Re: Money spending, questions for the candidates

[Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org>]

Hi,

Sorry, I'll reply briefly because my free time is limited today. I hope
it will be understandable :-)

Le vendredi 30 novembre 2007, à 02:51 +0100, Philip Van Hoof a écrit :
> Hi there,
> 
> The questions:
> 
> o. Given that the Foundation of GNOME has plenty of money, will you if
>    elected vote to spend this money on important projects?

Hrm. I wouldn't say we have a lot of money, but well, let's answer your
questions :-)

>    Being mostly interested in mobile targets and GNOME Mobile, I could
>    certainly come up with some projects that might both increase
>    deployment of our GNOME technologies on mobile devices and increase
>    the amount of contributors.
> 
>    Both reasons are, I think, part of the reason why our Foundation
>    exists. 
> 
>     - Development on language bindings, like a binding generator for
>       for example Android and other mobile targets (plenty of our
>       components don't require Gtk+ yet could run on this target)
> 
>     - Funding development on development tools (like the new Anjuta)
> 
>     - Development on a WinCE port of Gtk+
> 
>     - Development on a P.I.P.S. (Symbian with POSIX) port of Gtk+
> 
>     - Improve the existing Win32 target of Gtk+

We can do it, but it costs a lot and I'm not sure that's the best way to
use our money. If we get some funding for those things, then that'd be
great. If you really want this to happen, you can help by looking for
funds. Note that having a business development person could help here
too...

>     - Employ a maintainer and/or additional developers for Gtk+'s
>       development

This has been discussed this year (there's a thread on gtk-devel-list
and there was a discussion at GUADEC). The consensus was that it was not
the best way to help GTK+.

>     - Pay people to travel to schools and universities to educate 
>       students about GNOME (serious educating, not just doing cheap
>       presentations)

I don't think that's the right way to do it. The right way is to work
with people teaching there. We've started doing this this year, but it
needs more help to get results. Volunteers are welcome, contacts in
universities are welcome.

>     - ... (for making these decisions we need people who'll make real
>       and hard decisions)
> 
> o. What is your opinion on an examination that could carry the title:
>    "GNOME Mobile certified software developer exam"

I've no strong opinion, so yes, why not. But then, why "GNOME Mobile"
and not "GNOME". Also, related to this, I'd more interested in seeing a
GNOME Certification to certify applications (we've talked about this a
few years ago already).

Again, we need a group of people to dive into this and see what should
be done to make this happen.

> o. How are you planning to help the GNOME community overcome the fact
>    that we have relatively few technical leadership?

Can you elaborate on this?

>    - By waiting for the integration our softwares to turn into
>      something that looks a lot like that O.S. called CHA-OS?
> 
>    - By letting companies like Nokia, Novell, ... set our goals?
>      I think this is what's happening right now. Might be fine imo.

I'd love to have more details on all this. How are they setting our
goals? Isn't their goals our goals too anyway? etc.

>      Note that, however, our users sometimes get confused by this:
> 
>        o. People thinking that Miguel De Icaza, Novell and GNOME are one
>           entity. (I love your work Miguel, don't get me wrong. A lot of
>           GNOME people do)
> 
>        o. Too late announcing of GNOME developers joining the OOXML
>           discussions (I think it's great that we are among the people
>           defining this, don't get me wrong. But our "technical
>           leadership", the one that we lack, should have made our
>           position clear to the audience (our users) before getting
>           Slashdotted by the religious ones in the land of freesoftware.

This is not really about technical leadership, but about how GNOME is
seen from the outside. Having one really strong leader would help fix
those issues, but fixing our communication is also a reasonable way to
achieve this. And it's probably easier :-)

How to fix our communication is an interesting topic. I have no magical
answer for this, and I'd welcome input. We can of course communicate
better (the foundation blog Jeff created can help). We can make people
known to the outside, so that the "GNOME = Miguel" feeling disappears
(GNOME Journal interview, etc.). Also, the website rework can play a big
role here. I can see the Foundation coordinating all this, but I it's
not a topic that is 100% Foundation: it's really about the whole
project.

(and everybody can help, I know, I'm repeating this every now and then)

>     I think that we are having quite a handicap by this, and that we
>     should do something about it. This year.
> 
>     How will you do that? What is your strategy?
> 
> 
> Notes on my mind:
> 
>  o. Technical leadership != one person dictatorship, we can work with
>     committees too. Let's be open minded in stead of the "I'm against
>     everything" point of view.
> 
>     If the right people are in that committee, nobody will be against
>     anything.
> 
>  o. I'm still hoping for GMAE/GNOME Mobile to be(come) that committee
>     for mobile related components. Why not do ...
> 
>       o. one for the Desktop

Release team? (could work for mobile stuff too)

>       o. one for the translators and documentation writers

http://live.gnome.org/TranslationProject/CoordinationTeam
Doc leader?

>       o. one for that futuristic Online Desktop

Why would you want to have a separate committee for this? Why not the
same people?

>       o. one for the language bindings and development tools

Release team?

I think we're just not seeing things the same way: I don't think we need
a very strong leadership, while you seem to think so.

>  o. On importance level: I think that without such technical leadership,
>     GNOME will fragment into a huge amount of unconnected projects. 

Can't reply to this, but if you think that we have currently no
technical leadership, are you seeing GNOME fragmenting right now? Yes,
things could be better. But it's not that bad.

Vincent

-- 
Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés.