Re: Questions for the candidate

[Miguel de Icaza <miguel ximian com>]

Hello,

On my way home, I realized that people in this group are thinking of the
board in two different ways.

I am thinking about the board in the sense that a board of directors
behaves for other non-profits and for companies.  I have sat on various,
and attended meetings on those, and am aware of the schedule of various
others, and they are nothing like the Gnome Board.

In any case, that is where am coming from.

But I realized that the others are thinking about the board in a
different way: they are thinking of the board as the executive team for
running the Gnome project.  

In other organizations boards appoint executive team members.  A sign
that the board is functioning in this way is the long list of "ACTION"
items listed on the minutes: the board meetings have become meetings for
executing on the strategy.

So the bi-weekly meetings become a meeting to discuss execution issues
of the foundation, what is typically referred as tactical
decision-making, not strategic decision making.  They are blended
together in these meetings. 

So the minutes reflect that: a lot of tactical decisions that could have
been perfectly delegated.

Like Daniel likes to point out, I do not attend every meeting, because
unlike other volunteers on the board I have a much more packed agenda
and I it is very hard to reconcile it.  Unlike others, I am not a
full-time hacker, am also an executive and a manager and my day job
requires me to work on those.

Does that disqualify me from the board?  I do not think so, i can still
participate on the strategic decision making through the mailing lists
and when needed attend face-to-face or phone meetings.

Considering that Gnome is not developed from 9-to-5;  Gnome hackers do
not work on the same physical office and Gnome developers conduct their
business on mailing lists and over the Internet without a problem.

I still devote a lot of my time to strategy to advance the free software
cause, the gnome cause, the adoption of Linux cause, Linux, open
societies and more at a level that a hacker can not do.  

Am running for the board to participate on key decisions of the Gnome
Foundation: to be there for the long term strategic decisions.

Am probably very much useless for any tactical decisions or tactical
tasks that is what happens to be discussed on the bi-weekly meetings.

Miguel.