Re: Candidacy: Jeff Waugh

[Jeff Waugh]

> On Thu, 2007-11-15 at 06:34 +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> 
> >  * This year has been pretty tough for me as a Board member, as I've
> >  been starting a new business which has required a lot of time, I have
> >  been travelling a lot, and conference calls have been at a particularly
> >  bad time for me in Sydney.
> 
> Do you have a plan to deal with the situation this coming year?

Sorry, missed this mail until now... Yeah, I think the situation this year
is different in a number of ways:

 * I'm not organising linux.conf.au this time around, and I failed to
   realise how much an impact that really had on almost the first half of
   last year.

 * There were some extremely demotivating personal issues in the GNOME
   community that I had to contend with last year, which led to a fairly
   long period of depression (mentioned in my blog a few months back). I can
   only hope this doesn't return.

 * Finally, the nature of the work Pia and I are doing in our business is
   changing a bit from frenetic startup stuff to more regular, ongoing
   projects... and *hopefully* less travel. I totally thought that would be
   one of the benefits of leaving Canonical...

Unfortunately, I can't see the timezone thing changing too much. :-)

- Jeff

-- 
GNOME.conf.au 2008: Melbourne, Australia http://live.gnome.org/Melbourne2008
 
   "People keep asking me why we aren't married, and he says, 'Every time
   I am about to ask you, you do something annoying'." - Kate Beckinsale
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Re: Candidacy: Jeff Waugh

[Andrew Cowie]

On Thu, 2007-11-15 at 06:34 +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote:

>  * This year has been pretty tough for me as a Board member, as I've been
>starting a new business which has required a lot of time, I have been
>travelling a lot, and conference calls have been at a particularly bad
>time for me in Sydney.

Do you have a plan to deal with the situation this coming year?

AfC
Sydney



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Re: Candidacy: Jeff Waugh

[Philip Van Hoof]

On Fri, 2006-11-17 at 10:43 +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote:

These are awesome points and promises you are making Jeff. I hope you'll
get elected so that developers like myself are sure that somebody is
working on the exact future that they want GNOME to become.

>  * Continue with GMAE and kickstart a couple of similar projects, focusing
>commercial interest on community/upstream development, ensuring the GNOME
>community is a strategic asset for the companies involved, and keeping
>our successes in the limelight. We need to make sure that the innovative
>GNOME community continues to be seen as a highly valued part of the Free
>Software ecosystem, and improve on that status.

Your energy and efforts to steer and start the GMAE initiative are
highly appreciated. Thanks a lot for this. This is going to make a big
difference for the careers of a lot GNOME developers involved.

>  * Build a platform for advertisement of GNOME-related product, solution and
>service providers, and GNOME-related recruitment.

>  * Fund focused face-to-face meetings, as I discussed with lots of GNOMErs
>during the Boston Summit. Specifically, I want to start with a UK-based
>meeting for "collaboration and communications" developers (ensuring we
>have a fantastic platform and integration for collaboration, presence and
>communications technologies), and a meeting for GNOME artists to coincide
>with the Libre Graphics Meeting in May (in Quebecistan).

>  * Hire a business development manager for the GNOME Foundation, to raise
>funds and manage our organisational relationships. I am particularly keen
>on this, because a bizdev manager for the GNOME Foundation will be able
>to better manage the operational side of my crazy ideas. :-)


-- 
Philip Van Hoof, software developer
home: me at pvanhoof dot be 
gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org 
http://www.pvanhoof.be/blog




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Candidacy: Jeff Waugh

[Jeff Waugh]

  Name: Jeff Waugh
  Mail: jdub gnome org / jdub perkypants org
  Nick: jdub
  Affl: Waugh Partners 
  Blog: http://perkypants.org/blog/
  Biog: http://live.gnome.org/JeffWaugh


Summary
---

I love GNOME. I am passionate, motivated, and dedicated to building our
success, both outwardly - a foot on every desktop; and inwardly - making
sure our developer and user communities are rocking all the time. I believe
I've earned the trust of the GNOME community to represent it, both as a
communicator outside the project, and as a mediator and leader within our
community. I am here to help GNOME rock.


Why You?


