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

[Joachim Noreiko <jnoreiko yahoo com>]

--- Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay <sankarshan randomink org>
wrote:

> The Board does not
> directly get involved in
> the technicalities

I'd actually like to stop there and ask: why not?
Certainly getting involved with the board shouldn't
require technical knowledge. But there is a need to
plan the development of Gnome, and I'm not sure who is
doing this. The last few releases have lacked
direction, features are added without consideration of
their integration into the desktop and future
development, and hard decisions are not being taken.
If not the board, then who?

> [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

I really don't know. I've been a member of the
Foundation for some months and other than a warm fuzzy
feeling I don't know what it's done for me.
As a Foundation member I'd like to feel that I'm a
small part of the community and organization that
plans and steers Gnome development. I'm hoping that
the single news page we're planning as part of the
redevelopment of www.gnome.org will bring more
information about what the Foundation does to Gnome
contributors and beyond.

> [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 ?

I notice that most recent minutes on the website are
December 2005. Do you want to fix that and ask me
again? ;)
More recent material I've been able to find doesn't
really mean much to me as an ordinary Gnome
contributor. It would seem that the Foundation needs
to do more to keep Gnome contributors informed.

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

I tend to have several things at the front of my to-do
list, and pick one in accordance to how much time I
know I have to spend in front of Gnome. But my work
tends to fork off in different directions when I start
to find bugs in the app I'm working on.
As for teamwork and disagreements, I'm always willing
to look at things from another person's point of view
and reconsider whether my idea is the best approach.
But there'll be times when after discussion, I stand
firm. (See me & Quim debating the secondary navbar for
wgo, for example.)

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

With difficulty, if the GDP doesn't get new recruits.
I don't want work on documentation or the website to
slip. Attracting writers to free software projects is
hard. We're not providing the right environment for
them.

> [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 ?

It would be really nice if some of Gnome's markets
were nearer to me so I could have direct experience of
them...
>From what I read, our best 'way in' seems to be
government and public bodies at the moment.
I'd like us to get to a point where a Gnome-based OS
is a serious alternative for home users, but I don't
see that happening this year.

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

All I can say about this issue is that I've previously
noticed the large gaps over these areas on the world
map of Gnome contributors. Our translations for
languages such as Portuguese, Thai, or Punjabi (to
pick a few) looks to be pretty good, so what's
missing? Perhaps a translated www.gnome.org will help,
and lowering barriers to all contributors regardless
where they come from.

> [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 ?

I feel Gnome is squeezed in on two sides.
We sit above X11, whose legacy issues hold us back,
and GTK, which doesn't fully serve our needs.
Between us and the users, distros rebrand and override
what we produce.

And in the middle, there's us.
Our file system stuff doesn't let us do things that
users expect, like shortcuts, or opened documents
keeping up with a moved file. Our HIG is out of step
with current work, and too many parts of the desktop
have been allowed to grow without proper foundation in
the desktop as a whole.
I'm often astounded to discover new features planned
for Gnome which I would have assumed to be part of it
already: Network Manager informing my chat and IRC
apps that I'm disconnected, for example.

My role in these... I had hoped that this cycle I
would find the time to get some work on the HIG
started. But lots of user manuals have come out of the
woodwork, and not enough of the Gnome Web
redevelopment goals were picked up. I really think
that a lot depends on us having a website that
actually looks like we're still here, alive, and
working on creating Gnome.

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

I'm not convinced that the Gnome desktop offers the
sort of office software that is required. Google's
web-based office software may help that, however.
I'm personally interested in the voluntary sector.
Once again, there's a lack of software, though in this
case it's more simply that volunteer organizations
seek to give members experience they can transfer, and
that means using industry-standard software packages.

> [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 really know nothing about this. Yet.

> [10] Please rank your interests:

At the moment, the legal issues surrounding the use of
the GFDL by the documentation team are high up on my
interests, but that's more out of a desire for
expediency than a deep interest in the issue.
After that, marketing and evangelising, but once
again, we need to sharpen up what we're promoting. Too
much of recent release material has been smoke and
mirrors. Marketing whatever the hackers have produced
this cycle isn't working. Marketing can't lead
development, but both need to be driven by the same
engine.

> [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 ?

I'm on lists for: the docs project, usability,
marketing, web, and now foundation. Digest only:
nautilus and gedit. And it's too many. I occasionally
look at the current month's archive for ddl, the
mailist lists being what they are, I can't take part
from that.
I'm on IRC when I'm actually doing Gnome work.
I sometimes look at Planet, but it doesn't work as a
source of news: posts are too long, and quite a few of
them are off-topic.
 
> [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 ?

See my answers to other questions :)



		
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