Re: Boston Summit 2013?
Just a suggestion, perhaps the next year's location should be bid on and announced during the current year's summit like GUADEC is. That would make it much easier to plan for budgets, etc. -- J5 On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 8:58 PM, Sriram Ramkrishna s...@ramkrishna.mewrote: On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 5:10 PM, Andrew Cowie and...@operationaldynamics.com wrote: On Tue, 2013-04-30 at 10:47 -0700, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote: BTW Columbus Day is Thanksgiving in Canada right? No, it's Thanksgiving, without the quotation marks. :) We've always wondered why the Americans insist on having it on the wrong day. The end of November? The snow is already flying then! Don't look to me, these guys thought the indians were us! ;) sri AfC Sydney ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Boston Summit 2013?
My offer of advice extends to this summit also. On May 1, 2013 12:57 AM, Sriram Ramkrishna s...@ramkrishna.me wrote: On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 9:41 PM, meg ford meg...@gmail.com wrote: If we do bids, I might be able to talk the Chicago GNOME community into applying for a future year. We are in the middle of the US, and have a major international airport, so it might be a nice option. Meg, that sounds like a great idea. I think we have decided on Montreal since we have a volunteeer. You will need to do a venue that will support 35-50 people. sri Meg On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 11:35 PM, Jared L Jennings jaredljenni...@gmail.com wrote: +1 Jared Jennings jaredljenni...@gmail.com On Apr 30, 2013, at 8:27 PM, john palmieri john.j5.palmi...@gmail.com wrote: Just a suggestion, perhaps the next year's location should be bid on and announced during the current year's summit like GUADEC is. That would make it much easier to plan for budgets, etc. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Boston Summit logistics (was Re: Desktop Summit Planning)
Hi Richard, Henry Holtzman at the Media Lab and Walter Bender has helped us in the past. They have work with the registrar's office at http://web.mit.edu/registrar/www/schedules/ though that link seems outdated. This one seems to be the correct one - http://web.mit.edu/registrar/classrooms/reserve/index.html -- John (J5) Palmieri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Boston Summit logistics (was Re: Desktop Summit Planning)
2011/12/16 Máirín Duffy du...@fedoraproject.org: On Fri, 2011-12-16 at 10:39 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: Thanks so much for offering to look into this, Richard! I hear that the Stata Center was a better location in the past than the Economics Building if we have the choice... When it was in the Stata Center, which rooms were they? If I get the room numbers, I will know exactly what to ask for. From what I can tell from the wiki, we were in the Stata center most recently in 2005 and haven't been since. Stata Center rooms: - Kirsch Auditorium - Room 124 - Room 144 - Room 154 - Hallway between those rooms for a registration + food table (more details https://live.gnome.org/Boston2005/TheSchedule) Alternatively, in 2006 we were in the Media Lab: - Bartos Theatre - Rothschild Room - Wiesner Room - Room 235 - Room 135 - Room 483A - Room 443A - Cool Hangout Room (more details https://live.gnome.org/Boston2006) In 2008, 2009, 2010 we were at the MIT Sloan Tang Center / E51 Building: - E51-315 - E51-325 - E51-335 - E51-345 - E51-372 - E51-376 - Hallway between those rooms for a registration + food table (more details https://live.gnome.org/Boston2010) I'm not sure which is the economics building (I guess E51?) Anyway I hope this list helps. ~m The problem with the Stata Center is it costs money, is harder to book and the rooms do not hold as much and usually we need an extra room outside the main hall. The Tang center is usually given to us gratis, have huge rooms with AV equipment, no AV setup charges and is usually easy to book during the columbus day weekend. It isn't as sexy as the Stata Center but it fits our needs much better. Also I have to note that I think booking for next year doesn't start until February or March. -- John (J5) Palmieri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Desktop Summit Planning
2011/12/14 Sriram Ramkrishna s...@ramkrishna.me: On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 3:08 PM, Brian Cameron brian.came...@oracle.com wrote: Over the years, GNOME community events have grown in frequency, size and the expectations of hosting professional quality events. It is a challenge for a volunteer community to keep up with consistently year after year. Currently, events tend to be planned in isolation and there is too much reinventing of wheels. GUADEC planning, for example, tends to mostly be done by the team who won the bid, and their ability to put together a good event does vary quite a bit from year to year. Fortunately, the 2012 GUADEC Planning team does seem to be in good shape, so this is one upcoming event that I am not so concerned about. So, speaking as someone who was part of an organizing committee for Plumbers. Linux foundation knows how to do conferences, and do them professionally. How about co-location with a Linux Foundation conference? For instance, having Plumbers conference with a desktop conference would be quite interesting I think considering the direction we are moving towards. A vertical platform, this might be more interesting. Something else to consider when thinking about Boston Summit. That said, I do think that the last Desktop Summit event suffered from a general lack of participation on the GNOME side of things. When we were unable to find a sponsor for GNOME social events, alternatives were not organized, for example. GNOME was unable to find resources to help with infrastructure issues, such as identify management or helping to setup a registration system (a longstanding problem we seem to have year after year). More seriously, a event like the Desktop Summit should inspire collaborative work and there did not seem to be enough effort in terms of planning concrete collaborative activities. If we are to hold Desktop Summits in the future, I think we need to focus more energy in these areas to make them successful. There are several things that we can learn from Linux Foundation on how to run conferences. My overall feeling is that we're moving towards a platform based end state that doesn't really mix that well with other desktop projects. I think there are definitely some cross work at the lower layers that we can work on but it seems that there should be a freedesktop.org conference or some such, not a GNOME/KDE. Shouldn't those folks step up and do something like that? My two cents. sri Freedesktop.org doesn't have the same organizational structures that gnome and kde have. It isn't so much a community as a set of servers, admins and developers. It is more of a meeting place on the interwebs than an organization - an official DMZ for the various desktop communities. They don't have the structure to actually run a conference but it might be worth exploring having a conference under the fd.o banner where the conference is run much like we run the Desktop Summit but doesn't cannibalize our respective flagship conferences. The issue though is getting sponsorship to get the right people there and make it successful. I don't know if there will be support from companies for yet another conference. One of the advantages cited by companies for the Desktop Summit is that they don't have to send their employees to two different conferences though I think that is short sighted as less tends to get done at these larger events. -- J5 ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Candidacy: Ryan Lortie