First and foremost, I am passionate about and dedicated to GNOME. I have not
contributed to GNOME by writing code because I found very rapidly that I was
not going to be useful in that capacity. Embarrassing, yes. Useful, no. So,
I have spent a long time contributing in every non-technical way I could. If
there is one skill above all others that I bring to the Foundation, it is my
ability to communicate and connect people together. For instance:

 * Representing GNOME at the OSDL Desktop Architects Meeting, making sure
   our needs (financial and community) are addressed, and major platform,
   system and infrastructural issues are dealt with across the development
   community.

 * I kicked off the GNOME Mobile and Embedded Initiative (to be formally
   announced in January 2007), which has brought together a surprising
   number of organisations and individuals focusing on mobile, handheld and
   embedded user experience development with GNOME. This initiative will
   have a massive impact on the uptake of GNOME technology as a developer
   platform, the visibility of GNOME in the 'real world' among 'real users'
   and direct development on the GNOME Platform.
   
   I hold in very high regard our capacity to thrive at the intersection of
   commercial and community development, so supporting GNOME developers who
   find commercial opportunities for their work is very important to me. I
   really get a kick out of projects such as this. :-) It's also satisfying
   to know that GNOME can put food on the table for GNOME hackers and their
   families. Why is everyone having babies at the moment?

 * Organising and chairing, with Chris Blizzard, the GNOME Boston Summit.
   Based the feedback I've received, this year's Summit raised the bar for
   face-to-face GNOME events in terms of getting things done, and making
   sure the wider community sees the results. The Summit was also a venue
   for more focused community meetings for the accessibility and text layout
   folks.


Goals
-

While I believe the main function of the Board is to represent the GNOME
community, it can often be an excellent platform for Getting Things Done.
There are a number of things I want to do this year, for which a Board
position would be advantageous... I document them here so you can decide
whether or not to trust me with that role. :-)

 * Continue with GMAE and kickstart a couple of similar projects, focusing
   commercial interest on community/upstream development, ensuring the GNOME
   community is a strategic asset for the companies involved, and keeping
   our successes in the limelight. We need to make sure that the innovative
   GNOME community continues to be seen as a highly valued part of the Free
   Software ecosystem, and improve on that status.

 * Build a platform for advertisement of GNOME-related product, solution and
   service providers, and GNOME-related recruitment.

 * Fund focused face-to-face meetings, as I discussed with lots of GNOMErs
   during the Boston Summit. Specifically, I want to start with a UK-based
   meeting for "collaboration and communications" developers (ensuring we
   have a fantastic platform and integration for collaboration, presence and
   communications technologies), and a meeting for GNOME artists to coincide
   with the Libre Graphics Meeting in May (in Quebecistan).

 * Hire a business development manager for the GNOME Foundation, to raise
   funds and manage our organisational relationships. I am particularly keen
   on this, because a bizdev manager for the GNOME Foundation will be able
   to better manage the operational side of my crazy ideas. :-)


Conclusion
--

I believe I've earned the trust of the GNOME community to represent it, both
as a communicator outside the project, and as a mediator and leader within
our community.

Here are a couple of my previous candidacy statements that are well worth
reading if you want to know more about me and what I feel is important for
the GNOME Foundation:

 http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2005-November/msg00014.html
 http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2003-November/msg00010.html
 http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2002-November/msg8.html

- Jeff

-- 
linux.conf.au 2007: Sydney, Australia   http://lca2007.linux.org.au/

Re: Candidacy: Jeff Waugh

[Miguel Angel Lopez Hernandez]

Hey Jeff,

I'm Miguel from Mexico, the coordinator of the GULEV Congreso
Internacional de Software Libre, please I need to know about you, we are
waiting for you :S

Greetings,
Miguel

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Re: Candidacy: Jeff Waugh

[Vincent Untz]

Le vendredi 18 novembre 2005 à 10:44 +1100, Jeff Waugh a écrit :
>   Name: Jeff Waugh
>   Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>   Nick: jdub
>   Affl: Canonical Ltd, sponsors of Ubuntu
> 
> 
> (Apologies for my late candidacy statement. I had to make a hurried return
> from the USA to Australia, which unfortunately coincided with the original
> deadline. Though I was content to take the bullet and not run, I have just
> read that a fresh window of opportunity appeared, so my candidacy statement
> won't go to waste! According to Vincent Untz, the new deadline is 23:59 UTC
> Thursday.)

