Questions

[Ali Akcaagac <aliakc web de>]

Hello,

I would like to wish everyone Merry Xmas and a happy New Year. Now to my
concerns. For me as german person and years long follower of GNOME it is
hard to follow and understand what the Foundation represents, how it
works and its rules. I still believe that I haven't understood
everything due of it not being really transparent enough. People where
english is not their native language understanding things can be hard.

I therefore would like to make a normal proposal and give some personal
thoughts how I feel and think about this. Please bear with me in case
this problem has already been tracked. As said it's not all transparent
for me.

In the past years of participating to GNOME I figured out that GNOME is
mostly driven by the same people. E.g. always the same people who do the
Release stuff, always the same people who sit in the Board and so on. I
know this can be changed once someone applies for candidacy but I
believe that many people are not really aware of the importance of all
this and I feel a bit worried about that. At the end it also looks quite
monotonous and singlesided. We already saw in this years voting how many
people missed to vote. Maybe they do not care enough.

I also figured out over the years that some of the same people who do
the job over and over again have the tendency to abuse their position by
creating their own 'world of' GNOME and this is worrying me even more.

I would like to give a good example here:

Say the people who have manifest their position as Release Team it then
becomes hard for new people to participate there. On the Release Teams
page you see that the aim is to have a 6 months rotation of the people
so others get the chance to do the job as well but from my
investigations the same people were sitting there 1 year ago, 2 years
ago etc. I don't want to value them as person but I think it is
singlesided and the people outside can not influence it enough.

How can a abuse look like: Explaining this will definately upset a few
people now but I do not see another chance to explain it other than
naming it. Say there are some competition products such as
buildingsystems for GNOME, now the Release Coordinator and current
Chairman has a similar product of his own. Due his position he forces
his product into the GNOME project and ignores other existing solutions
driven by other people whose aims are to support GNOME as well. It is
impossible for this person for example to claim and hope for an equal
chance to present their work for GNOME. Why is this so ? because the
same people are sitting there and doing the job over and over again and
use their position to 'control'. It's understandable that competition is
not wanted but isn't the aim of GNOME to give everyone the same rights
and chances ? Say how is this rotation done there ? If the same people
who have manifest their position there decide who becomes part of the
Release Team and who not then it should be clear that personal interests
overweight the decidion. E.g. people whose nose doesn't fit do not get
the chance or Team memers who have problems with others do not get the
chance as well.

I therefore would like to ask whether it is possible to change this
functionality in a permanent rotation.

Say if someone is part as Boardmember, Releasemember or any other member
for say 1-2 periods then he should back out for 1-2 periods and allow
others to do the job and after the 1-2 periods are passed they should
get the same chance again to do the job. This will definately control
GNOME in a correct way without giving people outside the feeling that it
is abused in some ways. GNOME is and was a free project and what matters
more is this community. The people around it who support it, who
contribute to it, who have sleepless nights with fixing and improving
things should be the ones to respect. The community IS GNOME. And we
should make sure that this community should get the same chances as
others to participate to it. To feel part of it. To not get the feeling
to be controlled by the same people.

I would like to point to Nat Friedman's membership guidelines. I know
these guidelines are in first situation meant for becoming member of the
Foundation but it is well written and I do respect him for his wise
words and I believe these sentences should be applyable on other areas
of GNOME as well. It would be a shame if people are leaving this project
or feeling controlled or bothered even till harrassmend by people who
'control'.

m.g.o/archives/foundation-list/2002-October/msg00026.html
http://tinyurl.com/2mfj6

Thank you very much,

Ali Akcaagac