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

["Sara Khalatbari" <sara khalatbari info>]

[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 don't think we should be trying to "sell" foundation membership. I became a member of the foundation because that makes me feel part of the project and that makes me proud of it.

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

I don't have any immediate plans in that direction, no.

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

Gnome website and online documentations.  As someone fairly new to the project without technical involvement, I find it extremely hard to find my way around the project.  I found it through to gnome-love and a bunch of other lists, but just because someone told me about them.
 

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

I aim to be more effective on issues that need constant follow-up and communications.
 

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

I am very responsible myself. And I am used to pinging others to get the job done.

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 very open to hearing other's ideas, trying to understand their point of views clearly and making them understand mine, but finally I walk by the majority's opinion.
 

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

At the moment I do not have much contributions to GNOME other than enthusiasm. I plan to help in the GUADEC organization again this year. Once in the board I will still help there, in other capacities.

[5] What do you think is the most important market for GNOME over the
coming year

OLPC is the single most important market this year IMO.

and what do you feel you can do to help GNOME achieve better
presence ?

This is a great opportunity to take a look back and ask all our plenty of translation teams how we can help their kids be more productive through the use of OLPC.  Right now, some GNOME hackers are targeting OLPC for a port of their application, but we are not actively developing for that.  I think OLPC is doing a lot of innovation, and GNOME can be a
bigger part of it.

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

An effective way would be to get in touch with the translator teams, contact the right people, find out their needs, invite them to GUADEC and give them questioners to spread out among the potential GNOME contributors that they know and finally get them involved in GNOME.

In such countries, school and universities are very important targets too. We have to find proper links to help us introduce GNOME to more students who will be the most effective and fast spreaders of it. I believe students will be pretty good bug reporters to begin with and we can find some good developers and contributors among them.
 

[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 am more an end user of GNOME. What I see lacking in my day to day work is a bug-free and handy email client.  That's not really something the board wants to make decisions about I guess.
 

[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 don't have a plan.  I will leave it to other, experienced, board members and do my best to transforms those plans into actions.
 

[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 cannot think of any new sources of funds, but I think hiring the bizdev will greatly boost the financial situation.
 

[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 marketing and merchandising of branded items (nationally and internationally)
2) GNOME finances and fund raising
3) GNOME evangelizing to government, enterprise, small business and individual
4) Alliance with other organisations
5) GNOME legal issues like Copyright and Patents

[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 read the Planet & I am on marketing-list, gnome-journal-list, foundation-list & gnome-love mail list. Though I don't read/reply every single email, I try to keep up to date with the most important news.

[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 ?

My main plan is to help up. To use my communication skills and free time to collect all ideas and follow up the procedures to a final end.


Best,
Sara