Re: Candidate

[bruce perens com (Bruce Perens)]

Maciej,

Currently, Linux Capital Group has invested its entire fund and now we have
to sit back for a while and wait for our money to work. Thus, I've gone off
salary there. I'm going to be writing a book for a while, which will be under
the GNU Free Documentation License, with sponsorship from one of the Linux
vendors. I'll be doing some consulting on the process of Open Source and
writing a few magazine articles, too. My committments to Progeny and Known
Safe are one conference call per week plus some random calls and emails, and
a meeting once in a while - I am not an officer with either corporation, just
the chairman. It is likely that once Progeny goes through its second round
that I would no longer be chairman, and might not even be on the Progeny board.
I hope to get to many of the major Linux shows, and to bring Valerie and the
baby with me when I can.

The main drain on my time is being a parent, but Valerie and the baby manage
to leave me alone during the work day. It even possible that I can find
corporate sponsorship for the time I spend on GNOME.

But it's still very unlikely that I will be playing a big part in the
_technical_ leadership, nor should I. I would be involved in relations with
business, public relations, publicity, and possibly some grant writing.
I am very good at begging corporations and government for money on behalf
of an important project. I've successfully written and ran a $2.4M ARPA
grant at Pixar. Isn't that a lot of what the GNOME foundation is about?

You are running the risk of overpopulating the board with people who
concentrate mainly on the fine issues of software development, and you
need people to connect that group with the rest of the world. That's what
I can do for you.

	Thanks

	Bruce

From: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs eazel com>
> Do you think you have the time to follow the goings-on of GNOME at the
> level of detail required to do a good job? I haven't seen around you
> on the lists or on IRC, and when I sent mail Cc'd to you earlier, I
> got an auto-response explaining how busy you were and suggesting that
> I contact your assistant. I know you have many responsibilities
> already (close involvement in running 3 corporations, ad you have
> mentioned), and none of these are GNOME related.
> 
> I do think that it would be useful to have an "free software elder
> statesman" type person on the board who is widely respected primarily
> for non-GNOME work. But I would rather see someone like Jim Gettys or
> Alan Cox, who is involved on a regular basis and up on the current
> issues facing GNOME, much as all the other candidates so far are, or
> even someone like Brian Behlendorf who has facilitated the process of
> creating the foundation.
> 
> I hope you won't take my comments too personally - I think you've done
> a lot of good work for free software, and I hope you keep up the good
> work. In fact, I feel incredibly guilty for starting the first
> negative campaigning in this election. Everyone tar & feather me,
> please.