Re: Questions for the candidates

[Og Maciel <ogmaciel gnome org>]

Q: For outgoing board members: what have been the upsides/good things
from your previous stint at the Board which you would  like to see
carried forward into this term ?

A: Does not apply.


Q: What part of being a board member do you think will be most
difficult for you? How do you plan to compensate for that?

A: I have remotely managed people before, but they all had one factor
in common: they were all from my birth country, Brazil and though had
many different backgrounds, we all shared the same culture. I wonder
how having 6 people from different countries, backgrounds and cultures
will play in the decision making of the group as a whole. I consider
myself a very open minded person and believe that we can all reach a
consensus, and hopefully these differences I mentioned won't be a
hindrance but will actually enrich the board.


Q: Do you have any experience on management teams or boards at
non-profits? If so, can you give an example of a change you affected
in that role? If not, what makes you think that you will be a good
board member? What single change do you want to affect during your
term?

A: I have managed different translation teams in the past, and if I
were to mention one example that would illustrate how goal driven and
open minded I am, it would be the time when I brought the Ubuntu
translations team into contact with the upstream GNOME Brazilian team.
Back then we were all working on different paths and following our own
"protocols". Needless to say there was a lot of duplicated work
happening and GNOME upstream was not getting the same amount of
translations as that of the Ubuntu team. It all came down to the
number of translators that were not doing work upstream; GNOME was
shorthanded! I approached the GNOME guys and offered to bring the
Ubuntu translators to work upstream under their processes and
protocols. That meant that we would accept whatever methods of
submitting and reviewing translations they had and play by their
rules. It was an interesting change for both teams I'm sure and I was
made sure to keep everyone's ego at bay during the entire process.
This work laid down the foundation of a strong relationship between
the 2 teams, which was then propagated through other of the Brazilian
upstream teams, allowing us to deliver over and over 100% completion
of the translations. If anything, I want to strive to make the
transparency and communication between the Foundation, Board, and
community very close to 100% during my term, and make sure to
prioritize the work for accessibility, localization and documentation,
as well as increase the support for hackfests, events and bring GUADEC
to countries that not only could use a bit of excitement and exposure
to the GNOME project, but also make it more affordable to guests and
those sponsored by the Foundation.


Q: What are the specific areas of the Foundation's focus and strategy
where you think you can contribute as a change agent ?

A: I have been involved with kick starting and managing a few teams
doing translations and documentation and during the years I have
become more and more adept of using issues tracking and roadmaps to
drive and measure the progress of whatever projects I may be working
on. I feel that having issues filed for every action that needs to be
handled, no matter how trivial they are, helps give people visibility
into what developers, managers, etc are working on, what tasks need to
be tackled and what the critical path is. It also allows people to
delegate issues by literally assigning a task to someone, or better
yet, let someone step up and take ownership of a task. With that said,
I feel that I can bring this workflow to the Foundation and hopefully
make it easier to really focus on our strategies as well as provide a
mechanism for other people keep up with what is happening and empower
them to lend a helping hand.


Q: If you are a new candidate: what specific SMART
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_(project_management)) goals would
you like to put for yourself? Or, in other words, how would you like
to measure yourself and, let others know how you are doing ?

A: I believe that by implementing the workflow I mentioned in the
previous question will pretty much allow people to know what I'm
working on as well as everyone else who use the same process.


Q: Do you think we need to make the being a member of the Foundation
feel more valuable, and how do you think we should do that? What would
you change about the Foundation to make it more useful to members.

A: The short answer: I feel that the current status of what being a
member of the Foundation means is already very valiable and don't see
anything lacking right off the bat! Now, for the reasoning behind it:
I feel that everyone who has contributed to the GNOME project should
be automatically eligible for membership, so I agree with our current
policy. However, I also feel that a membership is not the end of the
road, but actually the very first step toward a more serious
involvement and commitment with the project. Obviously you don't need
to be a member to do this, but theoretically the membership should
signify that more than ever an individual is committed to help the
project. Thankfully, I feel that everyone who has earned a membership
these last few years has been more involved and dare I say, feel like
they now have a responsibility to help and support the project?
Getting a @gnome.org email is definitely a nice touch and being able
to vote and having preference for travel support are, in my opinion,
the perfect trifecta!


Q: Do you have any plans on how can the board help bring the GNOME
platform and desktop in the top of opensource desktop and mobile
application development?

A: This will probably be controversial but... why do we need to make
bringing the GNOME platform and desktop to mobile development one of
our priorities? I'm not saying that I wouldn't want to see
GNOME-enabled mobile devices, but what is the driving force here? Are
we so satisfied with the current state of the desktop and platform
that we now want to take on another environment? I'd rather see a
roadmap for the next 24 months with a strategy for improving areas
that need help (not only development related but community and
advocacy), and make issues triage, bug fixing, documentation,
accessibility and localization a higher priority.


Q: Do you think the GNOME Foundation and the GNOME projects get enough
representation at events? If not, how would you fix that?

A: I can only answer this based on the very limited exposure I have
had of events where GNOME was presented. It seems to me that
distributions and popular web sites booths gather the most visitors.
Is it because they (distributions, popular web sites) have deeper
pockets and can throw more swag at people? Is it because people don't
see the difference between the distro they like and the platform they
learned to love? I'd like to see the GNOME project represented in more
conferences and a whole lot more hack/install fests worldwide, and
more specifically, have "educational" sessions where people can
understand more about the project, and how to participate in a
constructive manner.


Q: What, in your view, are the top 5 requirements (from a strategic
perspective) for the GNOME communities world-wide ?

A: My list in no particular order:
* Hopefully, with my plan, to make things more visible to everyone,
including finances and expenditure. I think that our community members
should be able to have a clear picture of how the Foundation is doing
and how they can help it achieve its goals.
* Make documentation, localization and accessibility a top priority.
* Better communication and delegation of tasks while at the same time
making it all transparent to all.
* Strive to create a complete, free and easy-to-use desktop
environment for users, as well as a powerful application development
framework for software developers. It is the very first thing
mentioned in the Foundation web site and we should not forget it.
* Give the benefit of the doubt! Many things could be resolved if we
all assumed that we're all working toward the same objectives.

Cheers,
-- 
Og B. Maciel

omaciel foresightlinux org
ogmaciel gnome org
ogmaciel ubuntu com

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