Re: Candidacy (Michael Meeks), I'm totaly misunderstood <sob>

[Bart Decrem <bart eazel com>]

Hi Michael,

With all due respect, and regardless of whether or not I end up on the
board, I think you are absolutely wrong.

There's a saying that says "it takes all kinds to make a world".
Likewise, it'll take the talents of all sorts of people to take GNOME to
where we all want it to go, which is having 10 of millions of people use
it as their desktop, because it is the best desktop in the world.  And
while I totally agree that the board should be controlled by the hackers,
that does not mean only hackers belong on the board, especially in view of
the duties that the board is going to take on (see
http://foundation.gnome.org/overview.html).

Also, I find the involvement you propose for non-hackers kind of
offensive.

Bart


Michael Meeks wrote:

> Hi All,
>
>         It seems my thesis that we want the board to be as full of
> hackers[1] as possible has been rather distorted by follow ups.  Which
> mostly seem to be of the form 'Here is 10 reasons why Bart would be
> great on the Board'.
>
>         I'd like to point out that Bart did not enter into my original
> mail. I was more targeting the "I ask hard questions" and "I'll keep
> the board honest" promises.
>
>         It would seem to me obvious that Bart as a "Father of the
> Foundation" figure should be intimately involved with the setting
> up, administration and legal issues of the foundation. I don't think
> we could go much further without him.
>
>         But, while Bart's undoubtedly has valuable skills in meeting
> management, administration and legal issues, I don't think this should
> lead to him representing the Gnome community outside these areas,
> including on the board. I would be in favour of having him assist and
> inform all the meetings, of course and ( perhaps ) being the ( paid ? )
> handler of all day to day administrative work.
>
>         So I'd like to re-iterate my contention.
>
>         The hackers[1] currently collectively own and control the
> Gnome project ( I know this is something Bart wants to preserve too ).
> If we start adding non-hackers to the board 'we' start to loose what
> we used to own.
>
>         Even if the board makes no significant technical decisions,
> which I remain extremely unconvinced about, I maintain that hackers[1]
> better represent the Gnome community than any other.
>
>         So in summary; I think the people best equipped to represent
> and lead the Gnome team are the technical[2] people who have so far
> created what we have.
>
>         To spoof RMS, when considering voting people to the board
> don't say 'value added non-hackers' say 'hacker subtracted board
> members'.
>
>         Regards,
>
>                 Michael.
>
> --
>  mmeeks gnu org  <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot
>
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