Re: 10 Questions for All Candidates

[Jonathan Blandford <jrb redhat com>]

Dan Mueth <d-mueth uchicago edu> writes:

> 10 Questions for all candidates:
> 
> 1) Why are you running for Board of Directors?

As a long-time contributor to the GNOME project, I have formed many
strong ties within the community and am very interested in seeing GNOME
succeed.  I feel that I can bring a valuable perspective to GNOME.
Plus, I enjoy answering tricky questions like these.

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

I have been a contributing member of many different committees in a
multitude of areas and have won the prestigious "team player" award.

On a more serious note, I was a long-time member of the Lecture Series
Committee at college, whose bureaucracy rivals any committee structure
we are ever likely to see.

> 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?

I am very familiar with the day-to-day occurrences of GNOME.  I follow
all the main GNOME mailing lists and am very active on IRC.  I have
maintained a number of core projects in the past including the
control-center and gnome-games.  I have kept a high level of
participation since I began working on GNOME way back in its infancy.

> 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?

GNOME is currently collaborating well with companies and this
collaboration is constantly improving.  As someone who works on GNOME
both in my free time and in a company setting, I have a balanced
perspective with respect to how such collaborations are formed and the
benefits that ensue.

> 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?

We are doing well with our various committees/projects and are getting
better all the time.  One only has to compare the initial Usability
Project (Release 1.0) to the current Usability Project (Release 2.0) to
see the advances.  However, there are a few things that need
improvement:

 * More structured process documentation.  Hard earned experiences are
   lost as contributers change their focus.  We should get in the habit
   of recording our various lessons as we learn them.  Solutions to
   common problems like 'How to get CVS access?', 'How to upload a
   module to the FTP site?', all the way through 'How do we release
   GNOME?' need to be recorded.

 * Formation of a more active desktop integration project.  Currently,
   we do not have a concerted desktop group.  There needs to be an
   overall vision of how the desktop fits together.


> 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?

Yes.

(Note the conciseness of this answer (-:  )

> 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.

 * Increase developer interest: The committee can do a better job of
   promoting our platform above and beyond our current means.  

 * Improve the GNOME desktop experience: We currently do not have any
   group that coordinates our desktop (although the Usability Project
   Release 2.0 is doing a good job of covering some of the issues).

 * Keep GNOME fun: Sponsoring things like calendar shoots in the
   Bahamas, holding regional meetings at local pubs, creating a GNOME
   Buddy system.  One of the the reasons I love GNOME so much is the
   underlying directed anarchy that is always present.  I feel it is one
   of our strengths and would like to make sure it does not drown in
   the formalized process.
 
> 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?

Yes.

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

Absolutely.

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

Yes.  My wife says I have too much spare time, anyway... (-:

Thanks,
-Jonathan