainable business model and eventually opensourcing it. GUADEC organizers need to concentrate in the event organization and the content and communication. This is complex enough. Developing conference software is out of scope. The website itself shouldn't bring much time nor hassle. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Foundation misattribution
Hi, On Dec 11, 2007 7:47 PM, Hubert Figuiere <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Usually I don't care what slashdot can say, but this time they are > making statements that are not true. > > http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/07/12/11/161252.shtml Peter is connecting items that are disconnected. The only common pattern I can find there is a will to damage the image of GNOME. Zonk then promotes this connection of items to Slashdot's visibility with a quality criteria that in journalism is called 'sensationalism'. > and I quote: > > "... and GNOME Foundation director Quim Gil's stonewalling of the > patent-free Ogg Vorbis / Theora format on behalf of Nokia. ..." I'm currently director of this Foundation to fulfill an administrative bypass. I never requested this role and I'm doing nothing with it. Wait a couple of weeks and I will be done as director and board member. The link points to a bug report in maemo.org with comments I made as Nokia employee in August - totally disconnected from the OOXML discussion and also disconnected to whatever paper a Nokia representative sent to the W3C recently. I'm spending a lot of time and energies advocating for free software and open standards in my job at Nokia. I won't go to Slashdot or even here to explain details about my life. Surely I have written in public pages more stuff that could be decontextualized and quoted against GNOME. And against Nokia too, it's just a matter of searching with sensationalism in mind. The alternative would be to stay quiet and work only indoors. Not my style, though. > The way this will be interpreted by most readers is that the foundation > made the statement. In the comments of a bug report in maemo.org with a signature that says "Quim Gil (Nokia)"? If someone wants to be so unaccurate and have such a distorted perception then I wouldn't spend much time trying to clarify anything else. > Maybe it is time for another PR damage control? Maybe it's time for peaceful and relaxing holidays. Some people seem to be needing them even more than me. Not you, Hub. :) Said that, I will do whatever the GNOME Foundation wants me to do. As usual. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Report of the GNOME Project Day at foss.in/2007
Hi! On Dec 10, 2007 12:40 PM, Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > At foss.in/2007, there was a GNOME Project Day. Details of the talks for > the GNOME Project can be found at http://foss.in/2007/schedules/ Interesting report of what looks like a very interesting day! Congratulations. What you don't say is... are you going to repeat with a GNOME day in 2009? -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: clarification and apology [was Re: board]
On Nov 8, 2007 7:44 PM, Luis Villa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > apologies for the impression I may have > created about the current board. No problem, Luis. I don't think the board members got bad feelings for your constructive and rather justified criticism. Man, we love you! -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Who would be a good member? [Was: About the coming election]
My 2 cents > > That in effect perhaps raises the important question "So who would be a > > good member of the Board?". - Avoid the 'popularity contest' syndrome. Popular contributors tend to be busy and you don't want a board of busy members. - Give a chance to newcomers. I'm planning to vote for something like 3 or less 'sure bets' and 4 or more 'surprises' if there are enough candidates to choose from. I'm no expert in statistics but I bet it can be proved that "4 surprises" multiplied by hundred voters results in something not that surprising anyway. If everybody assures the bet then the result tend to be even more conservative than most people wanted. - Don't trust much the introduction written by the candidates when running for election. It's not that they are lying, they just might be too optimistic on that moment - and they are marketing themselves. Trust their path in GNOME, their actions and contributions. - Don't fear voting "wrong". There are no wrong candidates because all Foundation members have proved a dose of GNOME love. Even a "wrong board" could not do much more wrong things than a "right board". In reality the margins of power and action are not that big. I insist the wrongest mistake is to vote people that is going to be extremely busy next year. But there is no easy way to predict that, so relax and vote. - Shall I add 'trust your feelings'? PS: I won't run for (re)election this year. I feel I haven't been able to respond to the great backing I got from the last election, mainly due to... being busy and not dedicating enough time to my GNOME duties. I feel bad about this and I apologize to those who put any expectations on me. You see, I'm a good example of someone running for election with time available and optimistic perspectives, then something happens and you end up in a very different situation. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Executive director [was: Re: OOXML]
On 11/6/07, David Bolter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > It is perhaps of interest to some that the Mozilla Foundation has not > found it easy to find a new Executive Director I believe the GNOME project needs more an "executer" than a director. Looking for the perfect candidate can be a long, expensive race that perhaps brings no result. We have tried this, didn't work, don't think it will work. Note that in most cases you need a strong professional context to hire a strong professional. The Mozilla Foundation can offer that strong professional context. GNOME can't, and I'd even say doesn't want to. There are some people in our community that would make wonders executing and directing in the GNOME Foundation, if we would set humble objectives, humble approach and pay a decent salary for that. Hint: if that person hired among us is a good team player able to engage the community, after 1-2 years the results obtained in total wouldn't be humble at all. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: bounties?
On 11/6/07, Dr. Michael J. Chudobiak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I guess it's no surprise that money and free/open software have a > delicate relationship... I have been putting it in this way: The connection between free software development and money compares to the connection between friendship and sex: you can build a consistent relationship starting as friends or lovers and continuing that way, but if you jump for once to the other side you will probably mess up everything. Of course there are exceptions but it's probably not worth to look after them again in the GNOME context. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Executive director [was: Re: OOXML]
fwiw I also think that an executive director would be good for the GNOME project, more needed than a business developer. At least GNOME gets the resources that needs for doing what is capable to do. This was not clear a year ago but as Jeff points out things evolve and we learn in the process. The profile could be someone already in the GNOME community with an open professional career a love for GNOME and open source, community development skills, good communication, able to travel and somewhat interested and skilled in money related stuff. I'm sure this person exists already in GNOME, and is reading these lines (or at least would read then in Planet GNOME). The secret is to start humble and small, and improving something every quarter. The problem is _only_ to find the name and surname, sending the offer on the right time. Perhaps opening the position publicly without a pressure of time, waiting for candidates? Anyway, stuff for the brains of the next board. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: board [was Re: OOXML [was Re: GNOME Foundation Board Meeting Minutes :: 7/6/07]]
Hi, Things I have learned during this time at the board: 1 - Voting busy candidates is risky if not counterproductive. 2 - Running for election when you are busy is risky if not counterproductive. 3 - Seven members is what you need to run efficiently a board. 4 - Even a board of busy members can be a good board, but needs to concentrate on the essentials. 5 - You concentrate on the essentials by *not doing* other things, either because you delegate, you drop or you don't even start new things. 6 - It is difficult to point out publicly and even internally when something/someone is wrong concentrating on the essentials, delegating, dropping, starting new things. We are (too?) respectful with each other. In fact 6 is more complex: you can point when you are not inside, if you are inside you can't point. Because you are outside you don't have all facts, which makes difficult to point accurately, effectively. Because you are inside you have more facts, but this makes difficult to point issues because you put someone and yourself in evidence. Breaking respect in exchange of efficiency isn't easy - probably not even appropriate in an organization of volunteers. Full stop. If Luis runs for election I'll vote him, no doubt about this. He has been pinging and pushing on legal matters as a champion. I feel that we at the board have failed integrating his voluntarism in a delegation. I still wonder what has failed and why though. All the elements were in place: a Legal area in the board with 2 people responsible, public and private mailing list, relatively regular contact with lawyers and people around legal matters, regular presence of legal related topics in the board meetings and agenda... Should I make a conclusion I would probably end up thinking that personal differences had more weight than they should, but who knows. The board hasn't been proactive enough delegating again, that's my feeling. Because we don't want to delegate? I don't think so. The problem starts when people is lacking time to assume the most basic responsibilities and feels overwhelmed only to follow the basic routines. If you have been into the Art of Delegating before you know the paradox: in theory delegating will let you do more things in less time, in practice the process of delegating takes time in itself - which is a trap when people feel like not having time. Is the 7 member board the root of the problem? I strongly disagree. I think the current board of 7 has been extremely efficient in the first half of the year considering the total amount of personal time invested. I bet a board of more people couldn't beat that. The second half is being more dramatic,. and it is painful to reckon that many deep issues could have been avoided or at least dealt with more properly if all the board members could have been around with some time available for collaboration and quick response. Also, looking backwards we also see that our time and issues could have been invested much better. What is left from the 10th anniversary? Imagine if some of that time would have been put in a Boston Summit planning. How much time did we put in aligning the election period with GUADEC? Imagine if instead we had been dealing with this poisoned OOXML discussion. Of course this is easy to say now, the problem is always to foresee things before they happen. This is an art that can be better performed having more time and calm in our minds, btw. And even if you foresee issues there is still that problem of being difficult to point them out without being not as respectful as we use to be. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Suggestion for coming elections
After more thinking... On 10/16/07, Dave Neary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Picking 11 from 12 is a farce. Picking N from N+1 or anything closer to N than to 2N is going to be a farce or a light decision no matter what election procedure you design. I agree with Vincent: the current system already allows to vote 6 or less candidates, no need to change a tool that we know it works. I'm not even sure we want to promote people to vote just for 3 candidates instead of a broader number i.e. 6-7. In the way we are organized it doesn't matter how many votes you got once you are in the board: every board member counts as one. I don't see where does it help to have bigger differences in votes received between elected board members. About the specific case of not reaching 7 people, the situation is of total crisis: elected board members should choose people for the remaining seats either from candidates with 0 votes or GNOME contributors that didn't even run for election. So in fact I would recommend otherwise: picking 3 candidates is generally easy for everybody, but make the effort to find 7 names from, the candidates because at the end this is the number of people that will run the Foundation board. In fact the dubious votes pointing to newcomers or not so popular contributors can make a bigger change than the sure bets to the well know rock stars that get elected ijn the first 3 choices. What needs improvement is the fact of getting at least 14 candidates, so there is really variety to choose from. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Suggestion for coming elections
