Re: Questions to the candidates

[Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net>]

Hey Curtis,

Funny that people are answering an e-mail sent after yours, before
yours ;)

Anyway, here's my answers.

On Sat, 2005-11-19 at 09:04 -0500, Curtis Hovey wrote:
> 1. How much time can you dedicate to the board each week?

About 5 hours, obviously, a bit more flexible than that in reality.

> 2. How flexible is your time; can you dedicate extra time one week and
> less the next?

See above.

> 3. Please rank your interests:
> 	a. GNOME evangelizing to government, enterprise, small 
> 	   business, and individuals
> 	b. GNOME marketing and merchandising of branded items 
> 	   nationally and internationally
> 	c. GNOME legal issues like copyright and patents
> 	d. GNOME finances and fund raising
> 	e. Alliance with other organizations.

a. is definitely not the job of the board, the marketing list is doing a
good job at that, but we would certainly do a good job at selling GNOME
if the question was raised to us.

b. is a one-off problem (or rather, a problem that could short-term
every year, as we would need to assess long-running previous decisions
like this one), and as far as I know, research was already pretty
advanced in finding a company that would handle all the hard bits for
us.

c. and e. are connected, in my opinion, as I would like the GNOME
foundation to join the Open Invention Network, as a way for GNOME and
other free desktops to allow us to counter advances and patents put in
place by Apple,Microsoft and other desktop application players. I don't
like patents, but, in some countries they exist, and we should fight
fire with fire on that ground:
http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/press.html

> 4. Explain how you expect to meet you goals.

Through connections. My employer is one of the members of that
consortium, and I hope to be able to get the community access to patent
filing via GNOME Foundation.

> 5. Name one of your accomplishments if you have ever served on the
> board.

N/A, I guess.

> 6. Please assess GNOME:
> 	a. What are its strengths

Openness.

> 	b. What are its weaknesses

Seeing the big picture, in some cases, and the lack of maintainership
and/or drive on some projects.

> 	c. What are its opportunities

Plentiful, if...

> 	d. What are its threats

Complacency.

> 7. Name the best album you purchased in the last year.

Hard one, so I'll name 2 instead:
Kaiser Chiefs - Employment
and
Raw as f**k (remixed) - Freestylers

Cheers

---
Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net>