Candidacy

[Joe Shaw <joe helixcode com>]

Hello everyone,

I would like to announce my candidacy for the GNOME Foundation Board. Why
should you vote for me?

* I have been involved in the GNOME project from day one, becoming much
  more involved in the daily affairs and major issues in the past year and
  a half. Prior to that, I mostly lurked on the lists and helped report
  problems.

* I have contributed to and helped fixed bugs in a number of the core
  modules such as gnome-libs, bonobo, gtkhtml, evolution, gnet, maybe some
  others that I may have forgotten. I wrote the Helix GNOME installer and
  updater applications and I'm the maintainer of the achtung presentation
  program.
* I am a very strong believer in the tennets of free software and consider
  it to be one of the keystones of the GNOME's future.
* I am employed by Helix Code where my responsibility is hacking totally
  on GNOME software. Early on, I was responsible for gathering the various
  GTK and GNOME applications for the Helix GNOME distribution. I have
  developed a great deal of experience in the distribution, packaging and
  release engineering facets of putting together a GNOME distribution from
  both the technical (coding) perspective as well as the logistical 
  point-of-view.
* I am a pretty objective person, and while I am employed by Helix Code
  and can help represent their interests, the interests of the GNOME
  project are more important to me personally than any corporate entity,
  including the one that pays me, and my employer understands this.
* Along with Nat Friedman, I helped with the first draft of the Foundation
  charter and am principally responsible for the limitations on corporate
  influence and have been one of the most outspoken against corporate
  dominance in the Foundation. Furthermore, I have time and time again
  thrown out my opinion in the various Foundation discussions.

I understand that if elected to the board, there will be a plethora of
administrative tasks that will need to be dealt with immediately and I
have no problem in helping do so. However, once those initial issues are
worked out, I would like to do the following over the course of 18 months:

* See that GNOME's funds are transferred into an account and have the
  Foundation take a much more aggressive role in our conference 
  policies. This includes potentially paying for better booth space,
  covering airfare for people to work the booth, printing  
  professional-quality literature that can give those unfamiliar with
  GNOME a good introduction, and introducing the  companies that are
  fueling GNOME development.
* Encourage active development on the entire GNOME 2.0 development
  platform, particularly gnome-libs 2.0 which has come rather stagnant
  despite some recent activity from George and Martin. I would like to see
  someone like Miguel be appointed or take control of the gnome-libs
  effort and work on integrating the various components we have in the
  so-called GNOME 2.0 platform and turn it into a real platform. I would
  like to see good documentation and tutorials instead of just an API
  reference that we can present to application vendors. Once the
  infrastructure is in place, I want to put the weight of the project
  behind porting applications to the new platform and releasing GNOME 2.0
  as quickly as possible.
* I would like to see the foundation evaluate and work closely with Sun on
  OpenOffice and Do The Right Thing with it, as the potential it possesses
  could really help the GNOME project in the longer term.
* Work closely with the foundation's corporate partners to address their
  concerns and listen to their input while remaining true to the
  principles of the project.

I am not one of those people who hates Microsoft because they are "The
Enemy" and because they dominate the industry (although I do have issues
with some of the ways they got there...). I think they have done a fine
job and I feel that they present a lot that we can learn from. I feel much
the same way about Apple. The reason why I am a part of GNOME and have
such stock in it is because I believe in Free Software, and I want to be a
part of creating a ubiquitous free desktop. I want GNOME to be that
desktop technologically and ideologically.

I believe that the foundation should not be a big, overbearing entity that
stifles the advancement of the project. I believe that a small and
semi-formal entity that guides the direction of the project, delegates
tasks to members and committees who are eager to help, and provides a
support and leadership role are what we're looking for in the foundation,
and my election to the board will help ensure that these principles are
put into place.

Thanks,
Joe