Just to make things clear: I said "deadlines have always been 23:59 UTC,
so I see no reason to change this". I'll let other members of the
elections committee define the official extended deadline.

Vincent

-- 
Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés.

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Candidacy: Jeff Waugh

[Jeff Waugh]

  Name: Jeff Waugh
  Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  Nick: jdub
  Affl: Canonical Ltd, sponsors of Ubuntu


(Apologies for my late candidacy statement. I had to make a hurried return
from the USA to Australia, which unfortunately coincided with the original
deadline. Though I was content to take the bullet and not run, I have just
read that a fresh window of opportunity appeared, so my candidacy statement
won't go to waste! According to Vincent Untz, the new deadline is 23:59 UTC
Thursday.)


The Role of the GNOME Foundation Board
--

I believe that a core part of the Board's role this year will be to strongly
define and communicate the role of the Board. Thus, my candidacy would not
be complete without describing what I think the role of the Board should be,
and what we need to do to get it there.

 * Representation

   I believe we've made a mistake in our communication of the Board's role
   in the past few years. We delegate 'doing' roles to Directors by electing
   them, thus freeing ourselves from the responsibility of getting things
   done ourselves, within the greater community. This disengages the natural
   strengths of our community - co-operation, distribution, the greater pool
   of knowledge, etc. I would like to redefine the Board's role as purely
   representative. As such, the Board would be responsible for delegation of
   tasks, and ensuring that active members of the community are given all
   the 'official' assistance they need to contribute fully. A representative
   board would not monopolise the community's ability to 'get things done',
   it would delegate parallel responsibility instead of bottleneck it.

   http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2005-October/msg00104.html
   
   Thus, we should elect people who we feel are capable of listening to,
   understanding, and communicating our needs as a community. We need to
   elect people who understand and care about our community, and those we
   trust to make decisions fairly and rationally. We do not need to elect
   people to do the work of the community - we need to elect people who can
   help the community work together in more effective and meaningful ways!

 * Conflict Resolution

   A purely representative Board would be naturally equipped to act as a
   point of conflict resolution, so stakeholders can have their say, our
   problems can be solved, and we can get on with building Free Software.
   Though we have stated very clearly that the Foundation does not set the
   direction for GNOME development, we can use it as a point of conflict
   resolution when problems arise.

 * Fundraising and Administration

   As the Foundation must hold assets and funds for its members, the Board
   must be responsible for making sure they are used wisely, *and* that the
   finances and assets of the Foundation are well known to its members! Of
   equal importance is the ability of the Foundation to raise money for its
   projects. Often a sensitive issue, this is something that really should
   fall to Board members alone - but they have the ability to hire someone
   to manage that task, too.

 * Employee Management

   This is not a task that can be delegated to the community for all kinds
   of sensible (and legal) reasons. :-)

 * Conduit Between Stakeholders

   The Board is well placed to bridge the gap between stakeholders inside
   and outside of our community. Not only do we have the Foundation members,
   but the greater GNOME community, the Advisory Board, other companies who
   contribute to or rely on GNOME, ISVs (both proprietarly and Free, users,
   other Free Software projects and organisations, etc. If a representative
   Board should be doing anything, it is this! (This being representation!)


Size and Structure
--

I do not believe that the outcome of the Board size referendum was positive.
Though I was once a staunch supporter of reducing the number of directors to
seven, I had a very strong change of heart when I realised that it was being
done for all the wrong reasons, and that more effective solutions to the
Board's decision gridlock problems were not considered thoroughly enough.

  http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2005-October/msg00056.html

As stated in the above email, I think a directly elected executive is the
right structure to ensure that candidates share a mandate to make decisions
with a strong responsibility to the electors in the community. It is not a
way to give one person the right to do anything, unchecked - they will know
that they must listen to and work toward the goals of the Foundation
membership. If I were running for a Board with this structure today, I would
nominate for the positions of President, Vice President and Ordinary Member.

A representative Board would not need to meet as regularly as every week or
fortnight. I would start by shifting to monthly meetings. We are all capable
technologists,