Re: Candidacy (Tim Ney)

[Christian Schaller <uraeus linuxrising org>]

Hi everyone,
Let me start out by saying that I think Tim Ney is a fantastic person
who it would be great to have on the board, so this mail has nothing to
do with Tim Ney as a person.

But there are some issues here I don't like at all. Tim is a today an
employee of the Foundation Board and I am having big principal
objections to the mix/conflict of roles here that an election of Tim Ney
to the board would mean. Having employees of the organization run for
elected positions without resigning from their paid position strikes me
a plain wrong, and it is something that many democratic organisations
disallows. It creates a situation with unclear chains of command and
unclear definition of responsibilities. In the most extreme hypotectical
case it could mean that Tim could have the deciding vote on wether to
fire himeself or not.

Personally I would like to suggest that the foundation impose the
following policy:

* No employee of the GNOME Foundation as represented by the GNOME
Foundation board can be elected to the board. 

* The Director of the GNOME Foundation (which currently is Tim Ney) gets
a non-voting place on the board.

Christian



On Thu, 2001-11-08 at 22:20, Tim Ney wrote:
> 
> I would like to nominate myself for the for the GNOME Foundation Board
> of Directors.
> 
> Summary
> = = = = = = = = = = = =
> 
> My first work with GNOME was procuring machines for hackers and
> launching 1.0 with a 20' X 20' booth and press conference at the
> first LinuxWorld in San Jose.   As a free software advocate, I've
> presented GNOME to government officials in the U.S., Europe and Asia,
> explained GPL/LGPL licensing to lawyers, reporters, executives, venture
> capitalists and newbies.  I've organized booths and seminars to raise
> public awareness of GNOME around the world. As an administrator and
> fundraiser, I've obtained money, goods and services to support GNOME.
> 
> With 2.0 providing a stronger foundation to hack on, I see 2002 as the
> year GNOME scales beyond the hacker community and onto the desktops of 
> schools, corporations and government offices around the globe.
> 
> Areas of importance
> = = = = = = = = = = = =
> 
> * Technical: usability, interoperability, killer apps
> 
> * Outreach: gnome-love, GNOME roadshows, building partnerships
> 
> * Planning: of the long-range kind, particularly setting up a calendar
> of events such as hackfests, tutorials & GUADECs.  Eclipsing releases
> with marketing & p.r.
> 
> * Legal:  copyright, patents, protect the foot trademark
> 
> * Good Projects:  demonstration projects in schools and with agencies
> such as UNESCO, testimonials from happy users
> 
> Closing Remarks
> = = = = = = = = = = = =
> 
> The GNOME Foundation got off to a good start with its first set of
> directors. However, there is much more work to be done.  With a
> less than secure global economy and open source companies hit hard, the
> persistent efforts of the GNOME community to provide robust free
> software are more important than ever.   Now that GNOME is _the_
> cross-platform desktop,  it can dramatically increase its user base. 
> The GNOME Foundation should continue to harvest resources necessary for
> further development and deployment.
> 
> For the GNOME Foundation to fulfill its mission, it needs the combined
> efforts of hackers and non-hackers alike. My contribution is to build 
> bridges, develop strategy and help set the necessary groundwork of
> policy and projects needed for GNOME to scale to a wider geography of
> recognition and use.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-announce mailing list
> foundation-announce gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-announce
>