Re: board [was Re: OOXML [was Re: GNOME Foundation Board Meeting Minutes :: 7/6/07]]

["Luis Villa" <luis tieguy org>]

On 10/31/07, Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org> wrote:
> <quote who="Luis Villa">
>
> > I'm hesitant to declare it a failure until I see more evidence that
> > delegation has been tried and failed. For example, I could do this sort of
> > thing without being on the board at all- no need to appoint me to the
> > board. But frankly I have not felt like my attempts to help out have been
> > invited, much less encouraged.
>
> I have personally tried, and certainly taken legal issues to legal-private
> as a matter of delegation (and only received one response, btw),

For what it is worth I have exactly zero mails from you to
legal-private in my archives; I see two that went to legal-list[1]
while I was moving and preparing for one of the more stressful weeks
of my life.[2] Given that Anne is the coordinator for the list, you
might ask her why it was not followed up on.

One of my goals if/when I become leader of the legal work will be to
ensure that every such thing is followed up on by *someone*, be it me,
one of our pro-bono counsels, or other interested volunteers. I
certainly don't want to do it all myself, nor am I qualified to do so,
but I will work my ass off to make sure that I don't block or squander
the work of others, and that if for some reason the work *can't* be
done, the board is at least told promptly of that.

> but I think
> there is an issue of... domain-specific responsibility... involved that has
> not created or encouraged an active team around legal work. That's a bummer,
> and I think the extreme business of other Board members has contributed to
> no one else picking up that ball.

I volunteered to take leadership on this position months ago. I knew I
was strapped, but I specifically said that if no one else could do it,
I could do it. The board turned me down, but yet, no one else has
apparently done it, and no one reached out to me to say 'hey, we
realize we screwed up and no one can do this, can you help out again?'
That was intensely frustrating to me.

Luis

[1] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/legal-list/2007-August/msg00008.html
[2] http://tieguy.org/blog/2007/08/14/back-in-new-york/