I appreciate that we are talking about the technical board as an open question but I fear it could be used as a political tool to override the decision making process that already exists in the meritocracy. By giving a board this power you basically allow people who may not even be active in various projects to decide what is best for that project. The great things about the one technical board we already have - the release team - is that people can come and go based on their willingness to put in time and effort. There is no formal process to becoming a member and the members govern basically like any other FOSS project. Their criteria for including a technology in the module sets defers to the what the community is currently using. Their only power is to formally compile the lists of what the community has already decided. If we start electing people to make these technical decisions we run the risk of giving powers of selection to those who may not be qualified to make those calls. Further more, removing such people in a timely manner would be subject to bylaws and could become a source of distraction. Major power needs to stay in the hands of those who are doing the work in the community, not those who can come up with some wedge issue to get elected. I suspect some people think the Foundation Board is some sort of all powerful entity that has the ability to make major decisions with little oversite. The truth is, it has a very limited scope of powers. It controls the budget so can approve or disapprove use of resources for some technical matters such as hackfests (though I am not aware of any hackfests that have been rejected). It is also highly respected in the community and as such can bring up issues such as creating a technical board without being shouted down. Most of the board's work is actually quite mundane - making sure we are in compliance with laws, handing issues that can't become public for various reasons, precuring insurance for events, writing up press releases, liaisoning with industry, etc. With that said, it does have one power that we need to watch out for - bringing up votes to create groups that have more power than the board it self. It goes without saying, please think carefully about this direction. While I applaud a new board that wants to expand the effectiveness of the formal structures within the Foundation, it needs to be tempered with humility and wisdom, and not forget that the community is ultimately where direction needs to be set. On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 1:51 PM, Ryan Lortie de...@desrt.ca wrote: hi Philip, (keeping in mind that creating a technical board is very much an open question) On Mon, 2011-05-23 at 19:48 +0200, Philip Van Hoof wrote: - Will all foundation members get a single vote? That was indeed my intention. I think your other proposals are too difficult to implement and possibly even undesirable. Do you have some others ideas about how it might be possible? Cheers ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Starting the process for this year's Boston Summit
Hello all, I'm going to be starting the process for setting up the Boston Summit. That basically means getting the space at MIT and then a budget from the board. Last year we saw an issue with the timing of other GNOME related conferences. This year we have a choice of two dates, Columbus day weekend, October 9th-11th or piggyback the weekend after the Linux Plumbers conference, November 6th-8th. I'm leaning towards keeping Columbus day weekend because it is easier to get rooms, and it reduces confusion by having it at the same time every year. The reasons for piggybacking the Plumbers conference is that a number of our fellow GNOMies will already be in Boston and we might get a few stragglers from other parts of the Linux stack to stop by and offer their perspective. I want to get the foundation members' opinion on this. Ultimately it will be up to the board to make a final decision but I plan to have a concrete date by the middle of June if not sooner. I hope you are all getting excited to reflect on the work done in the past year and plan the future of the GNOME platform. I hope to see as many of you as possible at GUADEC and the Boston Summit this year! -- John (J5) Palmieri Software Engineer Red Hat, Inc. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Survey: GUADEC and Akadamy co-location in 2011
On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 3:49 AM, Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org wrote: Hi, snip The Tampere bid manifested their interest in carrying their 09 bid over for 10 - and the KDE board thought that was a good option. Given the alternative timeframe (which we're currently experiencing), they said Good enough - let's co-host, choose Tampere, and do a proper call for hosts next year. Given that Tampere was also one of the top 2 choices of GNOME the year before, seems reasonable to me. dne...@gnome.org Dave, it was the GNOME board's last choice and the KDE board's first. A Coruña, Spain was our first choice. Gran Canaria was chosen because it was the only one we could agree on. They also had a very powerful bid so I don't want to imply I was disappointed with the choice of venue but it wasn't our first choice. So, accepting Tampere right out of the gates wasn't going to fly given the experience at the Desktop Summit. If it had been a huge success I would have said sure, let's go for it but as it stands you don't fix things by running with the status quo. When talking about next year's venue, it wasn't let's consider Tempere, it was closer to Tampere is it, let's move on (and I'm being polite on how that conversation went). In a conference which we did not feel was ideal we needed to take a step back to evaluate. When there were forces preventing us from gaining any breathing room we decided to take a year off from this experiment. snip -- John (J5) Palmieri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Survey: GUADEC and Akadamy co-location in 2011
I would like to point out that the survey was pretty narrow. For instance I said do it but I have the same reservations I had when I voted to not do it for this years GUADEC. I want to see this happen right, which is to have us collaborate but at the same time keep our identities. 2010/2/1 Vincent Untz vu...@gnome.org Le lundi 01 février 2010, à 17:11 +0100, Vincent Untz a écrit : Le lundi 01 février 2010, à 10:39 -0500, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier a écrit : On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 10:18 AM, Vincent Untz vu...@gnome.org wrote: Is there anyone who would like to help create a useful summary of the results? I have some stats already, but if you let me do this alone, I'll likely only present some less-effort stats ;-) Depends on how time-sensitive it is. I should have some time towards the end of the week, but right now am pretty swamped. Well, I would be hoping to be able to send some analysis in the next few days. I guess if nobody steps up soon enough, I'll just publish what I have and the raw results, so people could take a look and produce more interesting stats. Here are the stats I did (hopefully, I didn't get anything wrong ;-)). I'm attaching the results in case anybody wants to play with them. Note that I removed the answers to the free form entry since it made it possible to guess who replied what in a few cases (it shouldn't be a big loss, though). + 103 people replied - 84 are contributors (81.55%) and 18 aren't (17.48%) - 75 are foundation members (72.82%) and 27 aren't (26.21%) - 68 attended GCDS (66.02%) and 33 didn't (32.04%) - 13 (12.62%) attended a GUADEC (before GCDS), 58 (56.31%) attended 2 or more, and 31 (30.10%) never went to GUADEC + Do it vs Don't do it - contributors: 54 vs 25 (64.23% vs 29.76%) - foundation members: 49 vs 22 (65.33% vs 29.33%) - attended GCDS: 46 vs 19 (67.65% vs 27.94%) - attended guadec once: 9 vs 4 (69.23% vs 30.77%) - attended guadec more than once: 35 vs 19 (60.34% vs 32.76%) - never attended guadec: 22 vs 5 (70.97% vs 16.13%) + only/more likely to attend vs will not/less likely to attend if co-located - contributors: 9 vs 10 (10.71% vs 11.90%) - non-contributors: 10 vs 0 (55.56% vs 0%) + productive improvements for GNOME: - yes, directly: 15 (14.56%) - yes, indirectly: 61 (59.22%) - no: 17 (16.50%) + misc: - nobody said do it and it won't lead to any improvement for GNOME - 10 people said don't do it and it will lead to direct/indirect improvements for GNOME - 9 people replied while they don't plan to go to GUADEC in 2011 (4 of them said do it, 2 said don't do it) Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Foundation and CEO Goals
