Re: 10 Questions for All Candidates

[Ian McKellar <yakk yakk net>]

On Mon, 2001-11-12 at 20:26, Dan Mueth wrote:
> 
> 10 Questions for all candidates:
> 
> 1) Why are you running for Board of Directors?

For the sweet corrupting power...

Well, its more that I would like to give back to the GNOME community
more. These days I'm feeling less motivation to hack than I have done in
the past (perhaps its hacking full time on non-GNOME stuff, perhaps its
simple laziness). I would like to help guide GNOME in the direction it
should go in. I believe that we need a better focus on usability, but I
think that right now we should focus on making the best darn engineering
desktop we can. This is an achievable goal - and we're most of the way
there.
> 
> 2) Do you have leadership and committee experience? If so, please explain.

At university I was involved in a computer club. The club didn't have
any ties to any university or industry bodies we were just a bunch of
hackers who shared some resources and an enthusiasm for hacking. I was
active in the club for about 6 years and I held the positions of
president, vice president and treasurer over the course of several
years.
> 
> 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?

While I don't get to reply to as much GNOME mail as I would like to I
read many of the GNOME mailing lists daily. I also lurk on IRC for the
vast majority of my waking hours.
> 
> 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?

Yes. At this point in GNOME's evolution having the involvement of
companies is great. I want to make sure that we don't compromise our
principles or our users for some short-term publicity gains but I know
we all feel that way. I think the fact that I don't work for a company
that has any involvement in GNOME (beyond the fact that a couple of
engineers happen to run it) will let me represent GNOME without any
suggestions of bias.
> 
> 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?

I don't think the organisation is too bad. Part of me would like some
stricter control over APIs and schedules and things like that but that
could make GNOME less fun to hack on. If GNOME ever stops being fun to
hack on then it will be dead.
> 
> 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?

I think I can. Having been involved with committees run by hackers
before (see answer #2) my tolerance for pointless, nit-picking
discussions is fairly minimal. I think that we can work through the
issues we'll be faced with pretty simply if we stick to our basic
principles and work for whats best for our users, developer and for free
software.
> 
> 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.

* Interoperability - I think interoperability with KDE and other
  desktops on unix is very important for our users. This has to come on
  the technical level and on the political level.

* Standards - GNOME adopts and embraces many standards such as CORBA,
  XML and SVG yet we don't participate in the standards process a lot. I
  think we should try to take a more active role in developing these
  standards. We have more experience that most groups in using these
  technologies.

* LUGs - I think it would be great if we were more active in encouraging
  students and other random people to get involved with hacking GNOME by
  talking to LUGs and other user groups.
> 
> 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?

I'm fairly diplomatic when I need to be. As for being a good
representative I think I can be that too.
> 
> 9) Will you represent the interests of GNOME and the GNOME Foundation over
> all other personal or corporate interests you may represent?

Sure - well, I'm not going to jump of a clif or throw myself in front of
a bullet headed towards Miguel, but within reason. These days I don't
have any corporate interest in GNOME and I like it that way. I'm working
for a company that doesn't even use Linux.
> 
> 10) Will you be willing and have the available time to take on and
> complete various tasks that the Board needs accomplished?

I think I'll have time. I guess I don't know how much time it takes the
current board members. I can easilly spare a few hours each week and
more when its required. I live in the bay area so its not like I've got
a life :)

Ian