Re: Question to GNOME Foundation Board candidates

[Allan Day <aday gnome org>]

Hey Max!

Max <sakanamax gmail com> wrote:
...
> I have 3 questions to all candidates ( sorry for my poor English )
>
> 1)  How many hours per week do you expect you will be able to dedicate
> to working on the board on a regular basis?
>
> ---- for 2nd or 3rd ( or more ) term candidacy:
> -------- last year,  every one plan 5-10 or 5-15 hours per week,
> what's average hours per week when you become board? do you think it's
> good hours for life and work balance with you?( I think it might be
> good reference for fist term candidacy and let us know your loading )(
> Thanks again work and make GNOME forward )

The number of hours that I've put into board work has fluctuated,
depending on what needs doing. At quiet times it's possible to just
spend a couple of hours a week. There are other times when it has
taken a lot more time, such as when we were hiring Neil, or preparing
for Advisory Board meetings. That works well for me, since my other
work also fluctuates in how much time it requires, and I'm generally
able to fit my different roles around each other.

> 2)  What's your plan and view with GNOME in Asia? How do you think
> about grow GNOME in Asia?

There are a lot of areas of the world where it would be good to grow
the GNOME community. One thing that I'd like to see the Foundation do
more is actively promote the use of funds for small local events, for
distributing GNOME merchandise, and to allow people to have GNOME
booths at conferences.

In terms of Asia specifically, GNOME.Asia is obviously a great thing,
and I'd like the Foundation to support that effort as much as
possible. That means helping to coordinate between the different
events, including GNOME.Asia in our sponsorship-raising efforts, and
having our staff do support work where possible.

The Foundation can only do so much to promote GNOME in Asia, of
course. The Engagement Team also has a crucial role to play, and is a
good place to discuss promotion.

> 3)  How do you make GNOME great again? ( Sorry for my poor English again )
> ---- Any idea about let everyone say " Wow!! it's GNOME " " I know GNOME :) "

That's a big question! In my view, the Foundation doesn't really do
things on its own. Instead, it's primary role is as an enabler for the
rest of the GNOME community, as well as a contact point for partners.
Regarding the former, it's important that, when opportunities come
along, the community has the resources to take advantage of them. One
critical thing is therefore that the community knows what support is
available, knows how to get it, and feels comfortable approaching the
Foundation for assistance. I think that's something we can improve and
is something I'd like to work on if I'm reelected.

The other thing that the Board of Directors can do is make more active
interventions in how the project is running, so that weaknesses are
addressed. This isn't something that the board has traditionally done,
and our capacity to act is often limited, but it is something that
we've started to try and do a bit in the past 12 months. It's still
not entirely clear what the outcome of these efforts will be, but I do
think that it's a worthwhile experiment. I'm particularly interested
to see how the board can help to plug any gaps around continuous
integration, QA, bug triage and translation.

Allan