Re: Reducing the board size

[Anne Østergaard <anne oestergaard nu>]

On Mon, 2005-09-19 at 14:16 +0200, Dave Neary wrote:
> By the way, I'm having trouble taking this mail as anything other than a 
> personal attack...

I was trying to not get personal and start any kind of flame.

I think that most of our problems are structural and new habits and ways
of taking decisions could be very useful for GNOME in order to avoid any
such debates/ misunderstandings in the future.

> Anne Østergaard a écrit :
> > People with too much time on there hands could be dangerous to the
> > community and to the future and the direction of the GNOME Foundation,
> > as they tend to think that there personal opinion is important on all
> > matters and every tiny detail. (We have seen the same four board members
> > express there opinions time and time again.
> 
> I'm part of that four, right?
> 
> > This does not mean that
> > others agree with the guys that writes the most- but it tells us that
> > there are a lack of regular voting going on during board meetings. This
> > gives outsiders the impression that the ship is sailing without a proper
> > direction. It is not good for a successful and growing organisation like
> > GNOME. 
> 
> I agree that lack of direction is a problem. Where should this direction 
> come from, in your opinion?
> 
> > I find it important that persons stick to the areas of there special
> > expertise. If this is developing code maybe they should concentrate on
> > this- and leave some things to people with expertise in other matters-
> > where they are the best suited. (One does not have to have or air an
> > opinion on every single matter- or for that matter sit and control the
> > work of the others all the time. Marketing, conference planning and fund
> > raising are quite different from writing code.) 
> > 
> > Being good at coding does not necessarily mean that these same persons
> > who write code or fix bugs are good at community building, organisation,
> > marketing, fund raising etc. or even at giving presentations- please
> > leave these functions to those who are.
> 
> 
> Since these 3 issues just so happen to be the areas I've been involved 
> for the past couple of years, and where I have come into conflict with 
> you, I have to reply to this point.
> 
> When I was elected to the board last year, the GNOME foundation 
> marketing was done by a closed little cabal on a private mail alias. Now 
> we have a growing community of people on a public list, with the private 
> list for writing press releases and dealing with press contacts.
> 
> Last year when we were planning GUADEC together, there was a 
> mis-communication (I know you think otherwise, but frankly I stopped 
> caring what you think around that time). You believe that you and Tim 
> were going to plan the entire third day of GUADEC. I believed that the 
> third day would primarily come from user-oriented presentations through 
> the call for papers. In the end, the most popular and well received 
> talks on user day were the ones I insisted be there.

I was planning to do a follow up on last years very successful talks on
open standards and open file formats. Many might remember the
presentations from capacities like Bruce Perens et all? 

Things that are crucial to coders trying to make better applications for
the function of our future society.


> Do you feel that you better represent the community's interests when 
> planning conferences or building teams, Or doing marketing?
> 
> If you're going to make thinly veiled attacks on people, the least you 
> can do is take off the veil and say what you mean.

I offer my skills and experience to the GNOME society. I only want to
serve and do what I think I am good at. 

It is up to others if they think that my straw to the stack is of use in
the community building process.


Anne

-- 
Anne Østergaard <anne oestergaard nu>