*** First the administrativia: If relevant, 'Quim Gil' in Catalan sounds like 'Kim Jill' in English. E-mail address above Corporate affiliation is interactors s.coop. - http://interactors.coop/en/ Summary GNOME is technically ready for the general public. Does the general public know this? Ask your neighbour. In order to make GNOME a mainstream desktop we need to focus in the social aspects of software as much as in the technical development. If the mountain doesn't go to GNOME, GNOME goes to the mountain. Actions recommended to be promoted by the board in which I possibly could play a useful role: gnome.org megawebsite, GUADEC & smaller events, smartketing, strengthen our brand, extend The GNOME Experience to proprietary desktops, start discussing seriously GNOME 3.0. I'm going to be one of the GUADEC7 organisers, I will have time for GNOME anyway. I think my profile can fit in the kind of tasks needed in the board. Long version Sorry for the long telegram. Due to the concentration in GUADEC and the MarketingTeam I'm completely unknown in most parts of GNOME and I've felt the need to introduce my ideas and myself. *** Why me in the board GNOME is technically ready for the general public. Does the general public know this? Ask your neighbour. Opinion: in order to make GNOME a mainstream desktop we need to focus in the social aspects of software as much as in the technical development. First we need to explain to everybody how great GNOME is, but the success will come when people understand by themselves that GNOME is what they need. Strategy: if the mountain doesn't go to GNOME, GNOME goes to the mountain. The Foundation and specifically the board should help in this walk towards the mainstream users. I wish to contribute to this process facilitating cross-discussion and common decisions through different areas of the project on relevant topics such as: * Great, proud, useful and social gnome.org megawebsite with extensive use of RSS, reminders and whatever goes to you when you forget to come. Community activities, contests, social networks, FOAF, links to the distributed projects in which the GNOME hackers are always so active. * Open events, with many small-to-medium meetings combined with a damn sexy and cool international GUADEC. Also defining a pool of GNOME speakers and presentations every cutting-edge conference would die for. * Smartketing. IMHO we as Foundation don't need to target end users as much as we need to target the IT decision-makers found in the main distributions, software industry, hardware manufacturers, consultancy agencies, governments, corporations and the media. Just one of those may push today the move of thousands to GNOME tomorrow. * Strengthen our brand by simplifying our core message in a way a user could understand, remember and feel excited about it. "We bring the free software to your screen" and other inaccurate yet effective ;) slogans. * Extend GNOME bringing GNU to the non-free territory. Step on the proprietary desktops offering to users a sample of The GNOME Experience through realistic flash tours, amusing view-hows, Gtk+ solid applications, installable CDLive's... * Start discussing seriously GNOME 3.0. IMHO one of the main challenges is to rethink what a desktop actually will be when most of the time users will be working on the top of remote resources somewhere in Web 2.0. See how GNOME integrates with the emerging distributed technologies and help them evolve in the WWW combined with the local desktop. Look at the blogs, the P2P networks, the friend-of-a-friend's, the rate-my-stuff's, the Wikipedias, the free FOAF bazaars with alternative cash and micropayment systems one day we will have... What will be the role of GNOME in this (apparently) distributed future? All this involves debate and work in several areas and projects under the GNOME umbrella and the board facilitation and coordination. I'm familiar with GNOME and also with the kind of actions described above. Thanks to the GUADEC7 @ Barcelona I will probably have time to invest in GNOME anyway. 'Socialising GNOME' and pushing it in the long way to become mainstream is a complex and exciting challenge for the whole project. I can contribute my 2 cents in 2006 from the board if you wish. Who am I Born in Lloret de Mar (Catalonia, Spain) in 1970. Journalist since 1988, Internet user and web projects coordinator since 1995, teleworker since 1999, 100% Debian & GNOME user since 2002 (I tried in 2000, too much for my laptop and/or myself), dedicated full time to free software misc services since 2003 with interactors.coop. Currently living in Arcos de la Frontera (Andalusia - Guadalinex & GNOME territory - Spain), in the last 6 years I've been living in London, Cologne and 1 year backpacking through (Latin)America. I live with my partner and my little son. I work as project coordinator, consultant, web admin of Drupal & GForge based sites. I'm also in charge of finding new clients and projects, I speak in conferences, I find contacts in free software sensitive administrations... I have no clue of programming or designing but these skills and experience may be useful for a position in the board. One more comment. I arrived to the free software community for ideological reasons, for the freedom, the openness, transparency, horizontality, decentralization, emancipation... For me these are requirements for almost any project I'm involved. These terms describe the GNOME I wish, the Foundation I wish and the Board I wish. My direct collaboration with GNOME started this year, although I have been advocating form my beloved desktop since before I had it installed. :) (anecdote: I tried to help in Debian's Desktop and Popularity Contest lists, but they were far too technical to me and it took me almost 2 years to find the right entry point to GNOME through the Marketing Team). - I have coordinated the GUADEC7 Barcelona candidature, I participate in the requirements and negotiations and I will be one of the organisers. This has taken most of my GNOME time in the last months. I have also participated in the debates about the present and future of the GUADEC. - I attended the GUADEC @ Stuttgart. I met the Marketing Team and I felt like having found finally a place for me in the FLOSS world. After that I helped reorganizing the wiki pages and I started the GettingInvolved project (currently stuck AFAIK). - I'm subscribed also in the foundation-list and the gnome-web-list, where I follow the debates and occasionally have my say. - Through my work at interactors I work/collaborate in projects that fall in the GNOME surroundings, mainly in the context of the Ubuntu project. I've taken a modest part in the development of the Live installer Ubuntu Express and I have also suggested a reorganization of the System/Desktop tools menus for the corresponding BOF in the Ubuntu Below Zero conference. Well, I guess that's it. Thank you. -- Quim Gil http://interactors.coop | http://desdeamericaconamor.org
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