Bonus goals are meant to direct energy into places we feel are most important for the current cycle. The bonuses both reflect pie in the sky, you are probably never going to get this done items to more mundane items which none the less, contribute to the growth of the foundation. We could just pay Stormy a flat salary but in an organization where her and Zana are the only full time employees, bonuses are a good management tool for tracking her performance in reaching our goals. It also helps give her feedback as to her performance that a flat salary wouldn't. -- John (J5) Palmieri On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 1:03 PM, Og Maciel ogmac...@gnome.org wrote: Forgive me for my ignorance, I definitely mean no harm, but the list of goals which led to bonus being paid to Stormy look a lot like what I'd expect the CEO to do already. If those goals dictate her bonus, which activities not listed here comprise of her non-bonus tasks/responsibilities? To be clear, it sounded a lot like saying that a firefighter gets bonus because he puts out fires. Once again, I say this with no malice. Thank you in advance, -- Og B. Maciel omac...@foresightlinux.org ogmac...@gnome.org ogmac...@ubuntu.com GPG Keys: D5CFC202 http://www.ogmaciel.com (en_US) http://blog.ogmaciel.com (pt_BR) ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 3:51 PM, Luis Villa l...@tieguy.org wrote: On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 12:37 PM, Luis Villa l...@tieguy.org wrote: On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 12:31 PM, Lefty (石鏡 ) le...@shugendo.org wrote: On 1/17/10 6:52 AM, Ciaran O'Riordan cia...@member.fsf.org wrote: GNOME has a policy (written or not) that prohibits importing non-free software into its repositories. I'm not personally aware of a written policy to this effect. If there's an unwritten policy, I'd encourage the Board to write it down in clear and explicit terms and get it agreed to by the membership, since there's not necessarily any actual common understanding of what such a policy says or means, if that's the case. To the best of my knowledge, that policy has never been written down. It has been pointed out that in fact it has been written down: http://live.gnome.org/ProjectPrerequisites and in fact I think I probably helped write it down; I'm looking through my email to see when we had that discussion, but I'm pretty sure that when we wrote it it was so non-controversial that it was not discussed very much, so it won't leave much trail in my inbox. Luis The release team goes further for official modules and states: Free-ness: Apps must be under a Free or Open license and support open standards and protocols. In case of doubt about the module license, send an email to the Release Team and the desktop-devel mailing list. Support of proprietary protocols and closed standards is part of the world we live in, but all applications that support closed protocols should also support open equivalents where those exist, and should default to those if at all possible while still serving their intended purpose. http://live.gnome.org/ReleasePlanning/ModuleProposing#judgement-criteria Of course I don't think Lefty was suggesting we host proprietary software only that non-free would seem to exclude open source. I'm not sure that is the case but for all intents and purposes, historically we have mostly accepted LGPL into the core with perhaps some BSD and MIT licensed code residing inside those modules as is legal. It would be a problem to accept any non GPL compatible license regardless if it is open or not. The release team pretty much holds the keys on what is accepted and what is not. -- John (J5) Palmieri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 7:02 AM, Philip Van Hoof pvanh...@gnome.org wrote: On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 02:01 -0800, Lefty (石鏡 ) wrote: Hi Lefty, Thanks to Bruno and the rest of the Membership team. It pleases me for some reason to be on the same list of new members as my friend, Jim Vasile. On a different matter, I am currently conducting a brief ( 5 minute) survey on attitudes and viewpoints on FLOSS and proprietary software and I invite all to participate in it. We have on the order to 400 respondents so far, but I’d like to get as broad a level of coverage as possible. Thanks a lot for taking the time to conduct these surveys! The results are more than enlightening to me. The surveys definitely are useful and insightful. They sharply illustrate that open source developers are far more pragmatic than certain people in the audience would like us to be. Thanks for relegating the opposing view to certain people. It is certainly intelectually honest of you to put them in all in the same bucket and then crap in it. As for the survey, we have always known GNOME developers to be pretty practical and pragmatic as evidenced by the selection the LGPL for most of our code. The surveys in question have been adjenda driven as a need to de-legitimize the GPL and Free Software in general and RMSs manifesto in particular. While not many of us would say we 100% follow every word that comes out of RMSs mouth, many of us still believe in the notion behind Free Software as a better, and yes more moral way to develop. It is sad thet the FOSS economy is still in its infancy and can not support all of the developers out there yet but that is one of the goals. So, when a survey asks, is proprietary software immoral, illegitimate or antisocial, you are really asking if people who use or develop proprietary software are immoral, illegitimate or antisocial. It isn't really an interesting question. The original issue that brought this all up is whether GNOME should drop people from the planet for endorsing proprietary applications. I don't think there was anyone in any position to do so who agreed (short of some coordinated advertising campaign). I however do agree that GNOME itself should not help promote proprietary software if part of our goal is to spread FOSS software. That means simply that we don't official endorse any proprietary software other than to say it uses GNOME technologies, or a howto get GNOME technology working under some piece of software (Windows, VMWare, etc.). We should never provide links to download proprietary software on official, non-aggregated sites (including the wiki) unless there are no other equivalent FOSS alternatives. Unfortunately the survey doesn't really address that, nor could it. -- John (J5) Palmieri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 10:05 AM, Philip Van Hoof pvanh...@gnome.orgwrote: On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 14:38 +0100, Xavier Bestel wrote: Hi Xavier, On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 13:02 +0100, Philip Van Hoof wrote: I disrespect people who claim that this last survey has intentional bias. For me they are being intellectually dishonest. Giving one definition of a word, Lefty gave accurate definitions for the words he used. For example the word illegitimate: Richard clearly questioned the legitimacy of proprietary software and asked us to mirror this statement. This is archived if you don't believe me. Firstly: The only person who here might have intentionally created the ambiguity is the person who first used the word to describe proprietary: Richard. I use might wisely, I'm not saying this was the intention. Have you ever read his manifesto? While you might not agree with his conclusions, his logic would pass most any scrutiny. Pointing to Lefty for being guilty of intentionally creating ambiguity is nothing more than either being a moron, or being so disinterested that you don't know who said what first. Moron: 1. a person who is (notably stupid or) lacking in good judgment. You always seem to devolve into ad-hominem, personal attacks. -- John (J5) Palmieri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
I'm against an enshrined code of conduct which suddenly kicks you out of GNOME, or gets you shunned. A Terms of Service for hosted sites which gets your account unsubscribed for that site might be better if it is very narrowly defined, e.g. no spamming, no porn, etc. However as we move into the realm of who offended who it gets dicey and predicated on the sentiments of who is making the final call. We've survived the oGalaxys and Bowie Poags of the past and I don't think I have seen any worse conduct. I'm defering to the board if they really feel they need an enshrined document but there should be a vote on the final draft if we go in this direction. On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 11:51 AM, Lionel Dricot pl...@ploum.net wrote: I believe that this discussion is becoming far too bloated. How often do we have to deal with offended people? What energy will we spend to deal with each case on a case by case basis? Answer is A. How much energy will we spend to try to design a law/rule that might fit every use case and will be discussed each time we have a case? Answer is B. I expect A B by at least one order of magnitude. What is exactly the problem here? Sometimes some people are offended by the content of planet GNOME? OK, it has always be the case but it's a problem. A rare one but still a problem. What effect will have deciding of rules, CoC or punishment on that particular problem? I don't see how it could have an effect. There will still be offending stuff from time to time on pgo. This was never a problem in the past as it was handled on a case by case basis. Anyway, there are always people offended by everything. When you have to type a command once a year, you don't start developing a framework that will handle every possible situation. (it has already been done, it's called J2EE) Cheers, Lionel On Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:36:41 -0700, Stormy Peters stormy.pet...