What happens when you get less than 7 people with votes? On 10/16/07, Dave Neary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi, > > I have a suggestion for the coming board elections which I think might > make things more interesting (and, coincidentally, better). > > We've always proceded by giving members N votes, where N is the number > of seats available. What this results in is a very strong yes vote for > one, two, maybe three people, and a tepid "meh, why not" for another few > candidates. At least, that's my experience. > > I suggest that forcing people to choose more tightly who they're voting > for would be a good thing. If there are 10 candidates, picking 7 from 10 > is no good. A few years ago, we had 12 candidates for 11 places. Picking > 11 from 12 is a farce. > > Members could be limited to 3 votes, a nice balance between > first-past-the-post and preferential voting. > > The number of seats stays the same, the election mode stays the same, > from my reading of things, there is no need for any change to by-laws, > all that's needed is a decision from the board as to how the election > will be run. > > Cheers, > Dave. > > -- > Dave Neary > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
About Planet GNOME
Hello everybody, The board received a request from Valek Filippov about the administration of http://planet.gnome.org . We accepted it for discussion and this is the conclusion we have got: - Planet GNOME is an official GNOME subsite and for that reason it is good to have more than one person administering it. - The content of Planet GNOME is good and it reflects the good editorial work that Jeff has been doing accepting feeds. The board is happy with any improvement on the current situation keeping Jeff's editorial leadership. - The more mundane administration of the Planet is less critical from an editorial point of view and is in fact the cause of most criticism. The board thinks that these administrative tasks will be better handled by a team, and probably also through better channels than private emails. - Although some board members had several ideas to improve the current management of Planet GNOME in more transparent and decentralized ways. board-list is not the place to discuss or agree on those. We recommend Jeff and anybody interested in this topic to discuss and get to conclusions openly in gnome-web-list. Thanks, -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: noooxml petition
On 8/31/07, Hubert Figuiere <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Is this an official statement from the Foundation or a personal one? > Your mail sounds unclear about that. Personal. The OOXML positioning was a point in the agenda in our last meeting on Thursday 23rd but at the end we didn't discuss it deeply. Hopefully in the meeting next Thursday we will able to answer the request about this topic as Foundation. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Towards more collaboration between the academic world and the GNOME community
Remember this thread? Anybody kept working on a GNOME group focused on universities? What about moving the topic to ie marketing list with the objective of creating a formal committe? On 5/7/07, Carlos Garcia Campos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > El mié, 25-04-2007 a las 01:05 +0200, Vincent Untz escribió: > > Hi, > > Hi, > > > As you probably know, there have been some research done in the acadamic > > world related to GNOME in the past. However, from the GNOME point of > > view, this is not something we've been good at, or at least, we could do > > better. Like, keeping track of what has been done, pushing to get more > > research related to GNOME done, getting useful contributions out of the > > research projects used in GNOME, etc. We could even imagine the GNOME > > Foundation being a partner in research projects in the future (we're not > > ready for that now, of course). > > > > Some people within our community are active in the academic world, and > > know quite well how these things work. We'd love those people to > > participate in an effort to make the GNOME community more open to the > > academic research. The goal is to create links with labs and research > > teams, and hopefully be able to help define projects which will be > > useful to GNOME. > > I work for GSyC/LibreSoft [1], a research group at Universidad Rey Juan > Carlos in Spain mainly focused on libre software engineering. GNOME, > both as a project and as a community, is present in a lot of our > studies, mainly because in the group there are people already involved > in the GNOME community like Alvaro del Castillo[2] and me[3]. > > So, we are very interested in participating here, since we are already a > link between GNOME and research world. > > > So, how do we make this happen? A few key people will be needed to lead > > this effort. We'll create a mailing list, which will be used to discuss > > how we can improve such collaborations, but which will also serve as an > > entry point for researchers who want to work with GNOME. We'll need to > > be open about proposals coming from researchers and as helpful as > > possible. One of the first steps will also be to find people in > > universities and labs who could be interested in collaborating with us. > > We are interested in collaborating. > > > GNOME resources are of course available to make all this happen: svn, > > wiki, mailing lists, website, and many other things. > > > > Feedback is welcome, and volunteers will be cheered :-) > > > > Thanks, > > > > Vincent > > [1] http://libresoft.urjc.es > [2] http://libresoft.urjc.es/People/show?id=6 > [3] http://libresoft.urjc.es/People/show?id=10 > > -- > Carlos Garcia Campos >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >http://carlosgc.linups.org > PGP key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x523E6462 > -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Proposal: Shift election cycle back six months
First things first: 1. Make sure that from a legal point of view we can have board mandate not coinciding with budget terms. If legally we can't do it the rest is pointless. 2. Check if the current board members would be willing to continue for an extended period. If the current board members are not willing to go further the rest is pointless. 3. If 1 and 2 are met then we can talking about something as exceptional as a referendum. Really, the GNOME Foundation doesn't *need* urgently that change. We are used to plan and execute changes that have a mid term impact. The newly elected board would have to wait until Istanbul to meet. What is the so big issue with that? Until now this has been the rule and we seem to have survived. I don't understand really why all this hurry now. On 8/10/07, Jeff Waugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Sorry, I'm going to dive into boring details... > > > > Is this something from the by-laws (I couldn't find a reference to the > > "10 days notice" there, but I only gave a quick look), or something you > > are suggesting? > > Yes. See under VII: 3-8. > > > And by "vote", do you mean "referendum" or something else (the only other > > type of vote I know is "elections" :-))? > > Just a vote of the membership. > > - Jeff > > -- > Open Source in Mobile 2007: Madrid, Spain http://www.osimconference.com/ > > The Unix Way: Everything is a file. > The Linux Way: Everything is a filesystem. > _______ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Proposal: Shift election cycle back six months
The current board was elected for one year and there is no exceptional reason to change this. The next board can be elected for an extended period and then voters and electors know what is going on beforehand. On 8/10/07, Jeff Waugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > OK, simply, the stated reason for the extraordinary measure (face to face > > meeting timing) is not a strong one to justify touching the term limit of > > the board. > > In that case -- let's try for productive input here, if possible -- how do > you suggest we solve the problem? (Or describe why it's not a problem that > needs to be solved.) > > - Jeff > > -- > GNOME.conf.au 2008: Melbourne, Australia http://live.gnome.org/Melbourne2008 > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Proposal: Shift election cycle back six months
On 8/7/07, Jeff Waugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > So here's the proposal: I'd like to suggest we shift the election cycle back > six months, landing the process in May and June Just to make sure we don't miss details. Most of the work the board does has no time dependency. One exception is GUADEC and I agree it is good to make use of this opportunity. > (Note that > the Board is unlikely to make a change like this without formally consulting > our membership via a referendum.) Also note that the current board hasn't discussed or pre-decided anything about this. As Jeff says, we have got sporadic words about this possibility but that's it. This discussion in foundation-list is the only discussion about this topic and we will apply changes or not based on it. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Idea: GNOME event in Beijing 2008
This is a call for volunteers and interested GNOME lovers in Beijing / China / East Asia. Please forward to friends and contacts that might be interested. There is this initial idea of organizing a GNOME event in Beijing next year. Emily Chen and other developers of the Sun Desktop in Beijing have started pushing the idea and now they are in the task of having an initial organization team with volunteers from other organizations, companies and individuals. There is a lot of GNOME related development going on in Beijing, China and East Asia in general. This conference could be a great opportunity to provide more visibility to the ideas, people, teams etc. We are starting the discussion in the GNOME marketing-list. More: GNOME calling to Beijing / China / East Asia http://desdeamericaconamor.org/blog/node/384 -- Quim Gil ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct on foundation-list
On 7/31/07, Behdad Esfahbod <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > it's just easier to point people to CoC when they behave poorly. Understood. :) If you think this is relevant then just point people to the CoC, from member to member (as Claudio did). It might work in many cases. The board has the same responsibility to deal with this kind of issues if the membership doesn't solve them alone, no matter whether we have a CoC or not. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct on foundation-list
The foundation-list is a channel of communication of the GNOME Foundation membership and therefore is ruled by the charter and by-laws of the foundation. See http://foundation.gnome.org/about/charter/ and http://foundation.gnome.org/about/bylaws.pdf There you have established rules agreed by all of us, some of them referring to measures to take when members of the Foundation show a poor conduct. The board has authority to decide in such cases. In this context, and in the foundation related lists, an additional code of conduct is just redundant. On 7/31/07, Behdad Esfahbod <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi, > > I want to suggest opting in for Code of Conduct [1] on foundation-list. > See the "Applies to" section of CoC for what this means in practical > terms. > > [1] http://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Regarding OOXML and Microsoft patents
On 7/31/07, Behdad Esfahbod <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I don't think it's relevant to the foundation anymore. Agreed. And put in different words: if anybody is concerned about how this issue affects the GNOME Foundation and the GNOME project in general please expose these concerns in a way we can do or say something. Thank you. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Foundation Board Meeting Minutes :: 7/6/07
On 6/11/07, Behdad Esfahbod <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > how can they be efficient if only 50 of the 500 GUADEC > attendees get the chance to experience it? Think of 10 joint meetings of about 100 people average hosted by bigger events worldwide where GNOME and KDE people anyway go. This looks like a more sustainable equation favoring more people (and more focus in each event?). Of course this doesn't sell as much as the joint conference to the press and the corporate world but... I think at a community/project level is a better and more profitable (in the non-monetary sense) approach. This is perhaps the old debate about centralization / decentralization - I tend to opt for decentralization. And sorry, having gone through one GUADEC and other events I can't detach organizational challenges from the discussion. It's like discussing which car to buy leaving for later the measures of your garage. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Foundation Board Meeting Minutes :: 7/6/07
