Re: Candidacy: Lionel Dricot

[Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org>]

Hi,

Le lundi 23 mai 2011, à 15:55 +0100, Martyn Russell a écrit :
> On 23/05/11 15:08, Dodji Seketeli wrote:
> >Martyn Russell<martyn lanedo com>  a écrit:
> >
> >>
> >>That's always needed too of course, but when you have potential
> >>customers asking who can provide support for projects X, Y and Z, do
> >>you really want to be in a position where you have no answer?
> >
> >Oh, you mean when a potential customer comes to the /Foundation Board/,
> >asking that question?
> 
> Indeed.
> 
> >I didn't understand it that way.  Sorry to ask a question as a reply,
> 
> No problem at all ;)
> 
> >but does that happen already?  If yes, how did the board handle it so
> >far?
> 
> Yes, I believe so, perhaps Vincent can best comment here.

While the companies we talk to usually have evaluated the GNOME world
and know about companies like Collabora, Codethink, Igalia, Lanedo,
etc., it can happen that the board gets contacted to introduce people.

FWIW, the two specific examples I remember are:

 - at FOSDEM, someone from a company I forgot discussed multitouch with
   me while I was on the booth and was wondering about multitouch
   support in GTK+ and who to contact for that. The fact that I was on
   the board was not really relevant, though -- I just happened to be on
   the booth, really.

 - at GUADEC, someone wanted to meet the Lanedo people and came to me to
   make that happen, because I was on the board (well, okay, I wasn't
   anymore since I had just left, but you get the point :-)). In that
   case, the person already knew Lanedo.

When Stormy was ED, she might have been contacted for that kind of
things too.

So I wouldn't say it happens very often, but it does happen every now
and then. That being said, the issue is not "what do we do when
potential customers come and ask us?" (we can easily redirect them to
all the companies in our ecosystem), but "how do we make sure potential
customers don't believe there is no ecosystem to help them?". And for
that, a webpage is a good start, I think.

Cheers,

Vincent

-- 
Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés.