Re: Questions for the candidates - let's start the discussion(s)

[Dave Neary <dneary free fr>]

Hi,

Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay wrote:
> [1] What are your plans to answer the question put forward at the last
> GUADEC about "Why should one become a member of the GNOME Foundation" ?
> Would you be in a position to elaborate on your plans/projects to make
> membership more interesting for the GNOME Community ?

It's a tough question to answer, since the foundation is not exactly the
same thing as the community. I'd like to see them be the same thing, but
they're not.

Aside from getting a gnome.org email address, being a member allows you
to dictate the direction of the foundation, which manages large parts of
the project . You get to do this both by having a voice during the year,
having elections at which your board members are elected, and having
those board members be answerable to you.

Anything you can do for GNOME as a foundation member, aside from that,
you can do without being a member.

> [2] What do you think is the most important item on the Board's agenda
> right now ? What will you do more or better than the previous boards ?

Two tricky questions in one, wow.

Hiring a director of business development is the most important thing we
have to do. The foundation has many opportunities, some of which we
exploit well, some of which we let pass by, and some of which we exploit
badly, through a lack of time.

A director of business development will be the point through which all
foundation business initiatives pass - the person who does the leg work,
and ensures that our message to corporate partners is coherent and
effective. The board will control (or at least validate) the avenues
explored by the DBD. He will bring us completion (no loose dangling
opportunities) and revenues. Which will allow us to do other things,
like hiring people to help oil the infrastructure of the community.

What will I do more than other boards? Honestly, I don't know. I've had
to focus on certain things, to the detriment of others, this year. I
have focused on the hire in the second part of the year, but have also
been the person behind the recruitment of new membership committee
members, the grease in the wheels when we have had problems getting
servers housed or put in service (we should have some news on that front
soon), I've been heavily involved in getting new advisory board members,
 and creating the legal team, and I think we have, as a board, done a
good job with transparency and advisory board relations this year.

So what do I think I will *personally* do better than previous boards?
Not much. I hope the board as a whole (including myself) will do better
in a number of areas - reactivity to member requests, internal
communication and participation. I have at times not done brilliantly
with some of these this year - I will do better next year.

> [3] How do you manage your time and that of others ?

I'm not a GTD freak (Getting Things Done, a productivity book and
lifestyle), but I work on a system of priorities - work on one task at a
time, through to completion if possible, if not possible, identify a
clear milestone to reach, and what's needed to get past it.

I don't really feel entitled to manage the time of others - I do remind
people occasionally if they seem to be forgetting things they have
committed to, but I try not to publicly make an issue out of it.

> Are you good at
> working with others including those who might have a differing opinion
> than yours and try to reach consensus and agree on actions ?

Sometimes :)

I am good at formulating problems in a way that allows people to see
compromise. If people's positions are incompatible, you usually have
little choice - either you drop the issue (no decision) or you work
through with a majority decision.

> [4] How are you going to manage your current contributions to GNOME once
> you become a Board Member ?

My current contribution to GNOME is almost exclusively as a board member
- in the past I've helped organise GUADEC, but I think I will not have
time to help again this year. I would like to spend more time on the
marketing plan I detailed before and during GUADEC, federating user
groups, generating marketing material and success stories, and working
with ISDs on issues like certification and documentation. How much time
I get to spend on that will depend on how I set my priorities. Board
comes first.

> [5] What do you think is the most important market for GNOME over the
> coming year and what do you feel you can do to help GNOME achieve better
> presence ?

Independent software developers. That is, people who develop software
for the GNOME platform, be it on the desktop or in mobile & embedded
space. We need to work to organise and improve our documentation, start
a certification programme which certifies platforms as GNOME compliant,
and then certifies applications which integrate well with the GNOME
standard platform. We should be proactive about our needs in groups like
the Desktop Architects group and the Portland project.

> [6] What are your plans to encourage and mentor contributions to GNOME
> from Latin America, Africa and Asia ? How would you increase community
> participation ?