About the KDE & GNOME event, probably the best way to progress is by doing progressive approaches. Jumping from the current situation to a joint conference sounds a bit like going from self-esteem to the 32nd position of the Kama Sutra in one go. As others have suggested, a successful combined room in FOSDEM would be already a big (and useful) step. Trying to put together GUADEC and aKademy befor trying smaller challenges in save contexts would be very risky. And combining both events is complicated only from the organizational point of view. The KDE and GNOME community don't meet in random places, or where the software/events industry decides to organize something. The organization of each event rlies on local communities. It is not that easy for each project to find brave teams and good venues every year (how many candidates for GUADEC 2008 have we got?). Now think about the challenge of searching for a place with GNOME & KDE critical mass I wouldn't spend much time discussing about mixing/approaching GUADEC & aKademy. Steps towards combined sessions and programs in the main free (and also non-free) software events is probably more fruitful. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Towards more collaboration between the academic world and the GNOME community
On 4/25/07, Ted Gould <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > They'd prefer to say > that they have a project from Novell/Redhat/Intel/etc. This shouldn't be a problem for GNOME. Sounds like there is an opportunity for collaboration with the companies in the advisory board at the GNOME Foundation. The big ones have surely university programs, and people working (full time?) on them. They might find interesting ways to play at a GNOME level. Once the doors are open and the branding is in place finding projects for GNOME research might be easier. Co-branding with GNOME logos too, these projects love logos! Nobody i.e. in a university department wants to help kicking off this initiative? This looks like one of these projects progressing once someone decides to pull it firmly. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Special GNOME event in California next week
To Dan and the rest of GNOME lovers. Some privacy (not secrecy) has been needed to bring this idea into a reality. Trust the promoters 5 days more and you will most probably agree. Look the topic of the conference. If you are into this topic you probably know what's going on, or know who will be most probably involved. All the main GNOME players in this topic were invited sinnce the very beginning and have been active since then. If you are not into this topic you can probably wait these 5 days. :) Like I wait fir whatever novelties about GNOME projects I can't follow other beyond Planet GNOME Really, I understand your concerns today but there is nothing to be concerned about. Can we resume this debate in 6 days and save some burnt energies? You won't regret. Trust us. Quim ___ foundation-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Fwd: Supporting Gtk+ Maintenance
This email was intended to go to the list as well, sorry. -- Forwarded message -- Date: Mar 17, 2007 7:32 AM Subject: Re: Supporting Gtk+ Maintenance To: Tim Janik On 3/14/07, Tim Janik wrote: > > Hello Foundation Board. Hello GTK+ team. > The Gtk+ project is in dire lack of new maintainers, mostly to review (...) Thanks for this report, and actually thanks for the first report you sent back in Christmas. On thaty time the board was in transition, but we already took your points and since then this has been one of the main points in our agenda. This is why GTK+ was one of the 2 main issues presented to the advisory board members this week, together with Documentation. There are lots of aspects to fix and improve in the GNOME project, but the board has decided to put these two on top of the agenda. A practical conclusion of the discussion this week was that we need a space for discussion where the GTK+ team, the board, the advisory board companies and probably any other key GTK+ contributor / stakeholder / user can share this discussion. An official channel where we can hold a discussion from these different perspectives in order to solve the main issues and push GTK+ to the bright horizon it deserves. This channel might be online+offline, something like a combination of a specific mailing list + meetings in relevant conferences + ... The GTK+ core team has the initiative proposing the space and the bootstrapping process of collaboration. Let's use this list to decide the new channel. > So for the foundation board, there are two things that can be done > to improve the current situation: > > 1) Please present the issue at hand (this email and the email linked > to above) to the advisory board members, to make sure the companies > involved are aware of the situation. And if possible, spread the > word to other involved parties or (non advisory) companies. Done the first part, advisory board organizations are aware now (of course most were aware before, but now it's official). Any ideas regarding how the board can spread the message to other organizations and channels are welcome, we will do our best. > 2) Please investigate if the hiring/sponsoring of a full time Gtk+ > maintainer position by the Gnome foundation is also a possibility. This investigation and the rest of points you made in this message need to be discussed in this common channel to be created. There is no point having this discussion without the GTK+ team, and in fact we expect the GTK+ team to be the first proposing specific solutions. You need to lead this agenda. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: an open-audit voting system for GNOME elections
Interesting, thanks for your interest in the GNOME democratic space. Is your project based in a specific voting system or can it integrate different ones? For instance, now we are using in GNOME a simple system of most-voted-get-elected, although there have been discussions about integrating a preferential voting system. If we were going to think of using better voting tools, it would be worth to discuss and agree whether we are happy with the current voting system or we prefer to go for another one. Not big deal, but I think that a preferential system would respond better to our will and needs. Perhaps too much for a chance if we need to do the implementation, but if someone if offering his expertise willing to develop a great voting tool... On 3/12/07, Ben Adida <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi all, > > My name is Ben Adida, I'm a postdoc fellow at Harvard working on crypto > and public policy. I spend a bunch of my time on voting systems, -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
New board roles
The board had its second meeting last week. Although we have been individually really busy during January, we hope to be more efficient from now on. I am starting having a work/family routine after the move to Helsinki, and Nokia is letting me some GNOME time during office hours. That helps. We decided new board roles: - Glynn is the new secretary (before it was Federico). - Dave is the new treasurer (before it was Jonathan aka jbr). - Anne repeats as vice-hair. - I'm chairing this year (following Dave's Path of Chairing Wisdom, hopefully). My candidate program was focused on internal board/Foundation improvements, and this is what I will try to push. You will know more about the meeting very soon, in the minutes. We want to beat our marks delivering them publicly. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Our annual meeting at GUADEC
Your idea sounds good but I wonder how efficient is the average human being after >8h meeting in a day. What about: - 10h-15h board meeting with a sandwich break in between (at 12h30 or so) - 15 - 16h real break - 16 - 18/19h AGM And then 2h board wrap up another day i.e. after the Core days to get common conclusions and assign tasks. I like the idea of a dinner+discussion after the AGM but why not doing it informally with other attendants. :) Last year we were so tired at the end of the all-day meeting that it wasn't clear who had to do what, which IMO affected the output of that meeting. For example, we spent a long time discussing issues and elaborating possible alternatives that weren't discussed again anymore after the GUADEC & summer. PS: the main point here at foundation-list is that we would be going for a 2-3h AGM the afternoon before the Core days, non-board opinions are needed. On 1/9/07, Dave Neary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > One note of caution - the all-day board meeting generally does need to > be all-day. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Our annual meeting at GUADEC
The GUADEC2007 team is working on a very first draft schedule for the Core days. Maybe it's a good time to start discussing how we want to celebrate the GNOME Foundation annual general meeting. I've been only in the last two editions and therefore I have a strong lack of perspective. However, both meetings at Stuttgart and Vilanova could be improved. THE THEORY GUADEC Core days is when more GNOME Foundation members are around, therefore it's the best time to meet. IN PRACTICE Because it's the Core days the schedule is very busy, there are lots of talks and everybody is finding ol' friends in the corridors. Night life is also intense specially these days. The AGM is located in a whole in the schedule, 1h at midday. The result is that just a few people come by, there is not much time for participation after the board has reported what needs to report in an AGM and not much energies anyway. At the end of the AGM everybody leaves the room going to the next talk with a kind of unsatisfactory feeling. SUGGESTION - Let's schedule the AGM the afternoon or even early evening before the Core days start. - Let's have at least 2h scheduled with a possibility to extend the time for those enjoying the conversation. - Let's work together the agenda, forwarding to this mailing list most of the information that can be better delivered here in order to discuss more and better those topics that can better approached live & life. PS: this is a personal proposal, not something agreed or discussed previously by the board. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Free call board meetings (was Re: Board Member Application Mini-HOWTO)
On Fri, 2006-11-10 at 13:29 -0600, Federico Mena Quintero wrote: > * The Foundation will not reimburse you for the conference calls. The > calls are invariable hosted in the USA, so you may have to do > long-distance calls every two weeks. We haven't done any work to > make the calls through VOIP or anything. We had our first 2007 meeting last Thursday. Every board member was able to call to a free phone number in her country and the conference happened somewhere in telecom space. This will be the system for the rest of meetings this year. Thanks Glynn & Sun for the service. Also thanks to RedHat for the conferencing infrastructure provided in previous years. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of conduct (bis)
I forgot to say that I can be arrogant myself. Arrogance is always better perceive by "the others". -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of conduct (bis)
2006/12/11, Alan Horkan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > The Code of Conduct is not abuse, as both you and Philip seem to perceive > it. More than perceiving, I'm reading. :) Murray introduced the CoC as a tool to 1. prevent abuse - see http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2006-May/msg00057.html The Bugzilla team has been the first one using the CoC - Olav explained it was a useful tool to prevent abuse and act against it. > Gnome has rightly or wrongly acquired a perception of arrogance. I fully agree on this point - and with the fact that this is something we need to solve. I just doubt a CoC is the right tool to fight arrogance in our context. Have a look to the archives. Read the CoC threads back in Summer and the recent ones. Don't you find there the same level of arrogance we have in tough debates? Do you see the CoC supporters less arrogants than the rest. Judge for yourself. Some of the core CoC supporters put (in my opinion) arrogance in practice - quite in the GNOME way. I think it has something to do with years in the project, status, high responsibilities, lack of time, too many battles... I admire most of this people and I enjoy working with them. They can be great mates and sweet hearts but for some reason under some conditions they are arrogant. And yet they support a CoC. Well, I prefer that we have a clear agenda of problems we want to solve, and act to solve them directly instead of trying to find the magical text that will solve them all. If we want more women in free software let's do something about that (it's working). If we want more Asian/African/etc contributors, let's dfo something about that. If we want to wipe out arrogance let's do something specific about that. To me the CoC is a relatively easy way to have some peace in mind while the real problems keep being unsolved in their roots. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Why no press releases about new AB members?
