candidacy announcement

[Luis Villa <louie ximian com>]

Luis Villa
luis ximian com
Corporate Affiliation: Ximian, Inc.

whois luisvilla.person:

*Bug 'master'- I've read nearly 15,000 bugs since joining GNOME in
January, and my archive of bug emails would have passed 200,000 fairly
recently if I hadn't deleted it.
*release team member, after telsa dragged me into it. [There was
kicking, and screaming involved. Also kicking. I swear. :) 
*I once said 'I'm a doer, not a talker' in college. A roomful of
very-nearly-complete-strangers laughed in my face. :)

So, um- why do I want to run for the board?

Bug #1: the board doesn't communicate terribly well with the GNOME
community. I'm not exactly a hacker, but more so than most board
members, I'm in daily contact with a very broad swath of the hacker and
non-hacker [QA, UI, a11y, etc.] community. I think that makes me fairly
well qualified to figure out what the community thinks of the board and
what the board can do to change that perception.

Bug #2: the board could do more to develop GNOME, particularly with
regards to publicity and serving as a resource for hacker needs. A
better CVS server, for example, has been a prime hacker problem for
years now- the board was uniquely positioned to make that happen. It
/has/, of course, now made that happen- but it took a lot longer than it
should have for the problem to trickle up to the board. I'd like to
improve the 'community knows about a problem that only the board can
solve->board hears about a problem->board solves problem' time, in other
words. 

Bug #3: the board could concievably do lots and lots, which is great-
but it could also be tempting for an activist board to meddle in what
the community is currently doing. I believe very strongly that the
community is taking GNOME in the right direction. I want to make sure
that when the community is doing the Right Thing, the board steps aside
and lets things happen with minimal interference, and that the board
focuses its energies clearly on the issues where it has the most
relevant skills and most knowledge.

Bug #4: this is a mostly personal itch- the GNOME people I've worked
with over the past two years are mostly the best group of people I think
I'll ever be so lucky as to work with; it's hard for me to get more
involved with these people but I'd like to if I can :)

So there you have it- I hope to happily serve the community for the next
year.

Luis