I detailed my thoughts on this (along with the thoughts of the other
participants) in my notes for the GUADEC marketing BOF:
http://live.gnome.org/MarketingTeam/GuadecBof2006

To increase GNOME foundation presence around the world we need:
 * CRM software to centralise contacts and co-ordinate initiatives
 * A mailing list where all GNOME user groups are represented, which
centralises collective wisdom and co-ordinates local conference presence
 * A shared calendar to show what's happening in GNOME around the world
 * "Cheat sheets" which make it easy to set up a stand, do GNOME demos, etc.
 * A big collection of merchandising and marketing materials which we
can send out to user groups on request on the drop of a hat

There's more - and many of these things have already started - we have
the event boxes, cheat sheets for a conference stand, Quim is working on
the GNOME tour (a series of demos of GNOME technology), the CRM software
will be along soon, and work has started in the wiki on co-ordinating
user groups. We need to continue doing this work, and encouraging
bottom-up grassroots participation in GNOME. None of this gets done at
board level - some of it will happen in the marketing team, and the rest
is about giving the membership a sense of responsibility for promoting
and developing GNOME. Hug your local GNOME advocate today.

> [7] What areas do you see lacking currently in a complete Free Software
> Desktop ? What would your role be (should you be elected) in addressing
> the issues ?

Flash, playing DVDs out of the box, sound card configuration issues.

My role if elected would be the same as my role if not elected - I might
complain about stuff that's annoying me somewhere, try to get pet peeves
added as SoC projects, etc. But the free software desktop as it is today
is more than sufficient for getting stuff done.

> [8] What are your planned activities to promote use of GNOME in small
> and medium business environments which potentially deliver many users to
> GNOME ?

The board doesn't really do anything about this either - the marketing
team is well placed - we've collected some nice stories from small &
medium sized businesses (silverorange, Dupedi, Zumiez Zumiez) and we can
gather more.

But small business is not a market where we have huge standing, and
we're better off concentrating on groups where we have better leverage
and higher return on investment - the public sector, hobbyists,
independent software developers.

> [9] What sources of funds do you as a Board Member (should you be
> elected) try to establish ? What areas do you think require most fund-love ?

I think we've about maxed out what the advisory board will yield - I
would like to invite one or two more small companies around GNOME to
join, but I think that the ad board loses value if it grows too big.

I have previously proposed a new way of structuring sponsorship of the
project: http://blogs.gnome.org/view/bolsh/2006/10/11/0 which I think
would have the effect of generating a stable revenue stream, allowing us
to better structure our budget for the year, and would also increase our
budget.

I think certification could generate money, but that's probably not why
we should be doing it. I have said for the last two years that we should
work on merchandising - last year I almost made that happen, this year I
didn't work on it at all. But I still think that selling GNOME
merchandising would be good for us and good for our supporters - it
would also give us a supply of good quality merchandising which we can
send to user groups.

Printed documentation would probably generate revenue too - the
foundation should invest in an editor and perhaps a writer to get some
high quality docs published. I've started working on making that happen,
but others are going to do the heavy lifting, I fear.

We should hire someone (when we have the money) to work with downstream
to integrate their work into the main GNOME, and co-ordinate bug work
within those organisations.

We should hire a sysadmin.

We should hire a full-time writer/editor for gnome.org and
developer.gnome.org (that's probably two jobs, if done properly).

We will need an executive director to manage all these people, which
might not be the same person as the business development director.

> [10] Please rank your interests:
> 
> 	* GNOME evangelizing to government, enterprise, small business and
> individual

1

> 	* GNOME marketing and merchandising of branded items (nationally and
> internationally)

4

> 	* GNOME legal issues like Copyright and Patents

5

> 	* GNOME finances and fund raising

2

> 	* Alliance with other organisations

3

> 
> [11] How much familiar are you with the day-to-day happenings of GNOME ?
> How much do you follow and participate in the main GNOME mailing lists ?

gnome-hackers, foundation-list, planet.gnome.org (although not every
day), I do some IRC (less & less), board lists, GUADEC lists, the
marketing list... GNOME mail generates around 100 mails a day for me,
and I can't admit to reading each in detail. I make a point of being
informed of the controversial stuff and knowing people around the
project who can help with particular tasks.

> [12] Can you elaborate about your plans to provide the Board with a
> focus that steers development choices and works with allied
> organisations in order to define and adapt (and or adopt) standards ?

That's something of a loaded question - and I'm not sure what answer the
questioner is looking for. The board's role is not to steer development
choices. Standards adoption must happen bottom-up, the board cannot
dictate which standards projects should or should not implement or adopt.

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
Dave Neary
dneary free fr