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 9:29 AM, Mukund Sivaraman m...@banu.com wrote: I think this is taking it too far. The Code of Conduct being presented as a set of guidelines is OK, but it is not wise to make it policy. The GNOME project is not a sect, to control what I can and cannot say/do in public. We are talking about GNOME hosted platforms. Planet GNOME, blogs.gnome.organd the GNOME mailing lists are all forums we host and I think we can (and do) expect a certain standard of conduct on them. For example, if someone started spamming the Foundation list, we would block them. (Public does not mean you can do whatever you want. In most public places there are laws you have to follow.) Stormy ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 12:49 PM, Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org wrote: Hi, Lionel Dricot wrote: Do you think that many people were turned out of the GNOME community because of an hostile experience? I don't think so. (I might be wrong, I just never met anybody that has a bad experience). Some names of good contributors who have drifted away from GNOME, at least partly because of the tone of discourse: Dave Camp Seth Nickell Alex Graveley Telsa Gwynne Jacob Berkmann Ross Golder Daniel Veillard Joe Shaw Jorge Castro Another bunch of people who are still around the free software world, but who no longer consider themselves GNOME community members - I can't speak to their motivations, of course: Nat Friedman Miguel de Icaza Glynn Foster Jeff Waugh Jody Goldberg Bill Hanneman Malcolm Tredinnick Mark McLoughlin George Lebl Some of these people are still members of the foundation, but none of them have been seen around for a long while. Acceptable collateral damage for having unfettered freedom of speech? Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member dne...@gnome.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list We should look at what wikipedia is going through - http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10403467-93.html I should also point out that we would have most likely lost just as many members from them just drifting to other projects, and you don't count how many we have gained from being an open project with a lack of rules. Let's be honest here, GNOME isn't a huge game changer, or at least in the last few years hasn't been. It is a success by many metrics but these days as we have become more formal it just doesn't hold the wild west excitement it once had. The shedding of some of the top contributors I see as a natural evolution of a project which allows new blood to rise without being constrained by old ideas. I think a bigger issue comes when having a larger community you get more differing views and it gets tiring to defend design decisions amongst a louder constituency of those who are not keen to your ideas. Signal to noise ratio isn't something you are going to solve with a code of conduct. I agree that some people tend to use words like idiotic, crap and other personal attacks when going to the negative but I just choose to see their views as invalid once they go there. I feel this is the real issue that is trying to be solved and I fear that it won't do anything positive, and may actually lead to being a club to quiet decedent which is why I call for narrow rules if we do feel it is necessary in the most egregious circumstances. -- John (J5) Palmieri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Free Desktop Communities come together at the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit
On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 4:08 PM, Quim Gil quim...@gmail.com 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. 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 long way to preserving the identity of each conference. I felt there was also the same steamrolling with next year's venues. In some circles Tampere was already decided before the event was over and we haven't even made a call for proposals yet. There was even a proposal that we not have a call for proposals and just decide on Tampere. Now we may decide on Tampere but there numerous factors such as some wanting to have next years GUADEC near a major transportation hub that need to be considered. So, making brash decisions like that felt like poorly disguised agenda pushing. Speaking for myself, little details such as those and the fact that things like the schedule weren't fleshed out better made me think we needed to step back and approach such events from a better thought out position. I didn't have a vote this time around but I think the board took the correct action here. Again, I think there is value in the future of doing this again but only if we work out the changes needed. I feel jumping right into another one would have perpetuated the issues instead of working to solving them. -- John (J5) Palmieri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: gtk configuration problem
Hi Soumen, Foundation list is not a technical list. Please go here ( http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo) to find a more appropriate list in the future (gtk-list might be a good starting point). I also suggest going on Freenode irc and chatting with people in #gnome or #gtk. Since you are running into a basic problem I can help you with, I'm going to e-mail you off list. -- John (J5) Palmieri 2009/7/21 soumen ghosh ghosh.soume...@gmail.com Hi, I am trying to install gtk in linux system. So, for that I downloaded anjuta-2.0.2 and try to configure this. I also downloaded glib-2.0.0 and glib-2.20.0 So follow some steps, are describing below: *1. I set the PKG_CONFIG_PATH=usr/lib 2. I put the package glib-2.0.0 in the path usr/lib and usr/include 3. In the path /usr/lib/pkgconfig, there is some .pc files. I edited the file glib-2.0.pc, change the glib version to 2.0.0(that I have glib-2.0.0) I edited the file gobject-2.0.pc, here also change the glib version to 2.0.0(that I have glib-2.0.0) 4. then I run the command ./configure * The output of that configuration is: checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c checking whether build environment is sane... yes checking for gawk... gawk checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes checking whether to enable maintainer-specific portions of Makefiles... no checking for perl... /usr/bin/perl checking for XML::Parser... ok checking for iconv... /usr/bin/iconv checking for msgfmt... /usr/bin/msgfmt checking for msgmerge... /usr/bin/msgmerge checking for xgettext... /usr/bin/xgettext checking for gcc... gcc checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out checking whether the C compiler works... yes checking whether we are cross compiling... no checking for suffix of executables... checking for suffix of object files... o checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes checking for gcc option to accept ANSI C... none needed checking for style of include used by make... GNU checking dependency style of gcc... gcc3 checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E checking for g++... g++ checking whether we are using the GNU C++ compiler... yes checking whether g++ accepts -g... yes checking dependency style of g++... gcc3 checking for library containing strerror... none required checking for egrep... grep -E checking for ANSI C header files... yes checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu checking host system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu checking for a sed that does not truncate output... /bin/sed checking for ld used by gcc... /usr/bin/ld checking if the linker (/usr/bin/ld) is GNU ld... yes checking for /usr/bin/ld option to reload object files... -r checking for BSD-compatible nm... /usr/bin/nm -B checking whether ln -s works... yes checking how to recognise dependent libraries... pass_all checking for sys/types.h... yes checking for sys/stat.h... yes checking for stdlib.h... yes checking for string.h... yes checking for memory.h... yes checking for strings.h... yes checking for inttypes.h... yes checking for stdint.h... yes checking for unistd.h... yes checking dlfcn.h usability... yes checking dlfcn.h presence... yes checking for dlfcn.h... yes checking how to run the C++ preprocessor... g++ -E checking for g77... g77 checking whether we are using the GNU Fortran 77 compiler... yes checking whether g77 accepts -g... yes checking the maximum length of command line arguments... 