Re: Questions for candidates - board processes & significance

[Andre Klapper <ak-47 gmx net>]

Hi,

On Mon, 2011-05-30 at 16:11 +0200, Dave Neary wrote:
> 1. If elected, will you seek a named position 
> (chairman/treasurer/secretary) on the board? If so, why?

Don't think it makes sense as a newbie, however in case there will be
many newbies still better than nobody doing the job, plus I assume that
people help each other as usual. :-)

> 2. Board meetings are minuted, and these minutes are published 
> regularly. However, the board also increasingly makes decisions on 
> board-list with the Apache +1/0/-1 convention. Would you support the 
> minuting of these votes, including recording any -1 votes?

If it's not about confidential stuff everything should be public by
default, so yes.

> 3. I think financial transparency is important. If you plan on applying 
> for the treasurer position

I was rather bad in accounting at school so I won't yell "Yes, please!"

> what changes (if any) would you propose for 
> the budgeting process? How often would you publish financial reports for 
> the foundation? Are you happy with the level of transparency in the 
> board's finances now?

Speaking from the outside: Quarterly reports would be great but I have
no idea how much work that would be (and if it could be done in such a
timely manner).
I haven't followed finances closely but normally take a look at them in
the yearly report. However if that one is published one year after the
end of the year it deals with, it somehow feels... late.
http://foundation.gnome.org/finance/ looks like it is missing some
years. Not good.

> 4. Our relationship with a number of groups has suffered this year - and 
> one of the lesser known ones (but one I'm involvedd in) is the Libre 
> Graphics Meeting organisers (a group of people representing a couple of 
> dozen "free art" projects). Are you aware that the LGM organisers 
> withdrew all the funds that the GNOME Foundation was managing for them 
> this year, because they have been unhappy with the responsiveness and 
> quality of communication with the foundation over the past 2 - 3 years? 

I think I saw a posting about it (probably in some board meeting
minutes) but I don't know the backgrounds.

> Do you have any thoughts on why this particular relationship degraded? 

Vague guess as per #3: Either slowness or intransparency?

> And will you commit to handling or delegating answers to all 
> time-critical queries which come to the board during your term?

Assuming that time-critical tasks can be identified as such: Yes.

> 5. In general, as a board member communication is vital to keep people 
> outside the board informed whenever there is a delay or when extra input 
> is needed on something they're working on. For incumbents, are you happy 
> with the level of communication & reactivity in the current board? For 
> new candidates, what would you like to do to ensure that the 
> communication & reactivity of the board improves in the coming term?

I didn't have anything to contact the board for in the past so I can't
judge. With regard to minutes: They are published via mail and wiki in a
timely manner and they are verbose so I am happy with them.
I like the GNOME Foundation IRC meetings but we should think about how
to better announce them (e.g. global calendar file for GNOME's team
meetings etc).

> 6. Board members are ambassadors for the foundation. I think it's 
> important that board members be social, and be nice. Are you nice?

Most of the time I am (though I can be quite direct). You can also check
mailing list archives to get your own impression. :)

andre
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