Re: Questions

[Máirín Duffy <duffy redhat com>]

Hi Rob,

(i) Concerns can be heard throughout the community every now and then,
that the increasing corporate interest and investment makes it harder
and harder to contribute code for volunteers.
Q: What is your feeling about that?

I've not seen this as a problem, but would certainly be willing to
listen and try to fully understand the issue. I'm just not a code
contributor. I have contributed a simple patch or two in the past
though, and did not experience much delay in seeing my patches reviewed
& applied (conincidentally by a package maintainer not associated with a
corporation.)

(ii) Are you interested in working on making it easier for people
willing to contribute code?

Yes. Improving communication in general - to would-be users, to would-be
contributors code or not, to current community members - is something I
would like to work on.

(iii) What measures will you conduct to make contribution of code easier
for volunteers. (E.g. it can be rather frustrating having an unreviewed
patch in bugzilla for months.)

Well, it is hard to solve a problem without understanding and defining
it. The first step would be to work with the folks who feel contributing
to GNOME is difficult. Maybe a survey could be a useful tool to begin
gathering this information, and following up with some of the 
respondents. The problem should then be defined based on the information
gathered. Then, when we understand the problem, we can come up with some
measurable goals. We can then brainstorm solutions to meet those goals,
try some out, and get feedback on how well the problem was addressed.

(iv) The GNOME Advisory has been formed to handle communication between
partys with commercial interest and the GNOME project.
Q: Do you think that a similar institution should be formed to handle
community feedback in an organised manner or will community contributors
have to communicate back using mailing lists and IRC as it always was?

Well - the Fedora Project Board is made up of a certain percentage of
community contributors and Red Hat employees. Since there is already a
restriction on the number of people who can be on the GNOME Board from
one company, it may be worth considering something similar requiring
that a certain percentage of Board members are from the community. I'm
not quite sure how this would work in practice. Just an idea.

~m