32768 checking command to parse /usr/bin/nm -B output from gcc object... ok checking for objdir... .libs checking for ar... ar checking for ranlib... ranlib checking for strip... strip checking if gcc supports -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions... no checking for gcc option to produce PIC... -fPIC checking if gcc PIC flag -fPIC works... yes checking if gcc static flag -static works... yes checking if gcc supports -c -o file.o... yes checking whether the gcc linker (/usr/bin/ld) supports shared libraries... yes checking whether -lc should be explicitly linked in... no checking dynamic linker characteristics... GNU/Linux ld.so checking how to hardcode library paths into programs... immediate checking whether stripping libraries is possible... yes checking if libtool supports shared libraries... yes checking whether to build shared libraries... yes checking whether to build static libraries... no configure: creating libtool appending configuration tag CXX to libtool checking for ld used by g++... /usr/bin/ld checking if the linker (/usr/bin/ld) is GNU ld... yes checking whether the g++ linker (/usr/bin/ld) supports shared libraries... yes checking for g++ option to produce PIC... -fPIC checking if g++ PIC flag -fPIC works... yes checking if g++ static flag -static works... yes checking if g++ supports -c -o file.o... yes checking whether the g++ linker (/usr/bin/ld) supports shared libraries... yes checking
2009 Gnome Boston Summit
For those not at the AGM during GUADEC I had announced confirmation on this years GNOME Boston Summit in October at MIT. Dates: October 10th, 11th and 12th Location: MIT Sloan Building (E51) Cambridge, MA Rooms 315, 325, 335, 345 Hackfests As of right now we have funding thanks to Novell to hold one hackfest the week before the Summit. The content of that hackfest is yet to be determined. As always since hackfests are focused on getting specific teams together so that they may plan projects face to face, travel sponsorship will be done via invite and handled by the specific hackfest organizers. If you are a company or organization which wants to organize and sponsor a second or even third hackfest please get in-touch with myself (J5 on irc) or the GNOME Foundation Board. Event Sponsorship We will be looking for companies to sponsor events such as a lunch, a snack hour and the ever present Boston Beer Summit. These events help people unwind and socialize between the intense hack sessions and BOFs. They have also been used by the sponsoring organizations as a thank you to developers and to make significant announcements of work being done by the sponsor. Last year saw Litl throw a snack hour catered by Sel de la Terre where they announced their work on JavaScript bindings, now being extensively used to build the shell for GNOME 3.0. They also answered questions and reveled small bits of the project they have been working on. Novell had budget left over from their hackfest and cosponsored with the Foundation an open bar at our annual Boston Beer Fest. Over pool, drinks and food GNOME hackers got to discuss numerous subjects and make new friends in a relaxed atmosphere. On the last day of the Summit the GNOME Accessibility team through Sun sponsored a pizza lunch as a thank you for the support the Foundation members and hackers have given the Accessibility team (though I really think we should be thanking them for the work that they do). Again if your are interested in sponsoring one of these events please get in-touch with myself (J5 on irc) or the GNOME Foundation Board. Travel Sponsorship Traditionally the Foundation has not sponsored travel to the Summit, relegating that to our flagship conference, GUADEC, and several regional conferences where we felt GNOME needed a presence. Unlike GUADEC which is a meet and greet for users and developers of the GNOME platform and related technologies, the Summit is a more intimate working event with specific goals in mind. This year however, we do want to start sponsoring specific people to attend the conference who would otherwise not be able to attend. The difference is, anyone applying for sponsorship must have a specific reason for coming and detail concrete goals which they aim to accomplish at the Summit. The Board and Travel Committee are still working out the details so look for more announcements in the future. Make your travel plans now and start getting psyched up to have another successful Boston Summit come this Fall. If last year's Summit successes continue their momentum, look to see even greater things to come out of Boston come October!!! Notes It is unfortunate that the dates, October 10th-12th, conflict with the Maemo Summit but should be noted that we have for the most part always had the Summit on the second weekend of October (Columbus Day Weekend). Those plans were set in motion well before we were able to get a definite confirmation on the venue and make a formal announcement. We should perhaps use the Foundation as a way to coordinate all GNOME related gatherings in the future. -- John (J5) Palmieri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections Spring 2009 - Preliminary results
On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 12:44 PM, Julien Puydt jpu...@gnome.org wrote: john palmieri a écrit : On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org wrote: The way forward seems clear to me - the membership committee decides what counting method will be used, announces it, and we count the election according to that means. There doesn't need to be a crisis here. Deciding on the correct method after the elections seems a bit off to me. A member who voted should know exactly how their vote is going to be counted before the ballot is cast. If different methods reach different conclusions then that is a crisis because the membership committee would be free to choose the one which fits their agenda the most (not that I feel there is an agenda but the possibility leaves doubt on the validity of the results). I would agree it's a problem if the method could be changed each time there is an election. But for a one-time decision, that's not a problem. Consider it as a bug : we knew the votes would be counted using a more elaborate method than plain comparison of number of votes, but it wasn't 100% clear which. Now it's clear, the bug is closed, let's move on! Snark on #gnome-hackers I don't like the lets move on sentiment but I will drop my challenge as long as the two variable candidates agree (I would back either of their challenges). Please document our procedure as we use it so we don't run into confusion like this again. Linking to an e-mail that links to 3rd party pages which may change or disappear isn't enough. Just like law can be interpreted in different ways so can other documents. It would be nice to have the method described in the membership committee's own words and for any software being use be vetted. Descriptions on how any member can verify the results by hand would be nice also. BTW the results page is great in terms of documentation - if those steps can be generalized on the election wiki that would be a good resource. -- John ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections Spring 2009 - Preliminary results
On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 4:58 AM, Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org wrote: Hi, Stormy Peters wrote: I too think the election committee should just decide. (From board discussions, I'm pretty confident they wanted to do it however Maemo does it, but at this point I think the election committee should decide.) I'd replace decide with clarify here - it's clear there was an intention, and now we're in something of a niche situation, where we just need a clarification from the committee what method they intended to use - then we just count with that. I prefer fractional transfer because its results are deterministic, they will not be different if you run the election 10 different times. That isn't true of random transfer (which is a real world compromise to make hand-counting big elections feasible). But if that's not what the election committee intended, then so be it, we'll count it the other way, organise a hand check, and be done with it. Having counted the election by hand yesterday, I can tell you that the hand count will come down to a 1 or 2 vote difference between Sri and Jorge for the last seat, and Vincent, Behdad, German, Brian and Diego will be elected. I would say then with such a small sampling size where randomness can change results (it is like saying, lets flip a coin to see if Sri or Jorge gets elected) we should go with fractional transfer going forward. I suspect the last few candidates will always end up in this situation. However in this election, unless you can document that this was indeed the committee's intent you need to at least go back to the two candidates in question and get their opinions. The committee stating it was their intent after the fact is not good enough. The committee stating they wanted to do it how maemo did it without actually looking how maemo did it is an even deeper issue. If the committee is not willing to acknowledge an issue and simply says it isn't worth the trouble to either document their intent or find another equitable way to resolve who gets the last seat then I have deep reservations about using the STV voting method in future elections. -- John ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections Spring 2009 - Preliminary results