The initial reason was that we had to write like a good press release, which never came because of shortage of resources (we need more writers in the so called marketing-private list). Maybe we could just prioritize the fact of making annoucements on time over perfect writing style. Coincidentally, this was announced today in the neighbourhood: http://dot.kde.org/1165921618/ No big deal in terms of writing, but it does the informative job. 2006/12/12, Dave Neary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Murray Cumming wrote: > > We seem to have some new advisory board members, such as ACCESS > > (formerly PalmSource), Intel, and Canonical. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of conduct (bis)
2006/12/8, Telsa Gwynne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Would it be possible to find out who felt which way? I can't see it > in the minutes, and this is very much a deciding issue for me when it > comes to voting for the new board. This is how I felt: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2006-December/msg00017.html As a board member I don't think the board needs to be the first approving the CoC. Maybe the last, after the community has approved it, if the CoC needs it. As a GNOME Foundation member I don't think we need a CoC. Where is the abuse that justifies the adoption of a new tool to prevent abuse? Writing and signing a CoC doesn't make us per se any better promoting minorities and diversity. The CoC debate months ago was a somewhat sad example. I don't think an approved CoC will change anything positively after all. It's like writing laws against war. Peace, respect and common understanding are build through actions, not declarations. I try to be a good GNOME member with my actions, and this is what I expect from the rest of colleagues in this project. If some colleagues feel more comfortable having an attempt of a description of common sense written and signed, so be it. If only being against adopting a CoC stops someone from voting me, so be it. As far as you respect this positioning as much as you say you respect diversity, it's ok. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: membership
Could you describe your philosophy and your computer usage? It would help seeing where are we changing and perhaps failing. A description of the candidate profile you were expecting might help other people present candidacy next year. Thank you 2006/12/5, Andreas J. Guelzow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > I don't mind at all. The reason is really a combination of many. > Primarily, over the last years the philosophy of the GNOME community has > shown itself to be incompatible with my philosophy. As a side effect, > the GNOME desktop has become, in many instances, inappropriate for our > usage. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of conduct (bis)
On 12/2/06, Alan Horkan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Code of conduct: "Dont be an asshat" [no comment] I'm baffled as to why the board cannot agree on this. I sincerely hope we've gotten past the point where people still disagree with the basic idea and we are only arguing a matter of degrees. I think in general (in the board and the community) is precisely the other way round: it's the principle of a CoC and how the CoC is being pushed what creates division while nobody has nothing against the recommendations written there. Here is the public part of my vote in the internal discussion the board had some weeks ago: On Mon, 2006-10-16 at 16:38 +0200, Anne Østergaard wrote: Request for a vote on the board on a GNOME Code of Conduct. My vote is No. As a foundation member I gave several reasons in the debate at foundation-list. As a board member. Leaving aside if we need a *CoC* or not, it is not a priority the board needs to push. We could push it if there would be a clear consensus in the community and there would be a general demand for a board backing. This is clearly not the case, though. I would consider an Abstention (something different than "No opinion") if the rest of board members would have a strong feeling that a *CoC* needs to be approved and backed by the board. It's not the case. A *CoC* approved without consensus in foundation-list nor in the board is a weak *CoC*, which in a GNOME community without much abuse is IMO worse than having no *CoC* even from a pro-*CoC* point of view. I have to say that the fact that Luis Villa (whose position I'm occupying now) showed in the foundation-list also a positioning against the *CoC* also contributes to make vote No. The debate happened during the same days Luis left the board and I joined. I think decisions like Olav's using the *CoC* to try to prevent abuse in bugzilla make a much better favor to the *CoC* than the board voting if it's official or not. VERY IMPORTANT: what I think the board needs to do is to look at the reasons that made Murray create that *CoC* and put specific points in oiur agenda in order to improve what is wrong in our community. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Candidacy: Quim Gil
An update in my candidacy: On Sat, 2006-11-11 at 00:37 +0100, Quim Gil wrote: > Corporate affiliation: currently none (but see below) Corporate affiliation: Nokia (1/jan/2007) > IMPORTANT: I'm actively looking for work and I could get an affiliation > before the election comes. I will keep you updated. We have agreed the position today. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org 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: Endorsement for Joachim Norieko
However big and central the philosofical gap might be, I don't see it's affecting Joachim's passionate contributions to GNOME in important aspects of the project where others just don't go through. Besides, he is always open to discussion, active search of agreement and acceptance of well founded arguments. I strongly disagree with his recent opinions about software freedom. Still, I think he can be a good board member if elected, being as useful and efficient as he is in the doc and web teams (two areas that several candidates have identified as very important). Jeff, I understand your will of having a well integrated board. Personally I'm also tempted of posting my opinions about the candidates, since I have been working with most of them. But being so transparent and pushy might have a counterproductive effect the day the board is elected and I'm there together with some members that were not in my recommendations. Willing to favour a strong and united board, I might seed unconfidence and mistrust since the first day. It looks like we candidates have in effect less freedom to express ourselves than the average Foundation members, and current board members have even less freedom than the new candidates. Being a fan of productive and explicit (self)critique, I'm not that happy with this situation but I can't find a better negotiation between freedom, responsibility and the stability board members are supposed to provide at the end of their exercise. Ideas are welcome. Quim ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME and the free software movement
I'm not sure if these questions are closely related to board responsibilities, but anyway. It's probably good to know what candidates think about colateral aspects as well. On Tue, 2006-11-28 at 18:23 +, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote: > To build awareness among GNOME _users_, what do candidates think about > putting an "About free software" button, by default, in the "Help" memu? Honestly, I think this would be almost futile. Isn't that Help menu being customized radically by each GNOME-based distribution? In my laptop the System > Help menu have 5 links, all of them pointing to Ubuntu stuff. No trace of what GNOME/upstream is offering there. > Any better ideas? Introducing free software in www.gnome.org . Considering users not aware about software freedom in our wgo target audience. Already working on this. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org 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
On Tue, 2006-11-28 at 14:26 +0100, Robert Staudinger wrote: > (i) Concerns can be heard throughout the community every now and then, > that the increasing corporate interest and investment makes it harder > and harder to contribute code for volunteers. > Q: What is your feeling about that? I don't have the technical background to judge this, since I'm not in the CVS side of GNOME. Of course I have heard about patches being queued for ages but I have also heard different reasons for that, not only corporate vs volunteering interests. My feeling as board candidate is that if this is a concern in the community and the ground of this concern goes beyond technical aspects, it should be raised up and discussed here in the foundation-list. Or perhaps someone wants to address directly a question or complaint to the board. This is how issues hit the agenda. > (ii) Are you interested in working on making it easier for people > willing to contribute code? Oh yes, I'm interested. A lot of my time invested in GNOME goes to tasks related to attract new people and make it easier to contribute. If code contributors want to discuss issues beyond technical aspects, I'll be happy to help finding solutions - no matter if I'm in the board or not (I think the board should be a last resort) > (iii) What measures will you conduct to make contribution of code > easier for volunteers. (E.g. it can be rather frustrating having an > unreviewed patch in bugzilla for months.) It looks like you have in mind a specific problem (I'm not aware of). If so, I recommend you to air it up so we (community) can find specific solutions to it. I think the board needs to make sure the channels of contribution are open and functioning well. That they are properly documented and actions to bring new contributors to the project are open. There are teams working on this under their capacity. If there are issues, probably these teams can help. If the issue is big and controversial it can scale up to the board. > (iv) The GNOME Advisory has been formed to handle communication > between partys with commercial interest and the GNOME project. > Q: Do you think that a similar institution should be formed to handle > community feedback in an organised manner or will community > contributors have to communicate back using mailing lists and IRC as > it always was? Isn't the Foundation the institution to get the community organized? What are you suggesting exactly? What channels of communication are you missing to provide feedback? As a community contributor I think a quite open and non-moderated foundation-list is perfect to raise an issue hitting the core of the community with a single email. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org 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 for the candidates - let's start the discussion(s)
It's not an official page, but the links are there anyway: http://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/2006ActivityWatch On Sun, 2006-11-26 at 19:21 +0100, Murray Cumming wrote: > Could the board just ask the foundation's administration assistant to > keep that list of meeting minutes updated, please? > -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org 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: GNOME and the free software movement
On Sat, 2006-11-25 at 01:58 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: > I would like to ask the candidates for the board to state their views > on how GNOME can work with the broader free software movement > for the advance of computer users' freedom. Thinking out loud... Even considering all our problems and imperfections, GNOME is one of the big, strong and consolidated projects in the free software community. A leading player with a wide and diverse representation of interests and stakeholders that go from social liberation to fair business, from individual volunteers to transnational corporations. In this position, GNOME should keep helping free software becoming mainstream. We need to work on quality, standards, documentation and good integration with other projects/products needed by GNOME that need GNOME themselves in order to offer a rock solid and competitive free desktop covering efficiently all the basic functionality users demand. We need to be wise cooperating with our competition in the free software community (other desktop environments, other applications) keeping in mind that we are still in the catacombs and that no free project alone can probably beat the non-free competition nowadays. We need to become a essential player offering the best alternative to individuals and social organizations (we are almost there), to the public sector (doing great advances as well) and also the business world, starting by the companies that have software development integrated in their production and services (we have a good collection of precedents and we are starting to be seen as a serious-serious option). This trend should increase exponentially the quantity of free software users, probably not-100% aware of the freedom component and surely not using 100%-free software (codecs, drivers etc). Strategically I prefer this approach. I think that more quantity of users will bring easier a wider awareness of the beauty and advantages of Freedom and will make easier the liberation of code or the development of 100% alternatives to non-free code. I'm not sure if I'm answering your question, but this is what you message made me write. :) -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org 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
3,5 endorsements
Thanks Dave for opening the fire, I wasn't unsure about the coolness of candidates endorsing candidates. There are 3 candidates to which I told "You could be a good board member" weeks ago: Máirín Duffy, Behdad Esfahbod, Joachim Noreiko. The board needs people with different perspectives and a fresh approach and I think these three candidates provide them. This is why I'm going to vote them. I didn't think of Sara and I was somewhat surprised by her candidacy because of the big jump it implies. But well, what can I say myself when I did probably a bigger jump one year ago. I have also worked with her in GUADEC and I'm seriously considering voting her. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org 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 for the candidates - let's start the discussion(s)
However, for what is worth I have been supporting the dialog with KDE etc in the context of freedesktop.org (modestly in its marketing list) and I have promoted the Tango palette (in the GUADEC design artifacts and the revamped wgo). Out of the desktop, I come from the web industry and I have always been adopting W3C standards - which are a policy in the new wgo. I'm also aware of the OSDL efforts done around the Portland project and I have sent my +1 every time we have been requested at the board to send someone to an architects meeting, or bringing Waldo Bastian to GUADEC to explain the initiative. I mean, I'm above all a freedom love but such love can only be well exercised in a context ruled by common standards. GNOME rocks but there are many other cool projects out there and we need to build a common engine with common standards. > [1] What are your plans to answer the question put forward at the last > GUADEC about "Why should one become a member of the GNOME Foundation" ? Getting the condition of member of the GNOME Foundation should be seen as a recognition for a regular contribution to the project. People concerned about the present and future of GNOME should be participating in the Foundation. Also, if you are spending time and part of you life in the GNOME context you will get other benefits being a member (see below). The community needs to understand that GNOME with Foundation is better than GNOME without Foundation (and why), that a GNOME Foundation with lots of contributors and new ones joining every months is much better than a GNOME Foundation without a real representation of the community, stalled, ill. We have been failing communicating this and inviting explicitly the people. More at a recent blog post: A good moment to join the GNOME Foundation - http://desdeamericaconamor.org/blog/node/310 > Would you be in a position to elaborate on your plans/projects to make > membership more interesting for the GNOME Community ? We should tell to all the GNOME contributors So Where The Bloody Hell Are You? This is mainly a p2p task, but there are some actions we can push better with board backing i.e. - You want a CVS account. Are you Foundation member? - You want sponsorship for GUADEC or etc. Are you Foundation member? - You want to be aggregated in the Planet. Are you Foundation member? - + other examples of services we offer also - You have more than n points in bugzilla. Aren't you Foundation member? - You have translated n strings. Aren't you Foundation member? - You are ruling in your local group. Aren't you Foundation member? - + other examples of visible involvement in teams also There are plans to have more information about the Foundation and why join at the revamped wgo (that btw I'm coordinating). I'd like to see in future release cycles user profiles where people can see if Peter or Mary are foundation members, and even create special services for members i.e. discounts or free shipping when buying GNOME merchandising. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org 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: multi-culti board
