Candidacy: Jeff Waugh

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

  Name: Jeff Waugh
  Mail: jdub gnome org / jdub perkypants org
  Nick: jdub
  Affl: Canonical Ltd, sponsors of Ubuntu


(Apologies for my late candidacy statement. I had to make a hurried return
from the USA to Australia, which unfortunately coincided with the original
deadline. Though I was content to take the bullet and not run, I have just
read that a fresh window of opportunity appeared, so my candidacy statement
won't go to waste! According to Vincent Untz, the new deadline is 23:59 UTC
Thursday.)


The Role of the GNOME Foundation Board
--------------------------------------

I believe that a core part of the Board's role this year will be to strongly
define and communicate the role of the Board. Thus, my candidacy would not
be complete without describing what I think the role of the Board should be,
and what we need to do to get it there.

 * Representation

   I believe we've made a mistake in our communication of the Board's role
   in the past few years. We delegate 'doing' roles to Directors by electing
   them, thus freeing ourselves from the responsibility of getting things
   done ourselves, within the greater community. This disengages the natural
   strengths of our community - co-operation, distribution, the greater pool
   of knowledge, etc. I would like to redefine the Board's role as purely
   representative. As such, the Board would be responsible for delegation of
   tasks, and ensuring that active members of the community are given all
   the 'official' assistance they need to contribute fully. A representative
   board would not monopolise the community's ability to 'get things done',
   it would delegate parallel responsibility instead of bottleneck it.

   http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2005-October/msg00104.html
   
   Thus, we should elect people who we feel are capable of listening to,
   understanding, and communicating our needs as a community. We need to
   elect people who understand and care about our community, and those we
   trust to make decisions fairly and rationally. We do not need to elect
   people to do the work of the community - we need to elect people who can
   help the community work together in more effective and meaningful ways!

 * Conflict Resolution

   A purely representative Board would be naturally equipped to act as a
   point of conflict resolution, so stakeholders can have their say, our
   problems can be solved, and we can get on with building Free Software.
   Though we have stated very clearly that the Foundation does not set the
   direction for GNOME development, we can use it as a point of conflict
   resolution when problems arise.

 * Fundraising and Administration

   As the Foundation must hold assets and funds for its members, the Board
   must be responsible for making sure they are used wisely, *and* that the
   finances and assets of the Foundation are well known to its members! Of
   equal importance is the ability of the Foundation to raise money for its
   projects. Often a sensitive issue, this is something that really should
   fall to Board members alone - but they have the ability to hire someone
   to manage that task, too.

 * Employee Management

   This is not a task that can be delegated to the community for all kinds
   of sensible (and legal) reasons. :-)

 * Conduit Between Stakeholders

   The Board is well placed to bridge the gap between stakeholders inside
   and outside of our community. Not only do we have the Foundation members,
   but the greater GNOME community, the Advisory Board, other companies who
   contribute to or rely on GNOME, ISVs (both proprietarly and Free, users,
   other Free Software projects and organisations, etc. If a representative
   Board should be doing anything, it is this! (This being representation!)


Size and Structure
------------------

I do not believe that the outcome of the Board size referendum was positive.
Though I was once a staunch supporter of reducing the number of directors to
seven, I had a very strong change of heart when I realised that it was being
done for all the wrong reasons, and that more effective solutions to the
Board's decision gridlock problems were not considered thoroughly enough.

  http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2005-October/msg00056.html

As stated in the above email, I think a directly elected executive is the
right structure to ensure that candidates share a mandate to make decisions
with a strong responsibility to the electors in the community. It is not a
way to give one person the right to do anything, unchecked - they will know
that they must listen to and work toward the goals of the Foundation
membership. If I were running for a Board with this structure today, I would
nominate for the positions of President, Vice President and Ordinary Member.

A representative Board would not need to meet as regularly as every week or
fortnight. I would start by shifting to monthly meetings. We are all capable
technologists, familiar with email and IRC - we should use them more for our
work on the Board. Directors should not be timid about their position on the
Board - foundation-list is there for us to communicate with members. Members
should not be timid about the responsibility of directors to the community,
foundation-list is there for you to publically communicate with the Board.
THEY WORK FOR YOU.

One challenge the Board will have to deal with in the short term is handover
from the parting Executive Director. All correspondence, financial details,
current projects must be documented for the Board to finalise or continue.


Why You?
--------

First and foremost, I am passionate about and dedicated to GNOME. I have not
contributed to GNOME by writing code because I found very rapidly that I was
not going to be useful in that capacity. Embarrassing, yes. Useful, no. So,
I have spent a long time contributing in every non-technical way I could. If
there is one skill above all others that I bring to the Foundation, it is my
ability to communicate and connect people together. Earlier this year, I was
gobsmacked to receive the Google-O'Reilly Open Source Award for Evangelism
(of GNOME and Ubuntu). I have spent the last six weeks touring the Northern
Hemisphere, speaking about GNOME and Ubuntu, and getting lots of people very
excited about what we're doing. I believe I've earned the trust of the GNOME
community to represent it, both as a communicator outside the project, and
as a mediator and leader within our community.

Here are a couple of my previous candidacy statements that are well worth
reading if you want to know more about me:

  http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2003-November/msg00010.html
  http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2002-November/msg00008.html


- Jeff

-- 
linux.conf.au 2006: Dunedin, New Zealand               http://linux.conf.au/