Re: Questions for all board candidates

[Brian Cameron <brian cameron oracle com>]

Jeff:

On 05/26/11 07:43, Jeff Schroeder wrote:
> 1.) For incumbents, have you missed any meetings? What is your % of
> missed vs attended meetings and why? For new challengers, how much
> time can you dedicate to working on the board each week? How do you
> plan on spending that time?

Overall, attendance has been quite good on the board over the past
year.  I think this board has been more active than past boards I
have served on.  Since Stormy left her position as ED, the board has
naturally been under pressure to keep the momentum going.

I missed 3 (out of 23) board meetings and 0 (out of 5) advisory board
meetings in the past year.  One missed meeting I could not attend since
I was on a plane to GNOME.Asia on 8/19/2010.  Most board members missed
at least one meeting in the past year due to time zone conversion
confusion, and it happened twice to me.

> 2.) Other open source / free software projects run their meetings in
> the open via IRC (such as Fedora's FESCO I believe). Would you
> consider that, and if not, what about recording how board members vote
> on a given topic. This includes +1 / -1 / abstains and perhaps give a
> small comment on any -1 or abstain.

As GNOME Foundation secretary, I have worked hard to make sure that
GNOME Foundation board discussion with useful links are included in the
minutes.  When a vote is controversial, I have tried to provide
details.  The fact that you see so few notes about -1 or abstain votes
is more because the board tends to be in agreement on most matters.

> In my opinion, as an open
> foundation, the transparency of the board is absolutely critical
> _where possible_. Leaders should always set the example for members.

I think that the level of transparency has been good.  If people think
there are any particular issues, lets talk about them and figure out
how to improve things.  Some private meetings are necessary to deal
with some things, such as employee or advisory board relations,
non-for-profit tax status, etc.

The GNOME Foundation has been running regular public IRC meetings to
discuss community concerns.  Often the agenda is empty, as it is
at the moment:

http://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minutes#Foundation_IRC_Meetings

You are right that many of the things that the board works on are
things that would be better managed more publicly by committees or
teams, such as the Release Team, the Marketing Team, and the Travel
Planning Committee.  The board recognizes this and is currently working
to set up a new Events Planning Committee and better formalize the
GUADEC planning committee.  This should help.

When people notice that topics are being discussed at the board level
that people think should be better discussed at a wider level, then
we normally talk about them on this mailing list or at the next IRC
meeting.  Join us, it would be great to get more community involvement
and help.

    * When: Wednesday, May 18th, 14:00 UTC
    * Where: irc.gnome.org, #foundation
    * Next Meeting: Wednesday, June 1st, 14:00 UTC
    * Agenda: http://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/MeetingAgenda

Brian