On Thu, 2006-11-16 at 15:59 +, Alvaro Lopez Ortega wrote: > what really matters is that board people share a common interest in GNOME Agreed. This common interest in probably more interesting if approached from very different perspectives. There is a mismatch between the cultural/geographical diversity reflected in the candidates at the time I sent this email, the current board, the Foundation membership and http://progress.gnome.org/releases/gnome-2-16 . IMO having more nonEU/nonUS candidates would show a stronger Foundation. No need to go further in the discussion because I'm sure that precisely you, tireless traveler, know what I mean. :) -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org 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
multi-culti board
How nice would be to have Asian, American and African candidates! Quim 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: Board Member Application Mini-HOWTO
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. At the end of the year there are a good amount of hours accumulated. What is affordable for a professionals and definitely for the Foundation budget might represent a problem for a student and people from countries without prices so relatively cheap. Again, the bottom line should be that a GNOME member shouldn't stop from running for election because of money. A potential candidate is having precisely this concern now, this is why I'm insisting. PS: The solution might be as simple as calling the board member(s) needing funded calls. On Sun, 2006-11-12 at 14:41 +0100, Dave Neary wrote: > Pretty much every country has low-cost pre-paid cards which allow you to > call the US cheaply - once Jeff pointed this out to me, that was my > preferred way to get on board calls when away from home. > > The biggest barrier for me to moving to SIP is actually having to be on > the internet when on the call. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org 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
Potential candidates to the board
Responses from the 7 persons I had invited to run for election: - Busy / Short of time but thinking seriously on becoming candidate. - Already invited to be part of the release team, better not combine both responsibilities. - Getting top involvement in GNOME local group, better not to combine both responsibilities. - I don't think I fit, I better contribute hacking. FAQ: Q - How much time does this require? A - I think someone can be a good board member investing 2h for board meetings every 2 weeks + 2h a week for tasks assigned to you + following foundation-list, which has sometimes more and sometimes less traffic, but generally low-traffic. You generally work on stuff you are interested in anyway. Q - What does exactly the board? A - http://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/2006ActivityWatch The board mainly acts in the areas where there are no technical teams, or in transversal issues that involve several teams or in issues that are not being (properly) pushed and are considered important. The board itself doesn't get into technical tasks, but can assign GNOME contributors to do so. Concerns: - I'm not known in GNOME Although this is an exaggeration (the people I contacted have visibility in their areas) it is clear that most people don't want to run for election unless they see a probability of being elected. It would be good that rock stars and vets in general insist (as Federico did) that the board elections are not a popularity contest but an exercise to find the people that can work better for the board and the Foundation. Fopr instance, time and hands-on attitude are probably more important than years in GNOME or Planet karma. - I want to enjoy GUADEC Me too! The elected board should work in collaboration with Birmingham 2007 in order to find a way to combine agendas. It is possible. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org 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: Board Member Application Mini-HOWTO
On Fri, 2006-11-10 at 13:29 -0600, Federico Mena Quintero wrote: > We haven't done any work to > make the calls through VOIP or anything. On the other hand, VoIP conference calls imply broadband, which depending on countries and personal economies can be a higher barrier than a cheap call with a normal phone and one of those prefixes. This is probably an issue each new board should consider ad hoc to see if there are issues with the elected members. This year this was not an issue afaik. It would be a good incentive to offer broadband sponsorship for one year to those needing it to perform properly their board tasks. In any case the bottom line is that money or technology shouldn't be a barrier to become a board member. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org 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
Candidacy: Quim Gil
Name: Quim Gil E-mail: qgil AT desdeamericaconamor DOT org Corporate affiliation: currently none (but see below) Why: I joined the board in June in substitution of Luis Villa. It took me a while to know the basics of boarding and now that I kind of feel comfortable comes the end of the year... I think I can do more and better in 2007. There are some things I would like to help improving from the board: - Transparency of the board activities. Yeah, the old topic. After being outside and inside a pre-diagnose could be made and some measures could start being applied in 2007. I'm obsessed about transparency. - Delegation and collaboration with non-board contributors. Another old topic, connected to the previous one. We keep discussing and some progress is done, but there is still a long way to go. I enjoy team-working. - Areas and board members responsible of each area. Although there is some specialization in board tasks, the areas are not well defined. A lot of discussion and work could be optimized if there would be i.e. a responsible for legal stuff, responsible of events, responsible of local groups etc. - Advisory Board. We can get a lot more (from both sides). Also, the advisory board activity is totally unknown by the membership. Of course there is a concern about confidentiality but probable we all can find a productive way in between. - In general... Plan less and do more. There are some many good ideas around... But we better put just some in the agenda and make sure they are completed at the end of the year. Otherwise we get overwhelmed by dozens of intense debates that at the end come up with... almost no concrete result. I'm a doer, discussion without action keep my interest lower as I grow older. There are other issues or tasks that go across several GNOME teams where the board might help (and is helping). My preferred one is the GNOME websites: what comes after the wgo revamp. Web integration and also a better dialog between web team, sysadmin/infrastructure and all the subsites webmasters around. That's it. There are other things where I could... but I'd rather stay concentrated with the topics mentioned. It's more than enough to keep more than one board member entertained during the whole year. IMPORTANT: I'm actively looking for work and I could get an affiliation before the election comes. I will keep you updated. MORE IMPORTANT: I'm a candidate for the position of business development director of the GNOME Foundation. I think that Foundation employees shouldn't be Foundation board members simultaneously and I wouldn't make an exception with myself. I will resign as board candidate or member if I get this position. More at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2006-November/msg2.html -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org 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: Board Member Application Mini-HOWTO
Some impressions from a fresh board member... Basically, I agree with most of Federico's email if you dilute everything in a 40%. Board tasks and followups are not that complex if board members are able to work as a team, share responsibilities with people out of the board, pick the tasks they can pick and not more, reckon when they need help to finish stuff, etc. One problem is that many people, including rock stars, are not that used to this. Another problem is probably that we have a quite distorted perception of what a rock star is. Traditionally rock stars are singers, lead guitars and also drummers: the ones you see & listen more directly. However, people understanding just a bit about music know that in fact most of the rock'n'roll that moves our bodies comes from bassists, second guitars, chorus, sound & light technicians and many other people behind the scenes. The board needs all these. I have sent 7 emails inviting some best kept secrets to run for election. I invite you to do the same: push the people you know are great to become board members! Do not fear. On Fri, 2006-11-10 at 13:29 -0600, Federico Mena Quintero wrote: > * If you are a rock star hacker (or a busy non-rock star hacker at > work), you will not be a good Board member. Unless you realize that your code will be more successful if the GNOME Foundation is successful, and you want to learn some interesting stuff of the context that surrounds pure software. > * If you are a hacker, your GUADEC experience will be destroyed. As former GUADEC coordinator I have some suggestions for Birmingham2007 so we can improve this aspect. However, think also that as a board member you have a reason to request sponsorship for travel & accommodation if nobody is paying for you and your pocket can't afford the experience. > If you are the kind of > person that forgets what you talked about two weeks ago, you won't > be a good Board member. False, if somebody (maybe you) is taking notes for the board meeting minutes. > * The Foundation will not reimburse you for the conference calls. True in the past. However, did someone ever request reimbursement? I would vote +1 if a student or someone living in a country without those cheap calls or etc would request it. You shouldn't need to be a bourgeois to accomplish your responsibilities as board member. I would add: you will learn a lot, you will know interesting people, you will understand much better what is GNOME and what is free software (code, projects, people) about. To me it has been a very interesting 1/2 year and I want to repeat. And I'm like you. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org 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
My interests in the GNOME Foundation
My colleagues at the board recommend that I make explicit my current interests in the GNOME Foundation in this list, for you to know: - I announced internally my interest in the position of business development director in September, as soon as the board confirmed an interest in this position. The same day I unsubscribed from the board-only mailing list, where the discussion is taking place. - Since then Dave Neary reports to me about the hiring process, I guess as he is doing with the rest of candidates. Of course I'm not taking part in the meetings about this position either. I keep working on my tasks as board member and I'm subscribed to the board list. - Last week Dave told me that there was a concern in the board about my situation as board member and candidate for the position. I replied that I have no objection to resign as board member. I just want to be a candidate for the position in equal conditions. This is why I'm reporting here and now all this. I thought about communicating my interest for this position before for transparency sake, but I feared this could be considered as an attempt to gain some advantage over the rest of candidates. You know, hiring processes in community environments are delicate. I would have resigned from the board back on September if my colleagues would have requested it. I can resign now if you think it's appropriate. As I told Dave last week, I will do whatever it's best. I just want to defend my candidacy for the job like any other candidate. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org 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
A good moment to promote the GNOME Foundation
-- The GNOME Foundation is better with more members -- All we are surrounded by GNOME contributors that aren't members of the Foundation. They probably don't know much about it, don't think it's for them, don't dare to ask, leave it for next year (again?)... Bring them on board! The Foundation members are the first and best resources to get new members. In principle everybody investing time, brain and sweat in GNOME should be part of the Foundation, this is why it was created. Please help convince your projects neighbors, your mailing list colleagues, your IRC mates, your blog readers... As an example here is an attempt: A good moment to join the GNOME Foundation http://desdeamericaconamor.org/blog/node/310 -- The Board of Directors Election is better with more candidates -- All we have thought once that contributor X could be a great board member. Tell him/her! It's so easy to send an email saying "I think you could be a good board member, have you considered running for election?" As an example, I received one of these a year ago from someone I highly respect, which was a strong reason to be a candidate weeks later. I have sent already a couple of emails, and will send some more. There is so many great people around. Try it! It feels good. PS: Just to make things clear, I'm sending this email personally, not as an initiative of the board. Of course the board invites everybody to promote the Foundation and the elections. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org 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
Foundation Board Activity Watch
If you ever thought the board needs more transparency you should have a look at http://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/2006ActivityWatch Hopefully this page will help communicating better the board activities. All the information is taken from the publicly available meeting minutes. There is no additional data, just the same data packaged in a different way. Feel free to suggest and apply improvements. Anybody can edit the page. In principle a Board Watch should be maintained better by non-board members - this is how watching normally works... I will tune this page with the minutes of the meeting held today as soon as they are sent to foundation-list. From that point every update based on new minutes shouldn't take more than 15 minutes. An optional exercise, a bit more time consuming, is to dig in the minutes and mail archives in the search of more decisions and completed tasks that went off the minutes. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org 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: Substituting "Linux" with "GNU/Linux" or "GNU"
Sorry for my Spanglish. The conclusions are the same, though. > If you refer 'operative system' as 'operating system', it has only one name: > Linux. Others differ and we don't want to get into this old debate. See i.e. the beginning of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux If you find a real example in the GNOME software, documentation or websites where the recommendations of the board would be wrong or not applicable please let us know. Quim ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Substituting "Linux" with "GNU/Linux" or "GNU"
The decision of the board was reported in the last minutes - http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2006-October/msg00016.html (at the end): * Where "Linux" is mentioned on the GNOME site, try to rephrase to avoid mentioning any specific operating system. Where we refer to platforms on which GNOME is available, replace with "GNU/Linux (commonly called Linux)" Expanded: - There are very few reasons to mention a specific operative system in the GNOME documentation, program strings or GNOME websites. As someone proved back in August, most current references are wrong since GNOME is compatible with several operative systems, including GNU/Linux (commonly called Linux), Solaris, HP-UX, BSD and Apple's Darwin (ref: http://www.gnome.org/start/2.16/ ) - GNOME is not a "GNU/Linux desktop" or a "Linux desktop". It is a free desktop. Make sure everybody writing documentation, news or other texts about GNOME understand this clearly. - In the very few cases where the operative systems need to be enumerated, we recommend the use of the formula "GNU/Linux (commonly called Linux)", that has already been used i.e. in the release notes. Amen :) On Fri, 2006-08-04 at 23:19 +0300, Yavor Doganov wrote: > This is a request to the the GNOME Foundation Board for > action/decision regarding this matter. > > There are some strings in some GNOME programs and very few in the > GNOME documentaion that refer to the operating system as "Linux". We > would like the Board to vote and decide for a policy to substitute all > these references to "GNU/Linux" or "GNU", where appropriate. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://pinguino.tv 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: GNOME Local user groups
El dv 11 de 08 del 2006 a les 13:46 +0200, en/na Rodrigo Moya va escriure: > > My question is: how we can have marketing materials easily? > > > that is also my question :) What do you have in mind when you talk about 'marketing materials'? The answer possibly differs depending on the materials. Stickers, t-shirts, banners etc have different problematics. The starting point is http://live.gnome.org/MarketingTeam/MarketingMaterial . Any help updating/improving this list is appreciated. We plan to work at least with Killermundi to have a GNOME shop. That said, the problem is not just to pay the production of, say, t-shirts but also the transport to, say, Chile. In your case self-production is an important part of the strategy, as previously discussed. > > or is possible for the invited "Rock Star" to bring some gift below his > > arm? ;) If the rock star can afford them and they are easy to carry... -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct final draft?
