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

[Murray Cumming <murrayc murrayc com>]

On Sat, 2005-10-29 at 18:49 +1300, Glynn Foster wrote:
> On Sat, 2005-10-29 at 01:12 -0400, Richard M. Stallman wrote:
> > If the board's role were limited to raising funds, who would
> > be responsible for important policy decisions?]
> 
> Depends what you mean by 'policy decisions' - but I'd certainly hope the
> GNOME Foundation membership had a large say in the matter. If it didn't,
> then we have problems.

If the board wasn't responsible then I don't know, for example, who
would 
- Register our trademark and create guidelines for its use.
- Create a web store to sell GNOME merchandise.
- Choose a GUADEC site.
- Allocate funds for documentation, marketing and travel.

If you do these, you need to feel informed and authorative. That can,
and should, be delegated where possible, but someone still needs the
authority to delegate it.

I agree that fund-raising and marketing are the big items for next
year's board, along with streamlining the currently chaotic and
non-transparent financial administrivia. But the other stuff still needs
to be done.


Murray