Re: Some perspective on the relative importannce of the board.

[Jim Gettys <jg freedesktop org>]

In general, I think Nat's points are well taken.

There is one other major function of the board Nat overlooks: liaison
with other organizations and companies.  When working with one of them,
one often almost has to be a board member, as it may involve items that
must remain confidential (temporarily, usually, if things go forward to
a conclusion; permanently if such discussions do not make progress), and
may involve speaking and negotiating for the foundation as a whole.  An
example was my negotiations with Bitstream over Vera fonts.  How much of
a burden this is, is an interesting question, though I bet as we gain
more traction on the desktop, that the amount of this work will
increase.  I make this bet, as, just in the font case, I now know of
four different organizations/companies involved in similar situations on
fonts alone, that have come to my attention over the last 6 weeks.

Part of why I'm recommending a bit more structure to the board while
retaining its size is to hold officers to a higher standard on time
availability, while acknowledging that some of the board has less time
available, but may be able to bring wider experience, representation and
viewpoints to the board.
			Regards,
				- Jim


On Fri, 2005-10-28 at 09:32 -0400, Nat Friedman wrote:
> I should have written the subject as it is in the corrected version
> above.
> 
> Nat
> 
> On Fri, 2005-10-28 at 02:13 -0400, Nat Friedman wrote:
> > The board of the GNOME foundation is populated by elected directors.  
> > 
> > These people are elected to make decisions.
> > 
> > But, the board has almost no decision-making power.
> > 
> > In fact, about the only power the board has is to spend money.  For
> > example, hiring Tim Ney.  Or, firing him.  Right now, Tim is already
> > working for the foundation.  So just about the only thing the board can
> > do is fire him.
> > 
> > In theory, another power the board has is to decide where GUADEC is.
> > 
> > In reality, only one or two groups apply to host GUADEC every year and
> > it is usually immensely obvious which one is better suited.  
> > 
> > Even so, this decision can take weeks and weeks.  Why?  Because the only
> > thing the board can do is to decide to fire Tim Ney or choose where
> > GUADEC is going to be hosted.  And naturally, the board has to savor
> > this power.  Quick decisions would just ruin the fun!  Besides, there's
> > nothing else to do but argue over the one or two decisions the board can
> > make.
> > 
> > So we have an elected board of directors with a de minimus rationing of
> > power.
> > 
> > That what the *board* has.  
> > 
> > What the *foundation* has is work that needs doing to promote GNOME and
> > make it better.  Lots and lots and lots of work to do.  
> > 
> > Work to make the GNOME web site better, work to market GNOME better and
> > explain it, work to solicit sponsorship and endorsement of governments,
> > work to organize global training seminars like Trolltech does for Qt.
> > And on and on and on.  Jeff Waugh has summarized this work nicely a
> > number of times.
> > 
> > Right now, much of that work de facto falls on the shoulders of an
> > elected board.  Most of the people on the board are very busy and cannot
> > do that work.  And because the board of the GNOME foundation is a set of
> > elected positions, the set of people who are first drawn upon to do that
> > work *is limited to the set of people who were elected*.  It is a
> > limited set.  It cannot grow.
> > 
> > Electing people to positions makes them feel good about themselves but
> > doesn't necessarily motivate them to do a bunch of boring work.  It
> > would be better to find volunteers to do all that work, and remove the
> > silent chilling power of the board to discourage people from
> > "officially" taking on the work of GNOME.
> > 
> > Another thing to do would be to give the GNOME board more power.  
> > 
> > The original idea of the GNOME foundation was as a way of funneling
> > money around.  In 1999 GNOME won $30,000 in the beanie awards and it was
> > stored with the FSF because there was no GNOME foundation.  So we said:
> > let's create a nonprofit that can accept and direct money.
> > 
> > You could give the board more power by giving them money.  Then they'd
> > have to figure out something to do with it.  They're good people, they'd
> > probably work out a way to make GNOME better.
> > 
> > That was the original idea, after all.
> > 
> > Nat
> > 
> > 
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> 
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