El dv 04 de 08 del 2006 a les 22:11 +1000, en/na Jeff Waugh va escriure: > Hold on... You're suggesting that instead of creating a document with this > content, we should update another document with this content. Not "with this content" i.e. adding an extra chapter, but making sure the principles and recommendation we are missing in the current documents appear there. My basic point is: the GNOME Foundation charter has already everything we need to behave, be respectful and productive. It is not a coincidence that the community that came up with that charter and this Foundation is doing well behaving, being respectful and productive. It is possible that after these years the charter needs updating to keep being a valid referent for the GNOME project nowadays. If this is the case, let's update it. Doing the process of updating the charter would be a failure? I don't see why, this process could be healthy for the community, and the result would be stronger and more sounded. In the meantime the list of recommendations could be discussed, tested, improved, applied (it was being applied before being written in a wiki page anyway). > Interesting > idea [1], and certainly food for thought, but... totally dodging the point > of the discussion! I tried to nail precisely the point of the discussion: it is the backbone of the GNOME Foundation that needs to be healthy, adding a rib doesn't solve the problem (if there is a problem). > Can we stop arguing about *where to put it* and *what to call it*, and go > back to talking about what should go in it, and the shared values we want to > express? :-) Jeff, it is normal that people wonders what is this box and what you want to do it in order to help providing the content you want for that box. To me these principles can stay at http://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct , they are fine. But since you are asking for acceptance from the Foundation and "blessing" of the board I think the content and the label needs to be diferent. And the idea of integrating these principles to the current principles of the Foundation is pertinent and sensible, I think. But it seems I keep missing the point. Sorry for making you waste extra time, all we have better things to do than reading long threads leading nowhere. I give up. Good luck with the document. Really. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Content and Intent [Was: Code of Conduct final draft?]
El dv 04 de 08 del 2006 a les 08:49 +0200, en/na Murray Cumming va escriure: > > * be firm, but lighthearted - I didn't suggest "Be Excellent To Each > > Other" > > Yes. My only objection to that phrase (which I tried in the draft before > people complained about it) is that it's a cultural reference that isn't > fully understood by many eople whose first language is not English. There is a deeper cultural problem this sentence has that goes beyond language or film background: in many cultural contexts excellent people is not supposed to request others to be excellent. If you do, you are somehow failing at being excellent yourself. I believe nobody thinking in English and having seen "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" will get this feeling at all. Translate the sentence to your language, link it to your own background of "Be ..." recommendations and you probably get a result pretty different from what Jeff or Glynn would like to express with their best intentions. We better concentrate on pragmatic recommendations where we are more likely to get univoque meanings, even if this is not as funny as building cool rhetoric. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct final draft?
El dv 04 de 08 del 2006 a les 00:44 +0100, en/na Alan Cox va escriure: > Ar Gwe, 2006-08-04 am 00:43 +0200, ysgrifennodd Quim Gil: > > - In a worst case scenario, do we expect the GNOME Foundation board to > > arbitrate if someone violates the or do we > > think that one thing is not related to the other and the board should > > refer only to the GNOME Foundation charter and by-laws. > > That one is easy to answer - the answer is yes. Note that the question is if you prefer A or B. "Yes" is not an answer. I agree the board should arbitrate in a worst case scenario, with or without a . The question is if the benchmark for that arbitration relies in the official documents of the GNOME Foundation or we need to create a new to be "blessed" by the board. > "Lets improve the tools but I'm against improving the tools" This is not what I'm saying. I'm talking about improving the tools we already have instead of creating a new tool to patch our weaknesses, making the current tools even more obsolete and forgotten. Ubuntu has a Code of Conduct. The USA have a Constitution. The GNOME Foundation has a charter and by-laws. Do we need to promote excellence, favor minorities and prevent abuse? Let's make our current tools useful for that. The charter contains already "a set of principles that we, the GNOME community, believe in and strive to abide by". The by-laws contains already a benchmark to look to for the board and the rest of bodies officially involved in the GNOME project. These documents reflect already the content and intent of the GNOME Foundation. They don't need any extra blessing or acceptance, what is in there is a right, a duty and a guidance for all of us. If they need updating let's update them. If they need advertisement let's advertise them. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct final draft?
El dj 03 de 08 del 2006 a les 12:06 +0100, en/na Alan Cox va escriure: > You are the caveman arguing that > since it was ok to whack people on the head with a club during > disagreements last month, its clearly a good idea to continue that way. Not at all. I am a GNOME contributor thinking that real principles are not written, and writing down behavior recommendations doesn't make them stronger. I didn't come up with this idea myself, this is a fact for many psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists analyzing human communities. Different things: behaving well <--> writing down that we must behave well. Different things: not wanting to write down a list of principles to follow <--> not following principles. I haven't seen cave(wo)men in this debate, nor I find them usually in the GNOME community. I see people following principles. I see people behaving, and asking others to behave when there is an exception. Some would accept this CoC, some wouldn't. Most share already a form-less set of unwritten principles. Where is the club whacking in GNOME? There is this (recursive) suggestion that people against the proposed CoC are against principles. I think we are open to a broader, wider and more diverse collection of principles than the ones you can get by writing down a list. Also, there is this association of people against the proposed CoC with anarchism. "If It Works, Don't Fix It" is perhaps a most common denominator, which has to do with efficiency and not ideology. For what I have read, people against the CoC agree that it is probably not going to serve the purpose for what it is being created, and it will surely add trouble where there was no trouble. GNOME needs to standarize software, development processes, interfaces... but do we need to standarize behaviors? I joined a free software project with a common goal, not a country or a civilization. Every time a GNOME contributor is performing an action in this community has already on the shoulders several layers of adopted and accepted moral principles and legal rules, written and unwritten, different from the principles and rules of others. Do we really need to add a written GNOME layer? Are we in such a crisis or menace that we need to create and agree upon an additional ethical layer to behave? Do you really think that writing down "Be nice" makes us nicer and makes us look nicer to the outsiders? -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct final draft?
Bypassing the wording thing and also the content of the CoC, two questions I think we should agree on in order to move forward: - Do we aim to have an official GNOME approved and assumed by the GNOME Foundation or is it enough with a people can point to if needed? - In a worst case scenario, do we expect the GNOME Foundation board to arbitrate if someone violates the or do we think that one thing is not related to the other and the board should refer only to the GNOME Foundation charter and by-laws. I'm in favor of improving the existing tools of the GNOME Foundation to enforce dialog, diversity and respect, and to prevent abuse and act effectively against it. I'm against adopting an official netiquette-alike set of behavior principles at a GNOME Foundation level. I'm not against producing a list of useful recommendations like Murray is doing, to be as accepted as the community wants to accept it. El dj 03 de 08 del 2006 a les 12:12 +1000, en/na Jeff Waugh va escriure: > I haven't really answered the rest of your mail, because it all > comes down to "Code of Conduct" vs "let's write a document that demonstrates > our shared vision and expectations to ourselves and others". -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct final draft?
El dc 02 de 08 del 2006 a les 21:07 -0500, en/na Jonathon Jongsma va escriure: > On 8/2/06, Quim Gil <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > In that context, I don't believe it's aggressive or inappropriate in > the way that you interpreted it. You are right, now I see. Thank you. Sorry for providing a bad example, and specially sorry to Telsa and Anne for my misinterpretation. It is clear that "If something seems outrageous, check that you did not misinterpret it. Ask for clarification, but do not assume the worst." Although this gives me a somewhat better impression about the CoC debate, it doesn't affect my positioning about the CoC itself and my proposal to rely on the GNOME Foundation charter instead. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct final draft?