Is it really fair if people can't agree on how it works? Seems to go against the GNOME principle of simplicity by adding more choices to fix some of the issues of voting. I'm all for making things more fair but I'm not sure the complexity actually fixes things or hides the issues under a layer of complexity. In any case the final decision should be well documented on how it was reached. If at all possible, done by hand showing the work at each step. On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 12:29 PM, Michael Meeks michael.me...@novell.comwrote: On Wed, 2009-06-24 at 10:11 +0200, Dave Neary wrote: You just announced the results based on first-past-the-post, when the elections were to be run using preferential voting, with single transferable vote and fractional surplus transfer. Ah ! the famous 'Meek' method (no relation); can be rather a rabbit Warren of complexity this thing - though it's clearly a fairer way of doing things: as I recall the Open-Solaris board specified this form of STV in it's bylaws which seemed sensible. Fun, Michael. -- michael.me...@novell.com , Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections Spring 2009 - Preliminary results
On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Dan Winship d...@gnome.org wrote: On 06/25/2009 12:30 PM, john palmieri wrote: If it is a disagreement on how votes should be counted then the vote is flawed and I propose we have a runoff between the candidates who were on one list but not the other. I'm not terribly familiar with STV and its variations, but it seems to me that if we assume people's votes in the runoff will be generally consistent with their votes in the original election, then the result of the runoff would be determined as much by the choice of STV variant used in the runoff than by the actual votes (which could more or less be predicted ahead of time), and so this isn't really much different from just letting the election committee retroactively declare which variant they meant to use in the original election. You can't assume that though. If people have a better understanding of how their votes are counted they can make a more informed decision (also if it is a matter of two name a simple popular vote would be fair which the STV would boil down to anyway). The point isn't the results - I could really care less who gets on because I think they are all good candidates who have the top votes. The point is that the results are come by from an equitable process. If there is problems in that process, well then someone got screwed illegitimately. Let's face it, we messed up by not getting the details right here. Having the committee choose a method, runnoff candidates ratify it and having a runoff might seem like an unnecessary procedural detail but it at least adds legitimacy to the vote. Let's not just brush our mistake under the rug. -- John ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Minutes from the board meetings
2009 Minutes are now up too. Thanks. On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 6:46 AM, Vincent Untz vu...@gnome.org wrote: Le mercredi 10 juin 2009, à 11:50 +0200, BJörn Lindqvist a écrit : 2009/6/8 Stormy Peters sto...@gnome.org: The minutes from most of the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors' meetings have now been posted at: http://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoardPublic/Minutes Excellent, thank you. Does that mean the board has only held three meetings this year as only 3 MOMs are listed for 2009? No, we have a meeting every two weeks (module some exceptions), so I think that the other minutes will come soon (which is what Stormy meant with The rest will be posted tomorrow, I guess) Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
GUADEC 2010 Call for Hosts postponed until after Gran Canaria
Dear Foundation Members, In the past, by this time, the Board would have already sent around the GUADEC call for hosts. In largely closed door meetings it would have been decided where next year's GUADEC would be held, announcing it at the current year's conference. Since this has been a year of significant change (this is the first year GUADEC is being co-located with Akademy) we would like to get more input into the process and find out what our members want to see come next summer, as well as how to best pick the winning location. We have decided to postpone the call for proposals until after this year's GUADEC has concluded. We fully expect to discuss the topic during GUADEC at the foundation AGM, as well as on the foundation list[1] to find out what you, the members, would like to see happen next year. Please feel free to talk about your likes and dislikes about this year's conference and if you don't get a chance to attend, what would make you more likely to attend next year. As for those who wish to make a proposal, a formal call for hosts is not a prerequisite for starting the process. If you can, we encourage you to meet with us and other attendees at this year's conference and get a head start by starting the drafting process sooner than later. You may also contact us with questions you may have[2]. On behalf of the board, John (J5) Palmieri [1] foundation-list@gnome.org (http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list) [2] bo...@gnome.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: So what do people *except* me want from the foundation?
Now that I have had time to gather my thoughts - I would really like the Foundation to bring back the import of what it means to be part of something bigger than oneself. GNOME needs to be a brand that is bigger than the sum of its parts, a place where people come not to further their own agendas but to grow GNOME itself. That starts with a sense of belonging. How do we make people excited to join the Foundation? It continues with positive reinforcement. How do we make people feel their contributions continue to be appreciated? It never ends. I think the current atmosphere where there is a lot of bike shedding comes from a sense that outside forces view GNOME as a tool to be used and shaped to their own agenda as opposed to being an integral part of who they are. We have at some point stopped being friends who came together for a common cause and at that point it just became easier to form islands of development. Respect has gone out the door. This is why I think the most important focus for the foundation going forward is a) the marketing team and b) social events like the hackfests. Marketing because we really need to figure out how to get our messages across, even to our own members. Generating excitement from things as simple as regular profiles of GNOME apps and their developers is important to a sense of community. Social events because when people meet face to face they tend to start treating each other with more humanity, not the mention the boost in development efficiency that results when people get along. I have other hopes for the Foundation but those are my main insights. Take them or leave them. -- John On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 8:25 AM, Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org wrote: Hi, Now that we have clearly identified everyone who disagrees with what *I* hope for from the foundation and its board, I'm still interested in the question I asked previously: What do you expect from the foundation? What are the things that the foundation is doing that it shouldn't be, the things it isn't that it should, the things the membership could be doing that it isn't, etc.? What is your vision of the foundation? Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member dne...@gnome.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: What do you think of the foundation?
