Re: Membership drive

[Dave Neary <dneary free fr>]

Hi Philip,

Philip Van Hoof a écrit :
> On Thu, 2005-07-21 at 16:37 -0400, Luis Villa wrote:
> > I'd prefer we figure out why we have membership
> > (besides the obvious legal/voting reasons), what we offer the
> > membership, and what the membership offers 'us' (the community, the
> > foundation, etc.), then talk about having a membership drive if it is
> > still appropriate.[2]
>
> The reason why we don't have a large amount of members in the foundation
> compared with the amount of eligible GNOME developers/contributors is, I
> think, because most just aren't aware that:
>
> a) .. the GNOME Foundation can be useful [...]
> b) .. that they are eligible or they don't think they've contributed
> "enough" to become a GNOME Foundation member.
> c) .. the GNOME Foundation exists.

These are pretty fair points, but I believe we've been better this year.

It's hard, because one of the primary goals of the foundation is not to
get in the way - not to dictate technical direction, delegate wherever
possible, anbd provide a conduit for information and a one-stop-shop for
press connections, financial oversight and legal stuff.

In that sense, the membership & election committee, in some sense the
bug team, marketing team, any co-ordination that happens between user
groups, outreach that we do to other non-profits and government people,
all of those are important, visible things that the foundation does.

There may be be an idea that "the foundation" == "the board", but that's
just not true. The foundation is of the people, for the people, by the
people - it came about because there was a need for some administrative
functions to be taken on by a group of people, so that the rest of the
community could get on with doing what we're interested in (writing good
software, taking over the world, that kind of thing). What we do is
GNOME foundation activity, whether "we" are writing code, filtering bug
reports, maintaining infrastructure, writing press releases, creating
graphics and docupents and flyers to use at trade shows, etc, etc. Even
simple evangelising, creating a network of people who know about & love
GNOME, is a foundation activity.

> IMHO the GNOME Foundation could give it's member more responsibility.

IMHO, people doing stuff (and lots of people are) could recognise that
they're doing so as foundation members (AKA community members) rather
than lament the fact that they're not getting help from The Foundation.

This has always been a community where you get as much responsibility as
you are prepared to take. If you want to be a module maintainer, you can
do that. If you want to write the GNOME visual identity guidelines for
logo use, you can do that. If you want to help organise GUADEC, you can
do that. There are no barriers to entry (how do you think I got here?).

> Maybe could the
> Foundation make a list of tasks that could be done by members.

Any idea where such a list might start?

The marketing team has been working on a list of solid actions we need
done (I believe it's in the wiki somewhere). In that area, we have lots
of easy targets.

> I propose we do an IRC-meeting (with the current members) about what the
> GNOME Foundation could/should become/do.

Sounds OK. How did Yarrr hold up to the marketing team meeting? An IRC
meeting with 200 people (assuming half the membership turns up) could be
a bit hectic...

Cheers,
Dave.

--
David Neary
bolsh gimp org