he proposed Code of Conduct is a new, alien document with no clear use and no clear support, I don't see why and how it could serve as a better advertisement platform of how great we are. From an "external user point of view" my first impression might very well be that if we come up now with this CoC is because in fact we are not pleasant nor welcoming, and we are trying to amend the problem with this declaration of intentions. Very different than showing a charter written years ago and still fresh, alive, pertinent, put in practice everyday. I will add some more thoughts not not about the CoC but about the CoC's debate, for those still reading this long email: - Yes, *some* messages of *some* people radically in favor of the official adoption of this CoC make other people with different opinion feel like just shut up and stay aside. Note that you can only know this feeling by yourself if you have a different opinion, this is the great thing about understanding differences and respect them. I reported weeks ago feeling uncomfortable reading some comments, and others have mentioned getting this feeling as well. "Remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable is not a productive one." - Doing a joke saying that people against the adoption of a GNOME Code of Conduct might have a bad day and could wait until being able to behave civilized is a good example of what the CoC is trying to avoid, isn't it. "Disagreement is no excuse for poor behaviour or personal attacks." I find somehow paradoxal that, in general, I've seen more aggressive behavior in the messages in favor of the official adoption of the CoC. Specially when questioning the politeness and respect of the ones not in favor. Also when keeping pushing without much chance to negotiation the official approval of the CoC when it is clear that has no consensus, saying that the majority is probably majority enough. Even if we were a minority (which I doubt), isn't a core purpose of this CoC to excel in the respect of the minorities? I don't want to put names here, you have read the same messages than I. But I want to say clearly that Murray's answers and behavior have been always consistent and coherent with the CoC he is pushing. No question about that, and no question about all the effort he is putting to improve GNOME's current situation. I modestly also want to help on the very same effort, even if disagreeing with the method he is proposing. And I do think *everybody* taking part in this debate has the same motivation, even if I don't agree with the transient behavior of some. For all these reasons I think a CoC as it is being proposed is a bad idea. I think we shouldn't adopt officially a GNOME Code of Conduct, and I don't think the board of directors or the GNOME Foundation should have anything to do with this CoC, unless we decide to change the current status of the Foundation. I also want everybody to make sure and advertise that GNOME is and will be a welcoming and pleasant community. This is why I think we should wave the GNOME Foundation, its charter and its mission statement as the best tools to assure our productive collaboration, mutual respect and multifaceted happiness. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Local user groups
El dv 28 de 07 del 2006 a les 09:45 +0200, en/na Dave Neary va escriure: > Hi, > > Felipe Barros S. wrote: > > 3. To resolve in part the expenses of the meetings that we make. We can > > sell some stuffs like a stickers, mugs, pencils or whatever, using GNOME > > logos and fonts? > > 1. In general, no. The foundation has a couple of agreements with > vendors selling GNOME merchandise (and more on the way). Selling GNOME > merchandise for-profit (even as a fundraiser) is explicitly forbidden in > the user group agreement I referred to earlier. Also my personal take, not knowing most of the legal stuff implied. Conceptually, I think self-sustainability of GNOME user groups must be a principle stronger than the commitments and dependencies of the GNOME Foundation with merchandising vendors. In case of conflict we should look first after the GNOME user groups. With this concept clear, coherent practices could be: - If we can have agreements with several vendors because we sell no exclusivity, we could set something like vendor agreements with GNOME user groups. - These agreements would make sense specially in countries with strong problems of distribution, where buying a t-shirt to an official vendor would imply paying more for the transport than for the t-shirt itself. Reasonable vendors should understand this. - In places with no distribution problems i.e. with a vendor and a user group in the same country we would enforce coordination instead, requesting vendors to offer special prices to user groups. Reasonable vendors should be interested on this deal with a good customer. - Note that an agreement with the GNOME Foundation implies that the user group has a legal entity. This makes sense: a group wanting to move money needs to account their finances legally. This is what i.e. GNOME Hispano is doing. The same issue applies if you want to get money from sponsors, apply to public funds, and so on. If you don't want to go through the process of creating an association you probably don't want to go either through the process of getting serious on fundraising. - If you are out of the main GNOME distribution channels, your group has no legal entity and you still want to raise some money selling GNOME merchandising... as Dave says we can't really stop you from doing this. Just make sure what you do is fully compliant to the first principle of GNOME user group self-sustainability. Don't do anything that could upset the GNOME Foundation (community or board) and, please, don't get in competition with our vendors. If the latter is your case don't except much more official help from us... but bring some t-shirts to the next GUADEC / GNOME event because we GNOME merchandise collectors will pay for them as anybody else. ;) -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Local user groups
El dc 26 de 07 del 2006 a les 09:59 +0200, en/na Dave Neary va escriure: > GNOME user groups Right > > - Active mailing list for coordination > > Required Ok, this is enough for the kind of 'certification' I'm looking for. Should be hosted in the GNOME server? My vote is +1. There is a mismatch between the user groups related lists found at mail.gnome.org and the user groups listed at http://live.gnome.org/UserGroups . Someone wants to make a diff? ;) See http://live.gnome.org/UserGroups#head-295f0ad46a5c8a8f00f18959765c99e019df2aff > > - GNOME Foundation members in the group > > Desirable (I'd like to make this required - it would be nice for all > user groups to maintain a full membership list) I think this is a requirement if you want to have your group listed at www.gnome.org. You wouldn't need Foundation members to start a group, and you could be operating with mailing list and live.gnome.org pages. The fact of starting and consolidating a GNOME user group should be enough to qualify to become a Foundation member. You see my point, this way we list in wgo consolidated groups with Foundation members in it. > > - Agreed contact with the GNOME Foundation > > English speaker - for the gugmasters mailing list we discussed during > the marketing BOF. Great idea. > > - Local press contact > > Required, probably. And this should be a person. No more mailing lists > as press contacts! What if we say that since the GNOME Foundation is the official speaker of GNOME, then we would request to have Foundation members if they want to be listed at http://www.gnome.org/press/ We can discuss if the person in charge of contacting the press needs to be a Foundation member her/himself. I think this is required, being open to exceptions (basically people with an ongoing application to become Foundation member). I mean, we need to keep a minimal control over who can speak officially as GNOME - also at a local level. Coordination of these press contacts would be another priority. > > - Democratic and non-profit structure (legal existence desirable) > > Definitely not required. Sorry, instead of 'democratic' I meant 'open'. Having a public mailing list to which anyone can subscribe is open enough. It is clear that legal existence is not required, and not even desirable (this is something the own groups needs to evaluate). > > Perhaps a first question would be whether we need to have something like > > an official list of GNOME groups and a checklist to know if your group > > is official or not. > > I don't think so. We should simply have a list of all the groups we know > about, but you don't need a stamp of approval to support GNOME in your > town/region. What about the now more refined proposal of letting anyone having a mailing list and go to the wiki pages, but have some requirements for those being listed in wgo as local groups and press contacts. We don't want to control people willing to crete a GNOME user group, but we don't want to disappoint local users and local press either. We need some kind of quality control since local people perceive local GNOME groups "as GNOME" as the GNOME Foundation itself, or probably more. > I disagree quite strongly. We can take out the bad guys one at a time, > using the community mark idea. But we need to allow people to > self-organise without passing through the GNOME Foundation. Agreed. Now my proposal is only about advertising in wgo groups as GNOME User Groups and individuals as press contacts. The Foundation as such has nothing to do with this, but with the wgo maintainers. Note that wgo maintenance is responsibility of marketing-list, so it makes sense that we want to promote consolidated groups and recognized speakers only. In the same way that we want to promote in wgo only the cool software (letting anyone to create a GNOME application) and only the cool success stories (letting anyone to have their own GNOME story). > I insist, though, that the foundation is not the place where groups get > created or made official. We will be a service provider for user groups > - a place for information exchange and co-ordination - not a centralised > command & control structure. Fully agreed now, thank you for your clever points. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Local user groups
El dc 26 de 07 del 2006 a les 07:36 +0200, en/na David Neary va escriure: > You mean like live.gnome.org/UserGroups? Definitely, this is a very good start. I searched "local" by title (no relevant results) and by text (too much results) and din't find this page. A first step into "certification" would be to agree a name for these groups. :) Another step could be to agree on a checklist of required + desirable points. Some of them are already there as recommendations. - Active mailing list for coordination - Website up to date - Responsive IRC channel - GNOME Foundation members in the group - Agreed contact with the GNOME Foundation - Local press contact - Democratic and non-profit structure (legal existence desirable) Perhaps a first question would be whether we need to have something like an official list of GNOME groups and a checklist to know if your group is official or not. I think some kind of certification is needed to avoid conflicts like i.e. which is the "real" Russian GNOME website (or are both as "real"?) or risks like some guys linked to a profit company weaving the GNOME flag for selfish interests in a part of the planet where it is difficult to us to check what's going on. In the new www.gnome.org we want to map all the official GNOME subsites, and the local groups are related to a big percentage of them: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeWeb/GnomeSubsites . This one reason to have an official list with some kind of control from the GNOME Foundation. And one more thing that perhaps could help in the coordination Fernando was requesting. Since organization of meetings, participation in events and fundraising for such activities are a common and primary mission of the local groups, I wonder if it would be useful to have a gnome-local or gnome-events mailing list to exchange ideas and experiences. Now this is supposed to go to marketing-list but, really, I think many people very active in local activities can be not interested in many discussions going on in marketing-list. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Local user groups
El dj 06 de 07 del 2006 a les 12:47 -0400, en/na Fernando San Martín Woerner va escriure: > On the other hand i would like to hear ideas on how we can coordinate > this efforts, and how the board and the foundation can help, having > strong user groups it is signal of good health of our community. What about creating a wiki page in order to define: - What is a GNOME local group, including minimal requirements to be recognized as an official local group by the GNOME Foundation. - List of current GNOME local groups. This is important because we want to put more trust and responsibilities on the local groups (inviting new foundation members, press contacts, local web maintainers etc). Therefore we need to know what and who are we talking about. It will also be useful for contributors wanting to create a new local group: what do we request them, what can they expect from us. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GUADEC/GNOME build machines
El dl 17 de 07 del 2006 a les 14:04 +0200, en/na Dave Neary va escriure: > So, it's complicated, but here's the summary: Taking a decision in this list should be easy. Once the decision is made the administrativia to make the moves legal are not necessarily simple, but they don't need to be done here in the list. Legal aspects apart, we all seem to agree that these 4 boxes will be owned by the GNOME Foundation and will stay in Fluendo's office to do some building work. Once this is confirmed Chema from GNOME Hispano and I will take care of the rest. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Required: Administrator for the Foundation
El dt 20 de 06 del 2006 a les 13:56 -0400, en/na Richard Stallman va escriure: > Until you find another bank, you could stop dealing with the bank on > line, and do business with it the old-fashioned way, with paper, phone > calls, and/or visits to the bank office. It may be inconvenient, but > it freedom is worth a small sacrifice. Just to note that things are more complicated than this, applying your recommendation now would put GUADEC 2006 at risk. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Required: Administrator for the Foundation
El dg 18 de 06 del 2006 a les 12:26 -0400, en/na Richard Stallman va escriure: > (Quim Gil pointed out that it may be necessary to hire someone > who isn't GNU/Linux literate, just to get someone soon. Just to avoid confusion, I didn't meant to hire someone who isn't free software literate to use non-free software tools as a GNOME administrator, but come and learn the usage of the free tools the Foundation is already using (detailed by Jonathan). A good administrator knowing the concepts and knowing to use non-free tools is very likely to learn the usage of the free tools easily. That's all. As Dave has pointed out, we have already at least one candidate able to use the current free tools. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Required: Administrator for the Foundation