On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 1:59 AM, Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org wrote: Hi, john palmieri wrote: I'm of the same mind here. There are a number of people who I don't like to read on blogs and whatnot but I would rather us as a community figure out productive ways of dealing with it as opposed to lording our own views over those who don't have as much pull in the community. Red tape and draconian censorship measures is not the way to handle the issue. If our blogs and mailing lists are no longer exciting and informative then there is something more fundamentally wrong than who we give a voice to. Who talked about red tape and draconian censorship? Setting up a commission for evaluating speech is red tape and will lead to censorship. I would accept a self style group who goes out to evaluate the situation and recommend productive actions to take but if the group came back with your evaluation of the situation I would reject that as over compensation for the issue at hand. I commend Philip for succeeding in framing this debate around the punishments rather than around the reasons why they might happen. Again we come back to crime and punishment. If you read over my past posts on pgo when I felt people were out of line, I let them know but I didn't bring to bare some sort of higher power to do so. Proscribing anything more than the most basic code of conduct goes against our nature as a free flowing community. It may be trial by fire but the strong rise to the top and the bikeshedders eventually get bored and go away (anyone remember our two worst bikeshedders?) That is not to say that individuals should ignore others getting bullied, just that we don't need a commission to do so. I encourage prouctive, not destructive ideas for dealing with the issue. What thoes are, I'm not sure but I know it isn't a group of people policing our communication channels. I would think it would have something to do with rewarding those who work to move GNOME forward instead of concentrating on chastising those who hold it back. I can remember a few names who came off grating to me when they were new and inexperienced with the community (I was probubly one of them) but who's body of work in community had become invaluble over time. Let me be as clear as possible: There are people in our community who are losing faith in the community's ability to have reasoned technical debate and design discussions because of vacuous 100 mail threads, and IRC being dominated by half a dozen people whose principal contribution to GNOME is to be on IRC all the time. Others are being driven away from the community for our tolerance of he who shouts loudest politics, flame wars and provocative and offensive blog posts. And there are those who rise to the top because they can navigate such noise, and those who settle down and recognise being productive is better than being destructive. Again, I agree there is a problem, I just think your solution is a dangerous road. I believe that these people should have a group that they can turn to, argue their points, and ask for that group to do something about it. I believe that the task is the role of the foundation, and the board is well placed to assume that role now. The board should not mire itself in conflict resolution like this, just like it does not make technical decitions. The boards role is to obtain and distribute resources and make sure those resources are used in efficent ways. That is enormous power as it is. Giving it a policing/judicial role would be a mistake. I could imagine some extremist contingent getting a majority and then anyone who got fed up with their retoric and let slip a fuck you to them on the list would suddenly find their account disabled. The door swings both ways there which is the problem with trying to control speach. When I say do something about it, that may be simply to point out to the people involved that they're not being productive. It may be to publicly shame people for antisocial behaviour. It may be to tell the complainer that they're making a big deal about nothing. But right now if you are being driven away from GNOME forums or from the GNOME project in general, you have no-where to turn. How is that red tape? How is it draconian censorship? Red tape is the implementation of ridged formal processes to enforce some standard. When you talk about it in the terms of speach, censorship becomes the elephant in the room because you open the door to someone eventually having that power. How does the Kernel thrive when they probubly face the same issues we do? I think you are looking at the symptoms and not the root causes. Given that you and a colleague have had a run-in with the kind of anti-social behaviour I'm targeting here, I would have thought that you'd have more sympathy for the victims of the worst kinds of behaviour. To assume I don't have sympathy because of my stance points
Re: What do you think of the foundation?
I'm of the same mind here. There are a number of people who I don't like to read on blogs and whatnot but I would rather us as a community figure out productive ways of dealing with it as opposed to lording our own views over those who don't have as much pull in the community. Red tape and draconian censorship measures is not the way to handle the issue. If our blogs and mailing lists are no longer exciting and informative then there is something more fundamentally wrong than who we give a voice to. -- John On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 6:16 PM, Behdad Esfahbod beh...@behdad.org wrote: On 05/31/2009 07:17 PM, Olav Vitters wrote: You mean how someone should behave? What is socially acceptable somewhere is totally not acceptable elsewhere (eating with mouth open and making noises). Every time I'm in major airports, can't help but notice the HSBC 'Your Point of View' ads. Check a few of them out, they are truly brilliant: http://www.yourpointofview.com/page03.html Every time it makes me wonder, why can't all of us understand something that simple? Cheers, behdad ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Fwd: 2009 Current Year Budget
Woops, didn't hit reply to all!!! -- Forwarded message -- From: john palmieri john.j5.palmi...@gmail.com Date: Mon, May 4, 2009 at 3:08 PM Subject: Re: 2009 Current Year Budget To: Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org Hi Dave, Thanks for starting this discussion, it is very important and you bring up good points. Let me try to give you some answers immediately and see if we can't come up with more in depth solutions for breaking down the budget in a way that is a bit more clear as we continue to refine it. On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 5:58 AM, Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org wrote: Hi John, Thanks for publishing the budget. It's a very useful document to have. I have a few observations and questions (mostly the same ones I asked of the board before - but this is an opportunity for a more public discussion). john palmieri wrote: Attached is the 2009 budget put together by Stormy. Due to the economy our budget shows us eating into the surplus quite a bit. While we will remain solvent for 2009, it is a burn rate we will not be able to sustain in 2010 barring changes in funding level and/or reduction of ongoing expenditures. Those decisions will be made as the year progresses and we have a more complete picture of where we will be come December. As I have said we are in good shape for this year but we need to look to the future in order to find ways to best serve our members. One line I'm missing from the budget is Balance forward. You mention we're eating into our surplus, but you don't mention how much we have in the bank at the beginning of the year. The first page of the budget states that we started with $130,000 in the bank for and are expecting around an -$83,000 deficit which means we plan to end the year at $47,000 in the bank. Part of this is due to getting advice from our accountant that we had too much money in the bank. We have since also gotten advice to have at least 6 months of operation expenses in surplus from other non-profits. You also correctly note bellow that much of the planned expenses won't happen unless funding comes in from them. The original budget assumed that companies wanted to pay us in a lump sum during their budgeting cycle instead of the when events come up method we had been using in the past. The economy tanked and it went back to having to ask per event. We perhaps should change the budget to better reflect that. Running a budget deficit of $83,000 seems a bit mad given the way things are going right now - shouldn't we be tightening our belts anywhere we can? Yes and no. The year is young so things might actually turn around and the way things look, we can continue flat for the next few year even if things don't change baring a total collapse of our funding (and taking into account losing Stormy as per my other e-mail). Tying events to extra funding is a good way to keep the cushion without scaling back prematurely. Remember GNOME 3.0 is in active development so now more than ever we need to keep important activities around that moving ahead. That being said, if there are any events that aren't really all that important in the grand scheme of things we should absolutely cut them or at least move them down in priority. I have some ideas how to get closer to a balanced budget. They mean tightening the belt this year, for the long-term health