Rocking your questions for this candidate

[Bryan Clark <bclark redhat com>]

> 1. Judging from the comments posted here (gnomdesktop.org comments
> area), it seems as though most people are confused about the purpose of
> the GNOME Foundation and its board. How will you, as a member of the
> board, try to clear up confusion and outline a clear direction and
> purpose for the Foundation?

The current confusion of the boards direction and purpose seem to be a
matter of disconnect between the board and the community.  The board
cannot expect the community to come to them, instead they must go to
where the community is.  Simply saying that the board has a charter
which describes it's actions and purpose will not bridge the disconnect.
People will see the boards purpose and direction by watching it in
action.  If this means the board needs to have it's minutes aggregated
by planet.gnome.org or gnomedesktop.org then the board should be
investigating it's options in this regard.  The whole community isn't
subscribed to the foundation-list, so the board cannot expect to reach
them all from there; where ever the community is the board needs to step
in that direction to make itself more clear.

> 2. What do you see as the most important thing that the board
> accomplishes, and what do you think is the area of the board's activity
> where you could improve things?

The most important thing the board accomplishes is to provide direction
and focus to the community in a guiding manor.  It is not the boards job
to decide against the community process by choosing technologies or
projects that should be worked on.  It is the boards job to give
direction and focus in a way that spurs community involvement.  An
example is community outreach where the board doesn't actually do the
outreach but acts a point of reference for community members
coordinating with GNOME on conferences or other activities.

I'd like to improve the boards presence in the community so that the
board becomes a greater resource instead of an unknown group of people
doing unseen work.

> 3. What is the number one priority for the GNOME project now, in your
> opinion? What do you think you can do as a board member to work towards
> that goal?

GNOME needs to swing the pendulum back in the other direction of
innovation and creation, the project has hit a great area of consistency
and performance however GNOME is headed further and further into a
stabilization mode.  The current GNOME is becoming a polished desktop,
however there doesn't exist a pool of new innovation going on.

As a board member I will work to help the community attract new
developers and assimilate those developers into the core community
through conferences and summits where fresh blood can gather.  Often new
developers are students and others whose expenses to attend these events
are not covered by a company, the Foundation should help where it can to
raise funds for this throughout the year and distribute them as needed.

> 4. What do you think is the most important market for GNOME over the
> next year or two, and what do you feel you can do to help get GNOME
> better penetrated into that market?

I have always seen GNOME's greatest markets as governments and
education, both institutions are already supported by the community and
deserve viable and secure free software to operate.  I'd like to collect
market data from communities that are using GNOME in these contexts,
there are many institutions out there that are using GNOME and we need
to understand why they are using it, what they like and what they'd like
to change.

> 5. What unique aspect will you bring to the job?

I hope to bring a unique perspective on GNOME from my personal
background and also some fresh blood to lively things up.

> 6. How would you feel about moving to a system of Preferential Voting?

If the community feels that Preferential Voting solves a significant
problem in the foundation elections then I would be happy to consider
moving to it as the default voting system.  I can see how a system such
as this can be helpful with the restrictions we have on candidates and
affiliations. 

> 7. How do you think you could motivate the rest of the board, if and
> when the other directors have other time pressures? 

Each candidate has stated a platform of ideas they are bringing to the
board and changes they would like to see.  During down time of others in
the board I believe it is each board members responsibility to make
certain their platforms isn't just words used to get elected.

> 8. What one problem could you hope to solve this year?

Get the community road map published as soon as possible.

> 9. What would you do to increase community participation in the GNOME
> community and GNOME elections?

GNOME needs more gateways open to general participation.  GNOME-Love and
Bug-days have been excellent gateways for GNOME community members to
make initial contributions and learn more about GNOME.  They provide new
people a way to make a small first contribution that has a valuable and
positive impact on the project.

> 10. Should Gnome be marketed as a separate component ? Or should it be
> actively promoted as a part of the offerings in a commercial software
> stack ?
> (Separate component in the sense *a DE in its own way and with its own
> ecosystem*)

If I read this question correctly...  GNOME has two separate pieces that
need to be considered in this.  The Desktop environment is meant to be a
complete ecosystem of most applications that a person would need.  While
at the same time there is the Developer platform which strives to be a
stable and compatible building block for other software to take
advantage of the GNOME framework.  These two pieces of GNOME need to
have their focus on a different markets.  

Part of this question makes me feel like it is asking if GNOME should
market itself as something that fits under a commercial umbrella of
proprietary software and acts as a high level API to the rest of the
free software platform.  In that case my answer is no, GNOME should be
known as the top level of the software stack where commercial products
can build into, but I don't believe that GNOME should market itself as
something for companies to put a proprietary ceiling over.  Companies
may want to do this and it may be their right according to the GNOME
license, however being the sublayer to a proprietary app shouldn't be
our goal.

Cheers,
~ Bryan