Re: 10 questions for all candidates

[Chris Phelps <chicane reninet com>]

And now we all know what Alan pulled out...he had insider information on
these questions...

> 10 Questions for all candidates:
> 

> 1) Why are you running for Board of Directors?

Well, to tell the truth, I was mostly hoping to give some incentive to
some people who are were still contemplating whether or not to run.
Additionally, I felt that if I was elected to the board, I could do a
very good job, as I have a fair amount of time to devote, where some of
the other more qualified people would be better off dedicating as much
time as possible on development tasks.

> 2) Do you have leadership and committee experience? If so, please
explain.

Woo, lets here it for commitees!
Hrmph, Im like 20, so my experience in everything is a little lacking,
but I was on the Prom Planning Commitee (high school), Captain of the
Cross Country Team (ooh, isn't that impressive), was an officer of the
Software Club (Oregon Institute of Technology), etc...mostly stuff like
that, obviously nothing of the caliber of the GNOME Foundation Board.
 
> 3) How familiar are you with the day-to-day happenings of GNOME?  How
much do you follow and participate in the main GNOME mailing lists?

Im on virtually all GNOME related mailing lists (something like 9 or 10
I suppose), and I contribute when I can.

> 4) One of the primary tasks of the Board of Directors is to act as a
> liason between the GNOME Foundation and other organizations and
> companies to find out how the two groups can work together to their 
> mutual benefit. Do you feel you would be good at understanding other 
> people and companies and finding ways that GNOME can collaborate with 
> other companies and organizations to benefit both groups and their 
> users?

Sure, why not :-)
I'm actually currently involved with GNOME <--> Super large IT company
relations, although I do not officially have a position at this time.
I am always willing to help forward GNOME in any way possible, and I
feel that I am very open minded when it comes to corporate involvement.

> 5) One of the responsibilities and powers of the Board of Directors is
> to identify organizational weaknesses and needs of GNOME and to create
> committees, appoint coordinators of these committess, and act as
> liasons with them.  What do you believe are the current weak points of
> GNOME as an organization, and if you were able to, how would you
> change the GNOME organization?

Personally, I think pretty much every committee needing area is already
take care of. Obviously the Usability Squad has been of increasing
importance as of late, while others have dropped out of sight, but
essentially I think that things are in good working order.
Now that i think about it a bit, I feel that the GNOME website is
definatly lacking in Proper Wording (tm), so maybe we could get a
GNOME-Web committee together to take care of the whole ("What would you
like?" situation..I havent checked the new web cvs, maybe that is
already gone)

> 6) The board meets for one hour every two weeks to discuss a handful 
> of issues.  Thus, it is very important that the board can very quickly
> and concisely discuss each topic and come to concensus on each item 
> for discussion. Are you good at working with others, who sometimes 
> have very differing opinions than you do, to reach concensus and agree
> on actions?

My general philosophy is that it is better to have a decent descision
that may not agree with my own opinion than to have no descision at all.

> 7) Often Directors have to draft policies, form committees, find
> weaknesses or approaching problems of GNOME and work on solutions, and
> act as liason with various groups (both within and outside GNOME) and
> companies.  Please name three or more areas which you feel are 
> important for the Board to address over the next year and which you 
> would enjoy contributing some of your time to help get things started
> and possibly act as a liason between the Board and any other 
> committees, groups, or companies if relevant.

1. General GNOME website quality/design/content.
2. Out of the Box GNOME 2.0 UNIX-Based-OS Compatabilty (HP-UX, Solaris,
BSD, etc)
3. Usability/Accessabilty issues with GNOME based apps (5th toe, etc)

> 8) Do you consider yourself diplomatic?  Would you make a good
> representative for the GNOME Foundation to the Membership, media, 
> public,  and organizations and corporations the GNOME Foundation works
> with?

Yeah, I'm a regular Bill Clinton up in here.

> 9) Will you represent the interests of GNOME and the GNOME Foundation
> over all other personal or corporate interests you may represent?

Unequivocally, yes.

> 10) Will you be willing and have the available time to take on and
> complete various tasks that the Board needs accomplished?

I'll do whatever it takes to make sure things get done.

Later,
Chris

-- 

http://glimmer.sourceforge.net - My pet project
http://uberhackers.dhs.org - My personal website

./configure --prefix=/dev/mocha --enable-caffeine