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

[Behdad Esfahbod <behdad behdad org>]

On Wed, 2006-11-22 at 12:53 +0530, 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" ?

I think the current offerings: being able to vote for elections and to
get a @gnome.org address are quite attractive to someone passionate
about GNOME.  Much of our problem here I guess is the not-in-the-face
application page and the very slow response time.  To improve that,
others have already suggested, and I did too a while ago.  Offering
membership to anyone with lots of bug activity, those who get CVS
access, and apply for financial support, etc. will help there.

Also, I'm fine, and actually support limiting any financial/costly
support to foundation members.  E.g. sending people to conferences, or
sending them the event box should be limited to foundation members.
BUT, only if we have a application process that is so fast that one can
become a member as needed, if they qualify.

More than that, I don't think there's much more we can offer, nor do I
think that it's a problem.


> Would you be in a position to elaborate on your plans/projects to make
> membership more interesting for the GNOME Community ?

I will pursue the above changes if I get on Board, yes.  The recent
change of lowering the contribution requirements is already toward these
goals.  Making sure that the queue is kept very short is next.  I think
we can do that.


> [2] What do you think is the most important item on the Board's agenda
> right now ?

The online store + the website revamp.  The website is on track and
progressing fast, thanks to Quim.  The online store however doesn't seem
to be on target right now.  That's something to look into fast IMO.
These two components put together define our existence on the web, and
that's becoming more and more important every day.  We have cool blogs,
we have cool artists, we have cool software.  We need to let everyone
know about them.


> What will you do more or better than the previous boards ?

Not having been on board, I really can't tell.  And given the current
board, I'm not sure there's anything I can do better honestly.  But I
can promise my dedication, and the same work quality that I put in other
things that I do.


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

I'm getting better at this, although starting a full-time job did
pressure my earlier habits.  Right now, I use mails in my inbox inside
Evo and tabs open in Firefox (two applications that I have to kill and
restart with my limited memory...) to hold my short-term and immediate
TODO items, and Google calendar for the longer term events.  I'm most
productive over IRC and email, although I can handle infrequent phone
meetings.


> 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 am.  I love free software for the working-with-others part, and have
been doing that on technical terms very successfully.  On the less
technical grounds, I understand that there may not be one true way, and
I'm ready to compromise, and to respect a consensus.


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

My maintenance duties take a very small part of my time, and are easy to
manage.  Development and bug fixing however is what takes most of my
time.  I'm lucky enough to do much of of these as part of my day job at
Red Hat.  I'm allowed to spend a reasonable amount of my day time on
board matters, if elected.  If more time needed, I have to find an
afternoon or a few hours from the weekend.  Both are fine.


> [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 ?

OLPC definitely, and also more embedded devices.  We are fortunatley in
pretty good contact with OLPC.  The board can make sure that OLPC test
systems are sent to strategic GNOME developers that may not be
interested in asking for one personally.  People working on presence,
power management, tagging, etc.


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

We are pretty on track for Latin America from what I see.  As for Africa
and Asia, I think we should identify passionate people there, and bring
them to GUADEC, and send people there to run small events.  That seems
like the best way to let people there know we are interested in having
them and pass the message.  If we manage to attract enough people to
start a local community, it's downhill from there.


> [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 ?

Multimedia I would say.  Now this is a very special issue.  We cannot
approach it the easy way because of patents and all.  We have to fight
it by bringing the issue to public attention and superior, Free,
solutions.  On board, I will promote the foundation using its name to
support such activities and campaigns.


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

To continue funding qualified people to work on platform documentations
and the ISV guide.  Businesses cannot switch to GNOME if they are not
confident that they can develop on it.


> [9] What sources of funds do you as a Board Member (should you be
> elected) try to establish ?

I don't have many ideas.  I want to say the online store, but I don't
think that can generate much revenue given the limited scopes of our
target online store.

Another option we can explore more this year is the Google Open Source
guys.  They have stated very clearly that they would be happy giving
funds to FOSS projects for specific tasks.  We did that this year for
Women Summer Outreach Program, and that worked pretty well.


> What areas do you think require most fund-love ?

Hiring a dedicated editor for our website and press releases IMO.


> [10] Please rank your interests:
> 
> 	* GNOME evangelizing to government, enterprise, small business and
> individual
> 	* GNOME marketing and merchandising of branded items (nationally and
> internationally)
> 	* GNOME legal issues like Copyright and Patents
> 	* GNOME finances and fund raising
> 	* Alliance with other organisations

1. GNOME evangelizing.
2. GNOME marketing and merchandising.
3. GNOME legal.
4. Alliance with other orgs.
5. GNOME finances.


> [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 ?

Very familiar.  Read Planet every day (actually the only blog that I
read these days), lots of lists technical lists, plus marketing, guadec,
infrastructure, foundation, and probably a couple other non-technical
ones.  I also hang around IRC and chat with various GNOME hackers every
day.


> [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 ?

The Board can help when working with other organizations is recognized
as necessary, like the LSB case this year, but other than that I don't
think the board wants to make any development decisions, or deciding
which organizations to work with or what standards to adopt, as long as
there is not "political" issue involved (intellectual properties, etc.).


Cheers,
-- 
behdad
http://behdad.org/

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little
 Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
        -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759