Re: Reducing the board size

[Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org>]

Hi Anne,

I added some comments below.

Le dimanche 18 septembre 2005 �3:52 +0200, Anne �tergaard a �it :
> By the way does the board have an agenda for each meeting? I have never
> seen one! I miss this tool.

I believe so (although I'm not on the board ;-)). The agenda is probably
only sent to the board members.

[...]

> 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.
> 
> You do not need to go bug hunting in these areas - please use this skill
> to code and its functionalities. Trust that others that are asked and
> invited to be in on a certain project are capable of doing what they are
> asked to do- until otherwise pr oven.

I can't believe I'm reading this. Are you saying that coders can't be
good enough to be on the board, build a community, etc.? There are a lot
of coders out there that know they're not good at this or that they
won't be able to help and this is why they're not running for the board.
If a coder thinks he/she can do something good while being at the board,
he/she should definitely be a candidate for the board.

[...]

> I also do not think that the board should carry out all the work
> themselves. 

And I don't think the board wants to carry all the work. There are
already some teams who are doing some work delegated by the board (the
too often forgotten membership & elections committee, e.g., but also
marketing people, GUADEC organization, etc.). I also had the impression
that the board wants to delegate even more...

> If GNOME Foundation had been a private company I would have asked for a
> re-election of the board after the last Foundation Member Meeting during
> GUADEC in Stuttgart where there seemed to be 10 members of the board
> present representing some 14 different opinions. 

Why didn't you raise your concerns on foundation-list? I believe it
might have interested the members.

Also, I really have the impression that we don't have all the same
expectations from the Foundation. As for me, the Foundation exists for
GNOME and GNOME people. When I read what you're writing, for some
reasons, I have the impression that you want the Foundation to be
something a lot bigger (I might be wrong, of course).

Vincent

-- 
Les gens heureux ne sont pas press