getting ready for announcement

[Bart Decrem <bart eazel com>]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to circulate a new draft of the Gnome Foundation charter early
next week and use that as the basis for the announcement of the Gnome
Foundation on August 15 at LWE.

There was some general concern about the third draft, but it never was
translated into edit suggestions, so I'd like to ask again for edit
suggestions that I can incorporate into the next draft.  The third draft
is at

http://mail.gnome.org/pipermail/foundation-list/2000-July/000374.html

The current plan is to issue a press release on 8/15 on behalf of the
Gnome Community, announcing the creation the Gnome Foundation.  As I
stated in an earlier post, one of the main messages in the press release
and at the press conference will be that leading companies are embracing
Gnome.  Sun, Red Hat, Helix Code, Eazel and VA Linux are confirmed but
it is very likely that several other leading PC OEMs will be announcing
that they are joining the Advisory Board of the foundation.

A group of people, including the Gnome Steering Committee and a bunch of
corporate PR reps are working on the press release, the invites for the
press conference, the press conference and the Gnome party (which will
be on 8/16).

If there appears to be rough consensus on the next draft of the Charter,
I would then post it on Gnome hackers so we can give the broader hacker
community another chance to respond.

It doesn't look like we'll have draft legal documents by 8/15, but I do
think we'll be able to incorporate the foundation and have the first
elections before the end of the year.

Let me know if you have edits for the charter draft or other comments,

Bart