(tangentially) was Re: Membership drive

[Luis Villa <luis villa gmail com>]

On 7/24/05, Luis Villa <luis villa gmail com> wrote:
> Let me be clear- I'm not *against* increased membership, per se; in
> particular being more representative is probably worthwhile. But I'd
> much prefer to (1) work on increasing the size of the community[2] and
> (2) work on making the foundation more relevant to said community. If
> those two happen, then foundation membership will increase, and
> increase naturally, not because we thought our numbers were bad.

By the way, I think we're getting some things done on both of these scores. 

On (1), recruitment on the marketing team has increased, and we're
finding more things to do with these people. Bug squad is undergoing
one of its periodic revivals. Nautilus team seems to have undergone a
renaissance, which is the last thing on earth anyone expected :) In
the near future, hopefully more documentation will help bring more
people into our big tent. And we're at least talking about (though
currently having a lot of disagreement about) increasing the coverage
of the release process and bringing more people in that way, though
exactly how that helps increase identification with GNOME is still one
of those sticking points. I'm sure there are other areas that could be
pointed at as well. I think in general we're still not doing as much
outreach here as we could (too many maintainers still think that
newbies are an irritation instead of a resource ;) but it is
definitely headed in the right direction.

On (2), still a long way to go, but yeah, again- right direction.
Budget information is trickling out, and we're engaging in concrete
plans to do things beyond GUADEC. We still need to be able to do
things like 'show what we spend money on beyond GUADEC and
administration', and enhance those aspects of our operation. Past
that, more than anything else, we need to push foundation PR- the
foundation needs to market itself to the community and convince the
community that it is relevant. I think we need to highlight
'foundation money did this, foundation employee did that', and do that
repeatedly. We don't, and that makes people think foundation is
irrelevant, which is part of why we see such disinterest in becoming a
foundation member, I think.

So I do think we're on pace to increase the foundation membership
naturally if we keep focusing on these two things and doing them well.

Luis