Re: polarization

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

"John R. Sheets" <dusk ravendusk org> writes: 
> I agree that the foundation shouldn't fund development or documentation
> efforts.  Aside from that, I think both Havoc and Bruce are raising very
> good points, and I for one would like to see _both_ points of view on
> the board.  I don't think these issues should be resolved by election,
> but rather by further debate within the board itself, as it matures and
> reacts to the industry.
> 

I'd like to point out that Bart shares much of Bruce's viewpoint,
e.g. that we should try to collect money, but has much more intimate
knowledge of GNOME, prior nonprofit experience, co-founded Eazel, is
working hard on the foundation right now, and is a lawyer.  I disagree
with Bart on lots of these issues, but I'm still voting for him.

My problem with voting for Bruce is that I think Bart and Jim and so
on are better representatives of this kind of perspective. I think
they have better qualifications and experience with respect to large
nonprofits working with a lot of corporate interest and trying to push
a software technology. I also think they are better at working with
other people; maybe Bruce has changed, as he says in his candidacy
statement, due to having a baby, but I'd hate to be the project that
tests this hypothesis. Bruce's experience is e.g. with SPI/Debian,
where he got lots of people really angry and stormed away; and OSI,
where I have the impression something similar happened.  We haven't so
far had this kind of problem in GNOME; the main GNOME leaders are
people who argue points strongly, but also change their mind pretty
easily, and tend to listen to opposing views pretty seriously. Miguel
exemplifies this open-minded aspect of our culture.

I think Bruce was frequently correct in the points he made while at
SPI and OSI; I just don't think he was very good at working with the
group to do something about the points made. Instead things escalated
to open letters on Slashdot. And I think we have other candidates who
are just as qualified to make these kind of points, with more GNOME
familiarity, with better consensus-building skills.

So voting for Bruce but not Bart and Jim and Daniel is IMHO a
mistake. If you must vote for Bruce, please replace someone other than
those guys on your ballot. i.e. if you decide to vote for Bruce, and
need to make room on your list of people to vote for, please remove my
name, for example, but keep Bart, Jim, Daniel, and John Heard. I think
having those guys on the board is more important than having me on it.
I'm vocal enough to stay involved regardless of whether I'm elected.

Anyhow, I guess this is a massively negative post, and I apologize; I
do think Bruce is a good guy. Honestly, I'm not just saying that. He's
treated me well. He's done a lot for free software. I am thankful for
that. I just look at his track record in leadership positions, and his
working style, and I see it clashing harshly with the way GNOME runs
today. The board is not a way to say "thanks for your contributions,"
it's a group of people that will be good in this role for GNOME.  In
all honesty, my feeling is that these other candidates I've mentioned
would do a better job.

Perhaps Lauris was wrong and we do have a strong anti-establishment
figure to vote for. ;-) If you vote for him though, again, I'd ask
that you replace me on your ballot, rather than some of the
highly-qualified other candidates. I am a pretty good establishment
figure to vote against, and am strongly defending the establishment
here.

I guess I should post less on this topic, but I do have strong
feelings about it. I'll try to let it go.

IMHO,
Havoc