El ds 17 de 06 del 2006 a les 15:55 -0400, en/na Richard Stallman va escriure: > Federico> 10. Be computer literate. Preferably Linux literate. > > Unless you're looking for kernel hackers, > please make that "GNU/Linux literate". In fact, in this case it would be most accurate to say "Preferably free software literate", since the skills we require from this administrator are focused on the usage of office/desktop applications. Maybe we should have simply asked for someone "preferably GNOME user". :) > You probably want people who know how to edit with Emacs, > write code to compile with GCC, debug with GDB, and call > functions in GLIBC and GTK+. Well, not at all. We are looking for an administrator (accounting, bookkeeping and so on) and not for a system administrator or a developer. Think more on the basic Internet tools, word processors, spreadsheets and accounting applications. About making this preference for free software literacy a requirement, I agree the desirable scenario would be to have an accountant hired by the GNOME Foundation and working with GNOME. But we need an accountant, urgently. Finding candidates is not easy, and the priority is to find the best accountant available. If this person doesn't know perfectly how to use the free tools available s/he can learn. Very different of hiring a great free software user/developer with just regular administrative skills. Help us finding a great administrator with the free software skills needed, and problem solved. :) PS: Richard, looking forward to seeing you next week in Barcelona. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Temporaray enlargement of the GNOME Board with 2 persons
Hi Dom, El dv 09 de 06 del 2006 a les 11:31 -0400, en/na Dominic Lachowicz va escriure: > What > problems is the board facing that cannot be handled by the current > members plus delegation as appropriate? This is a good question (the other ones as well, but at least I can say something about this one). In the board meeting of last Wednesday we discussed possible and easy to implement ways to improve the communication and collaboration between the board and people willing to have a higher implication and participation in foundation/board tasks. Good communication eases collaboration, and good collaboration eases trust. Trust is the root of many problems of delegation: sharing or delegating a private task to someone you trust and collaborate takes 5 minutes (ok, maybe more). The same action without regular communication-collaboration-trust takes more time, and risk. Jeff is preparing a proposal. I just wanted to provide some informal and personal feedback so you don't think that the board is keeping the temporary enlargement as the only or primary option to consider. > IMHO, history now repeats itself.) Another interesting point, that brings an issue... In our current setting it is very unlikely that the current board is going to criticize openly something specific about the last board. I believe the way the board is mounted and unmounted every year makes difficult to make (self)criticism openly. It's not like one party losing an election and a new party coming in (system that has its defects but at least assures criticism and review of the past actions). This is not something unique to the GNOME Foundation, this is a problem intrinsic in any organization voting for individuals that suddenly need to work as a compact team, and then be renewed quite often (like once a year). The problem is clearer when some individuals repeat, and some come in for the first time. Maybe a solution would be that the team leaving the board makes not only a meeting with the new board members, but also a last internal meeting to write up a public report of which things went well and why, and which things went bad and why. And/or a summary of the same questions answered individually by each board member. Hackers know that documenting is the best way to avoid known mistakes. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Required: Administrator for the Foundation
Help the board (and the whole GNOME Foundation) spreading this profile or this link: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2006-June/msg00077.html It is crystal clear that the board members will be much alleviated the day we have an efficient administrator in control of all the numbers and legal stuff. El dj 08 de 06 del 2006 a les 17:52 -0500, en/na Federico Mena Quintero va escriure: > Hi, > > The GNOME Foundation is in need of a part-time administrator based in > the USA. Our administrator will: > > 1. Collect, sort and summarise mail for the Board. > 2. Handle bills in a timely manner. > 3. Prepare checks for the Board to sign. > 4. Track donations and fees. > 5. Maintain a list of Board contacts. > 6. Send out Friends of GNOME gifts to donors. > 7. Keep the boards files in order, and sending expenses (when > appropriate) to the accountant. > 8. Handle the purchase and preparation of materials for tradeshows. > 9. Attend board meetings bi-weekly as appropriate, and prepare > status updates. > 10. Be computer literate. Preferably Linux literate. > 11. There is no number 11. > > Proximity to Boston, MA is very desirable, though not mandatory. > > Please send your CV/resume in plain text to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Federico > > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Temporaray enlargement of the GNOME Board with 2 persons
El dl 05 de 06 del 2006 a les 15:42 +0200, en/na Anne Østergaard va escriure: > The Board would like to propose to you a temporary enlargement of the > board with two persons: Behdad Esfahbod and Germán Poó-Caamaño. I wasn't in the board when this issue was discussed, and as a new board board I'm unsure what should I do now if I disagree. Transparency is always a good path, I guess. - Consequent with the past Increasing now the board size seems inappropriate after the referendum discussions and result and without having made an extended use of asking explicitly for help and delegating within the GNOME community. - Size is not the problem We seem to agree that the problem is not the size of the board but the current circumstances that make many board members have less time than expected. If size is not the problem, the enlargement is probably not the solution. It's like having unsatisfactory sexual live and going to the doctor to enlarge your breast or your penis. At the beginning it might look like a change and a progress, but the root of the problem is still there, and possibly larger now. - Delegating and collaborating with people out of the board There was a lot of discussion about the few time required to be a good board member, let things happen, stay out of the way... We simply need to put in practice all that. For instance, invite someone to pick the Boston Yellow Pages, make some calls and come up with 3 companies we could hire for our accountancy and representation. Delegations like this might originate some crisis situations but since we are already in a crisis situation... what can we loose? And what can we learn. Adding 2 people to the board might be methadone to keep the problem of not sharing and delegating with less pain. - Too busy to delegate and hire We know the paradox of not having time to delegate or hire, making an overwhelming situation deeper. A solution is to stop the machine consciously (many times is already stopped, unconsciously) and concentrate in delegating. An intermediate option is simply do less things or not letting new tasks start before the delegation/hiring problem is solved. We missed something because of this? Yes, but how many thing are we missing by not delegating/hiring. - The quest of finding the magic full time profile No wonder we didn't find the magic profile: a yin accountant & administrator + a yang fundraiser + based in Boston + competent and available + of course familiar with free software and GNOME (discussed at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2006-April/msg00023.html ). It is probably better and easier to hire the services of a mercenary business representation based in Boston + hiring one or more part time people we know and trust, based wherever and able to travel when it's needed. - Boston (Massachusetts, USA) It is a danger to have a board elected with candidates from everywhere that needs to have at least one member in a specific city: Boston. What if jrb wasn't elected, didn't want to renew or decides to leave some day? This is per se a reason to hire the services of a company (something theoretically more stable than an individual) and visit them every three months, either picking the Boston metro or a flight. - Conclusion The board is overwhelmed and needs help. The fact that the board didn't share the discussion since the earliest stage but came up with a pre-conclusion is, I think, already a symptom of how overwhelmed the board members are and how far we all still are from opening the board and start sharing and delegating with the GNOME community. Many tasks the board can't delegate easily are related to services that can be hired. Let's concentrate on that, while we review publicly the list of priorities and see who can help on what inside / outside the board. Of course nothing of this has to do with the capabilities of Behdad and Germán, who could be without doubt good board members. It has not to do either with the fact that I joined the board as a first patch for this problem. I had these opinions months ago, when I couldn't imagine I would join the board during this year. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Women in GNOME (Was: Code Of Conduct)
El dj 01 de 06 del 2006 a les 10:51 -0500, en/na Shaun McCance va escriure: > there tends to > be a reasonably high percentage of women in technical jobs > that aren't necessarily programming (though they may involve > some programming), such as project management, tech writing, > graphic design, and quality assurance. > > All of these positions tend to be under-represented in the > free software world, at least among volunteer efforts. Good point. We can try to find and convince the very few geek women out there for free software hardcore programming. But if we miss people in all the non-programming tasks, wouldn't be easier to find new types of contributors through these gateways? Documentation, marketing, web publishing, graphic design, journalism, project coordination, community management... are tasks that involve both women and men in the professional world. We have difficulties recruiting volunteers, any kind of volunteers, in these tasks and I think the reason is not some kind of gender or minority discrimination but, put simply, the predominant geek culture (which I bet some sociologist has already found out to be based mainly on male and western paradigms). It is probably good to promote geek-ism in those aspects of free software related to programming but... is it useful to promote it in the rest of tasks? I don't think so, unless we want to develop a desktop and a bunch applications successful between geeks only. I bet this geek culture is stopping many women from being interested in the free software phenomena (in fact I asked several computer-friendly women and this is the answer I got). Being myself not a programmer, it stopped me from finding a place to contribute until I learned to be geek-friendly. And this culture is still stopping many of my non-geek colleagues (both women and men) to come and give a hand. Ask your friends. It is clear that women in general are happy investing their personal time in social activities without a monetary or even a clear benefit. Women have been key in any process of social change (even if their names don't appear in the history books). Have a look on social, non-commercial activities around the world and you will find women everywhere, many times challenging the gender percentages or simply having a clear superiority over men. If we fail involving women (and other "majority" groups in other social, non-commercial organizations and activities) it's because something else, an the geek culture is in the top of the suspicious list. We can work making the geek paradigms more feminine or less gender-determined but changing a paradigm takes time and there is no manual for it. Working on less geek-ish gateways and environments for the non-programming tasks seems to be a more tangible challenge that can make a change in the short term. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Co-option of Quim Gil to the board
El dv 02 de 06 del 2006 a les 17:12 +0200, en/na Dave Neary va escriure: > Welcome on board, Quim. Thank you for the trust. Where is the manual? Throw me some tasks... to be started really on July 1st. Let me say thanks to Murray for the ignition, thanks to Dave for the companion and thanks to Luis... not for leaving but for being a referent in many aspects. I still don't know what he does all the time with the bugsquashers ;) but reading him here and there is always a constructive experience. And thanks of course to the open, friendly and welcoming GNOME community, that I'm getting to know in various aspects from my seat at the GUADEC ticket window. For the administrativia and the transparency: I was still affiliated to interactors.coop when I presented candidacy last December, but on January I was already independent and self-employed. Since then I'm working part time for GUADEC 2006, being paid by the Information Society office of the Catalan government (this could be considered my current affiliation) until July 15th. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code Of Conduct
El dc 31 de 05 del 2006 a les 20:38 +0100, en/na Bill Haneman va escriure: > On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 19:25, Tristan Van Berkom wrote: > > > Nobody will be driven away by that, people might be driven away by > > us stating that "you now are part of a community with a code of conduct". > > I don't agree. Every community has a code of conduct, implied or > explicit, IMO. Anyhow, there's no real enforcement mechanism, so I > don't see this as a realistic concern. There is a big difference between implied or explicit. Implied allows several personal lectures. Explicit allows only one lecture. In a project where "freedom" is a key pole of attraction I find really risky to introduce an explicit Code of Conduct. As many have said, it won't probably solve any existing problem and it will probably create new ones. > ANY change or statement with a "policy" feel carries the risk of > alienating *somebody*, but that doesn't mean that embracing anarchy is > better. Do you think GNOME has been embracing anarchy all these years? I mean, I came here for the freedom but I never found the anarchy. There is a big difference between introducing a Code of Conduct in GNOME or doing the same in, say, Ubuntu. The Ubuntu project introduced a Code of Conduct in their earliest stages and it was quickly accepted and assumed by the almost foundational community. Now it's an intrinsic part of the Ubuntu project. But GNOME has lived many years without a Code of Conduct and it is currently a well consolidated community. With problems, sure. But also with mechanisms available to solve problems. Why not work on improving the current mechanisms? Instead, introducing a Code of Conduct at this stage might create division (as you see) instead of consensus, and consensus is the solid foundation of any real change. > Members of a community rarely understand the > aspects of their culture that cause others to be alienated or > disinterested, even if they understand why they themselves feel included > and motivated. This very good sentence you have written about gender issues can be equally applied to the matter of the Code of Conduct as well. You don't know how alienating or disturbing a Code of Conduct can be until you feel alienated or disturbed by one. For instance, have you thought that the sole concept of "Code of Conduct" might be perceived as 'something normal' more probably in countries/groups/individuals with an English background/influence? A quick survey in my Latin/Mediterranean context shows that the main impression is that a free software community with a written Code of Conduct is almost a contradiction per se. Nobody is wrong, nobody is right. This is how diversity works. I believe Codes of Conduct are more unifiers than diversifiers, and I believe GNOME needs now more diversity than union. What keep us under a same umbrella is not a conduct but a principle (free software) and an objective (a great desktop powered with amazing applications). -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org signature.asc Description: Això és una part d'un missatge, signada digitalment ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
