Re: [question to candidates] GNOME OS

[Lionel Dricot <lionel dricot lanedo com>]

Le mercredi 25 mai 2011 à 08:24 +0200, Frederic Peters a écrit :
> Hello all,
> 
> GNOME OS has been mentioned and questioned repeatedly in recent
> discussions on desktop-devel-list, about its definition itself[1],
> and the changing (or not?) role of the GNOME project with regards
> to distributions (based or not on the Linux kernel).
> 
> What are your thougths on this?[2] Do you think this is a foundation
> job to answer those questions? If not, is this a responsibility of the
> release team? Or something that is best left unanswered, as pieces are
> put into positions by different persons?

Hi Fred,

I've seen a lot of discussion around that but it was more "feelings"
than rational thinking.

Decisions should be based on facts. Example: how many GNOME users are
*not* using Linux? How many GNOME contributors are *not* using Linux?
What would be the advantages and disadvantages of switching to Linux
only?

I haven't seen a rational discussion about those facts yet, so bringing
it to the board seems a bit early yet.

Anyway, I think that the board should not "take a decision". What would
happens if the board take a given decision and that a substantial part
of the key contributors disagree with that? I personally don't feel
qualified enough to take such an important decision, even if I'm
elected :-)

In my opinion, the board should intervene in such technical debate only
if the community want it or if the board consider that the debate is
harming the community. (that looks a bit extreme).

In that case, I would advocate for the board to keep a mediator role.
The board will try to analyse what are the different alternatives, what
they implies and who the key people are and how to reconcile them. 

The board should remain neutral but, if needed, it could decide to call
for a referendum (this is not a prerogative of the board, any foundation
member can call for a referendum if 10% of the members agree with that).


Anyway, I'm a strong believer in meritocracy. Those who do the job will
choose. The board is not the one doing the job here but could definitely
act as a mediator.

I hope I was not too long ;-) 

Lionel