of the foundation, but I think that's worth doing. As I see it, our minimum expenditure during the year is: Stormy:$96,000 Zana: $27,500 Paychex:$2,400 Taxes: $6,043 Insurance: $2,200 Accountant: $3,500 Office: $592 Bank fees: $3,000 (is there a way to bring these down?) Total: $141,235 And undirected income (that is, income not specifically destined for programs): Advisory board fees: $110,000 Friends of GNOME: $20,000 (budgeted) Google SoC: $15,000 GUADEC 08:$20,000 (provisional) Total: $165,000 That gives us about $24K to play with, *if* we raise $20,000 from Friends of GNOME, everyone pays advisory board fees, and we do pretty well from GUADEC 08. Looks like this is possible judging by the last updates and if we can keep momentum - http://blogs.gnome.org/foundation/2009/05/04/friends-of-gnome-update/ . What's unclear from the presentation of the budget is which activities are coming from the foundation surplus, and which will be run only if they're self-funding. We will have to work on this as I don't have absolute numbers. There is work ongoing that we should unveil soon which will break out exactly where donations go and how much we need to raise for each agenda on the foundations plate (such as hackfests and sysadmin, etc.) As I understand it, hackfests are all conditional on sponsorship and/or financial participation of participants. I assume the same is true of the sysadmin? Given that we have $20,000 raised towards the sysadmin position already, and another
The GNOME Foundation Needs Your Help
Dear Foundation members, The 2009 yearly budget has been released. For the past couple of years the GNOME Foundation has been running a healthy surplus in contributions. As a result, year after year we have been expanding GNOME related activities and events. Last year we had the opportunity to further increase the Foundation's value to its members by hiring the highly respected Stormy Peters as our Executive Director. When that decision was made no one could have predicted the global economic downturn and the impact it would have on our industry. While Stormy has managed to get a number of new corporate sponsors and we have enough to keep paying her for this current budget cycle, we are still projecting that without a significant influx of steady contributions we will be unable to keep an Executive Director on the payroll without cutting into the activities budget. As the economy persists on this roller coaster of ups and downs, the Foundation is rolling with the punches and looking for ways to best serve our members. While we can look at this downturn as a time to tighten our belts, I would much rather look at this as an opportunity for the community to take a stake in the future of the Foundation and show that we are not exclusively reliant on corporate coffers to grow GNOME. If you haven't donated in the past, now is the time to start by becoming a Friend of GNOME or donating at any of the contribution levels. If you do currently donate to GNOME, look to see if you can contribute a tiny bit more on a monthly basis. Every little bit helps. Remember these funds go to programs like hackfests and putting on local conferences. It also goes to paying for our staff of two who along with the part time and overworked board construct the strategies for facilitating the growth of GNOME. The Foundation has served us well over the years and will continue to serve us regardless of the outcome of the current economic climate. The real tragedy would be to no longer have the funds to retain Stormy's services. Stormy's contributions in kicking our butts to finish ongoing projects as well as start new ones and bringing in new streams of funding are remarkable in themselves, and even more so in the current climate. Losing Stormy now would be sort of like having this shiny new plane but neglecting to build the runway long enough for it to take off. The best of what Stormy has to offer has yet to be seen. I can tell you for a fact that without her the Foundation will be less effective in its mission. Please go to the Friends of GNOME site at http://www.gnome.org/friends/ to donate. We need your ongoing support. Donations allow us to accelerate the adoption and development of GNOME while our paid staff allows us to be more effective with those donations. Whatever you can give will ensure the continued good works of the GNOME Foundation. Thanks on behalf of the Board, John (J5) Palmieri ___ 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
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. -- John (J5) Palmieri GNOME Foundation Board Treasurer On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 6:58 AM, Paul Cooper [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 11:57 +0200, Vincent Untz wrote: The GNOME Foundation and KDE e.V. announced that they will hold their yearly conferences, GUADEC and Akademy in 2009 in Gran Canaria. The conferences will be separate events, but co-located and hosted by the same organizers, the Cabildo of Gran Canaria and its Secretary of Tourism, Technological Innovation and Foreign Trade. Great - something I'm keen to understand is what co-located means. Does it mean that we just happen to be at the same venue at roughly the same time, but otherwise separate - separate finances, sponsors, sponsorships (of speakers), parties, swag, etc. Or are the conferences to be jointly organised at that kind of infrastructure level, so that there will only be one bank account, set of sponsors, sponsorships, parties, swag, etc. My understanding is that it's much more of co-organisation rather than simple co-location, but it's not clear to me where the boundaries lie. This isn't a complaint, just a heads up - at some point in the next months people will be working on the sponsorship brochure, website, call for volunteers, and I think there is a fine line to be walk. For sponsorship in particular, many (larger) sponsors probably have investments in both GNOME and KDE so having them at the same place, with one sponsorship, one set of travel, etc will be very attractive. However other companies are only invested in either GNOME or KDE and would need more clarity as to how their sponsorship euros are getting spent, how their brand is used and associated, etc. This isn't just about sponsors either. Sponsoring speakers and attendees is a huge chunk of GUADEC budget and always fraught with tensions and potential disappointment - how this is handled needs to be clearly explained, and carefully handled to prevent the perception that one 'side' or the other is getting preferential treatment. Similarly attracting volunteers and assigning responsibilities would need some thought. Overall I expect overall sponsorship and participation to increase - for example I would hope that one of the companies invested in both KDE and GNOME to step up to cornerstone sponsor :-) - and I don't sense that anyone existing sponsors or volunteers are going to walk away. However I do think it will need to be more carefully explained than simply saying 'co-located' unless we really do mean same place same time and nothing more. Regards, Paul While there were other excellent bids, the GNOME foundation and KDE e.V. have settled on Gran Canaria because of its position as Port to Africa and the excellent circumstances for holding such an event there. Unfortunately, having three proposals, two have to be rejected. The proposals from Tampere in Finland and Coruna in Spain were close contenders. Both foundations would like to thank those organisers for the work they have put into their proposals and encourage them to consider their cities for conferences in future years. Read the full press release: http://www.gnome.org/press/releases/2008-07-guadec-akademy-grancanaria.html -- Paul Cooper| Tel: +44 0208 819 6559 ext 333 Business Development Manager | Fax: +44 0208 819 6559 OpenedHand | http://www.openedhand.com -- http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/advisory-board From time to time confidential and sensitive information will be discussed on this mailing list. Please take care to mark confidential information as confidential, and do not redistribute this information without permission. ___ 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
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. 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. On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 8:25 AM, Alberto Ruiz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2008/7/15 Dave Neary [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Hi Paul, To my knowledge, Akademy runs at a loss, or no better than break-even, while GUADEC has allowed the GNOME Foundation to propose hackfests, fund speakers travelling to conferences, pay for the Boston Summit, fund the GNOME Outreach Programme: Accessibility, and more. Something that I've been thinking about is sponsor affiliation, something that I discussed with some Igalia folks, the idea is to let sponsors decide to which organization do they want to affiliate so that besides the common budget, all the remaining money goes to the one they affiliate with or both (in case they want to choose both). I don't think this is going to be an issue with the biggest sponsors, but some of the smallest ones might want to just support the project/organization that they have interest for. Other than that, I think that we should share as much as we can as long as we keep the identity of each event separated. -- Cheers, Alberto Ruiz ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
