Re: What is GUADEC? (was: Re: Changing the name of GUADEC)

[Luis Villa <luis villa gmail com>]

On 9/7/05, Dave Neary <dneary free fr> wrote:
> > Besides these obvious flaws, I'd really hate to see fundamental
> > tinkering with things like this while we still don't have a basic idea
> > of what the heck GUADEC is and who it is meant to be for.

<snip>

> > I think the GUADEC planners need to come up with a mission statement
> > for the board to discuss and approve/disapprove of
> 
> Who's going to do that? Why does this have to be top-down? Aside from
> Tim, Quim, myself and Anne, who are the GUADEC planners? 

Slightly OT, but what the hell:

If there is anything that GUADEC should be, it is a way to grow
existing communities and create new ones, be they communities of
hackers, deployers, interested governments, whatever. That the current
people running GUADEC have failed to create a community around running
and creating GUADEC, such that that community is basically three
people + the new guy, is a pretty sad statement about the ability of
said group to succeed in the core goal of GUADEC.

> Even in that
> group, there are wildly differing oppinions of GUADEC. And I don't trust
> the board to come up with a representative outlook of GUADEC - any such
> mission statement should be opened up to the peanut gallery.
> 
> I would much prefer such a mission statement to be bottom-up.

Me too, but experience shows that doesn't work. That is why groups
delegate, either to elected representatives (who represent the
bottom-up) or to the people actually doing the work.

I'd note, honestly, that if the people doing the work currently[1] had
a more clear /and effective/ vision[2], we wouldn't be having this
discussion. The current organizational team is not representative of
the broader GNOME community, nor does it demonstrate much
understanding of the needs of the community, nor of the resources the
community can provide. So while I'd love to be wrong, it probably
isn't a great place to look for this vision and mission.

That means it probably falls to the board. The board has of course
discussed this repeatedly over the last few years, but we've failed to
write anything down- maybe that's something we should do at Summit
this year.

I'd of course be downright excited to be proven wrong, and have either
this list or the current organizers, or potential new organizational
blood, come up with something clear and meaningful. So if you're out
there reading this and have been to some GUADECs and think you have
some idea of a clear, achievable, meaningful mission statement for
GUADEC and can back it up, BRING IT- we want someone with your verve
and guts to start this off. :)

Luis

[1] Quim, Dave, please don't take this the wrong way- you're relative
newcomers here, and you're the reason this discussion is happening at
all, so you guys are moving things in the right direction.

[2] The mission Tim elucidated later in the thread, as Dave points
out, sounds nice but so broad as to be difficult/impossible to
achieve- it doesn't build on our strengths nor focus on the
achievable, both of which are important criteria for a successful,
meaningful mission statement.